Plot Twist: Your ‘Difficult’ Personality Is Complex PTSD

When being “too much” is actually trauma trying to keep you alive

They called me difficult. Intense. Too sensitive. Too angry. Too much.

For thirty years, I collected these labels like battle scars, believing something was fundamentally wrong with my wiring. I was the guy who felt everything at eleven. The one who couldn’t just “let things go.” The one whose emotions seemed to hijack every situation.

Then I got diagnosed with Complex PTSD at age 30, and suddenly my entire personality made sense.

Turns out, what everyone called character flaws were actually symptoms. What looked like being difficult was my nervous system trying to protect me from dangers that ended my childhood at age five. Maybe even before that. I don’t honestly remember.

The “Personality Traits” That Should Have Been Red Flags

Let me paint you a picture of what “difficult” looked like in my life:

I’d explode over minor criticisms because my nervous system interpreted feedback as danger. Not because I was thin skinned. Because for five years of my childhood, criticism came with hands that shouldn’t have been where they were.

I’d work myself into the ground, pulling eighteen hour days until I collapsed. Not because I was ambitious. Because staying busy meant I didn’t have to feel. Achievement was my cocaine, and I was chasing the highest high.

I’d cut people off the moment they disappointed me. Not because I was cold. Because my body learned early that trusting the wrong person could destroy you. So I destroyed relationships first, before they could hurt me.

“I wasn’t difficult. I was terrified. Every overreaction was my body remembering what happened when I couldn’t protect myself.”

The rage that would surge through me when someone interrupted or talked over me? That wasn’t a bad temper. That was the fury of a child who was silenced, whose voice was stolen, fighting to never be powerless again.

The need to control every situation, every variable, every outcome? That wasn’t being a control freak. That was a desperate attempt to never be helpless again.

The Day Everything Changed

I was sitting across from my therapist of five years. The same therapist who would later weaponize everything she knew about me in ways that would cost me $126,000 and nearly my life. But in that moment, she was still the person helping me understand why I was the way I was.

“You know you have ADHD,” she said. “But there’s something else. Your symptoms, your patterns, your reactions… they’re textbook Complex PTSD.”

Complex PTSD. Not regular PTSD from a single traumatic event. Complex PTSD from prolonged, repeated trauma. From being trapped in hell with no escape route. From having your childhood replaced with survival.

She explained how sexual abuse from ages 5 to 11, combined with family chaos, my father’s mental health crisis that left us homeless, and years of parentification had fundamentally rewired my nervous system. My personality wasn’t difficult. It was adaptive. Every trait that made me “too much” had kept me alive.

“Your brain,” she said, “developed under siege. Every pattern, every reaction, every ‘difficult’ trait was your nervous system’s brilliant adaptation to an impossible situation. You’re not broken. You’re a survivor.”

I sat there, thirty years of shame cracking open like an egg. All those times I’d been told I was too intense, too sensitive, too much, I’d absorbed it as truth about my character. But it wasn’t character. It was injury. It wasn’t personality. It was programming.

The Symptoms Everyone Mistakes for Personality

Here’s what Complex PTSD actually looks like when you don’t know what you’re looking at:

Emotional Dysregulation looks like: Being called dramatic, overreactive, or unstable. Having emotions that go from zero to nuclear in seconds. Crying at commercials but feeling nothing during actual crises. I once sobbed at a dog food commercial but felt nothing when my best friend died. Not because I didn’t care, but because real grief was too dangerous to feel.

Hypervigilance looks like: Being labeled controlling, paranoid, or uptight. Reading every microexpression. Scanning every room for exits. Knowing something’s wrong before anyone else notices. I could tell you the mood of everyone in a room within thirty seconds of entering. Not because I’m psychic. Because missing mood shifts as a child meant missing danger cues.

Dissociation looks like: Being called spacey, aloof, or checked out. Missing chunks of conversations. Feeling like you’re watching your life from outside your body. That thing where you drive home and don’t remember the journey. I perfected the art of leaving my body while it stayed in the room. Looked like daydreaming. Was actually survival.

Interpersonal Difficulties looks like: Being seen as needy or distant, never just right. Pushing people away while desperately wanting connection. Sabotaging relationships that get too safe because safety feels dangerous. I’d end relationships the moment they felt secure because security meant letting your guard down, and letting your guard down meant vulnerability, and vulnerability meant danger.

Negative Self-Concept looks like: Perfectionism that looks like ambition but is really terror of being worthless. Apologizing for existing. Believing you’re fundamentally broken while achieving everything to prove you’re not. I graduated with a business degree, got every financial certification possible, climbed the corporate ladder, all while believing I was garbage pretending to be human.

Loss of Systems of Meaning looks like: Being called cynical or bitter. Unable to trust institutions, authority, or believe in justice. Because you learned early that nobody’s coming to save you. The systems meant to protect children didn’t protect me. So why would I trust any system?

“Every ‘personality flaw’ was a survival strategy. Every difficult trait was my body trying to prevent what happened from happening again.”

The Workplace Minefield

Let me tell you how Complex PTSD shows up at work, because that’s where I really got labeled “difficult.”

When my manager told me I was “only good at a few things,” my nervous system heard the criticism of my childhood abuser. My reaction wasn’t professional. It was primal. I fought back with everything I had because criticism meant danger, and I’d learned to meet danger with fire.

When they dismissed my ADHD diagnosis, saying “I probably have it too, I get distracted sometimes,” they unknowingly triggered every memory of having my pain minimized, my reality denied. My “overreaction” wasn’t about workplace feedback. It was about a lifetime of gaslighting.

The income based harassment from my manager (“I wish I was making what you’re making at your age”) hit different when you’ve been taught your worth is transactional. When you’ve learned love is conditional on performance. When you’ve survived by being useful.

I was labeled difficult for asking clarifying questions, for needing explicit instructions, for not just “knowing” what they meant. But ambiguity was dangerous in my childhood. Misunderstanding meant punishment. So I needed clarity like I needed oxygen.

The coach who kept inviting me to “grab a beer” despite knowing I was in recovery? To everyone else, he was just being friendly. To my hypervigilant nervous system, he was a threat. Someone who didn’t respect boundaries. Someone unsafe. My “difficult” response was my body recognizing danger patterns others missed.

Why Traditional Therapy Made It Worse

Here’s the fucked up part. I spent years in therapy trying to fix my personality. Anger management for my rage. CBT for my negative thoughts. Mindfulness for my anxiety.

But you can’t CBT your way out of a nervous system that’s been marinating in trauma since before you could write your name. You can’t positive think away the body memories of a childhood that ended too soon.

Traditional therapy often treats the symptoms without acknowledging the cause. It’s like trying to mop up water while the pipe’s still burst. You end up feeling more broken because now you’re failing at therapy too.

The therapists would tell me to “challenge my negative thoughts” when my negative thoughts were accurate assessments of what I’d survived. They’d tell me to “trust more” when the people I trusted most had hurt me worst. They’d prescribe meditation when sitting still made me want to crawl out of my skin because that’s when the memories came.

One therapist told me I needed to “forgive to heal.” Forgive the family member who stole my childhood? Forgive the systems that failed to protect me? Forgive myself for surviving however I could? The forgiveness industrial complex doesn’t understand that some things are unforgivable, and that’s okay. Rage can be medicine too.

Another suggested I was “choosing to hold onto anger.” As if my nervous system was making conscious decisions. As if trauma responses were character choices. As if I could just decide to not be hypervigilant after spending my formative years in danger.

The Misdiagnoses That Nearly Killed Me

Before Complex PTSD, I collected diagnoses like Pokemon cards:

• ADHD (actually hypervigilance)

• Anxiety Disorder (actually trauma responses)

• Depression (actually grief for the childhood I never had)

• Possible Borderline Personality (actually attachment trauma)

• Anger Issues (actually appropriate rage mistimed)

Each misdiagnosis came with medications that didn’t work and therapies that made me feel crazier. Because you can’t medicate away trauma. You can’t talk therapy your way out of body memories. You can’t DBT yourself into forgetting what happened.

The mental health system loves to pathologize trauma responses as personality disorders. It’s easier to say someone has a “personality problem” than to acknowledge what was done to them. It’s simpler to prescribe pills than to sit with someone’s pain.

I spent years on various medications. SSRIs that numbed me out. Benzos that made me forget but didn’t help me heal. Stimulants for the ADHD that was actually hypervigilance. Each pill was supposed to fix what was “wrong” with me. None of them addressed what had been done to me.

The Body Keeps the Score (And Mine Was Keeping Detailed Records)

My body held every memory my mind tried to forget. Chronic pain that doctors couldn’t explain. Autoimmune issues that flared during stress. Digestive problems that mirrored my emotional state. My body was screaming the story I couldn’t tell.

The muscle tension that made massage therapists ask if I was a professional athlete or something? That was my body still braced for impact. The insomnia that had me up until 4 AM every night? That was the hypervigilance that kept me safe when darkness meant danger.

The way certain smells made me dissociate? The way certain touches made me violent? The way certain tones of voice made me small? My body remembered everything, even when my mind played dumb.

“Trauma isn’t just stored in your mind. It lives in your muscles, your nervous system, your cells. You can’t think your way out of body memories.”

What Recovery Actually Looks Like

Recovery from Complex PTSD isn’t about becoming less difficult. It’s about understanding why you’re difficult and working with it, not against it.

My hypervigilance? I’m learning to dial it down from eleven to seven. Not eliminate it, because it’s saved my life. But calibrate it for actual danger, not perceived threats.

My emotional intensity? I’m learning it’s not too much, it’s appropriate for what I survived. The goal isn’t to feel less. It’s to feel safely.

My trust issues? They’re features, not bugs. I’m learning to trust wisely, not blindly. To let people earn access to me instead of handing them the keys to my destruction.

“I’m not trying to become easy. I’m trying to become whole. There’s a difference.”

Recovery looks like:

• EMDR to process the trauma stored in my body

• Somatic therapy to release what my muscles remember

• Internal Family Systems to negotiate with all the parts of me that kept me safe

• Learning to recognize triggered states vs actual threats

• Building a life where difficult is an asset, not a liability

But it also looks like setbacks. Like the time my therapist, the one who diagnosed my CPTSD, weaponized everything she knew about me. Used my trauma history to control me. Exploited my fear of abandonment to extort money. Turned my healing into her profit.

Recovery isn’t linear when someone who promised to help you heal becomes another trauma to recover from.

The Plot Twist Nobody Prepares You For

Here’s what they don’t tell you about healing from Complex PTSD: As you get better, you might lose people.

The friends who bonded with you over chaos won’t understand your boundaries. The family who benefited from you having no needs will resist your healing. The partners who were attracted to your damage will feel threatened by your wholeness.

I lost people when I stopped being the crisis friend, the family fixer, the partner who needed saving. When I stopped trauma bonding and started actual bonding. When I stopped accepting crumbs and started requiring meals.

But I gained something worth more: myself.

The difficult parts of me that I’d been trying to amputate? They’re the parts that survived the unsurvivable. The anger that embarrassed me? It’s the part that refuses to be silenced again. The hypervigilance that exhausted me? It’s the part that makes sure we’re never helpless again.

Your Personality Isn’t the Problem

If you’re reading this with that familiar ache of recognition, if you’ve been called difficult your whole life, if you’ve wondered why you can’t just be normal, easy, simple like everyone else seems to be, I need you to hear this:

Your personality isn’t the problem. What happened to you is the problem.

Your difficult traits? They’re not character flaws. They’re survival strategies that worked. Your intensity isn’t too much. It’s appropriate for someone who’s been through too much. Your sensitivity isn’t weakness. It’s a superpower that kept you alive when others might have broken.

Complex PTSD is what happens when trauma becomes your operating system. When survival strategies become personality traits. When your nervous system never got the memo that the war is over.

But here’s the thing about being forged in fire: you become fireproof. Those of us with Complex PTSD? We’re not fragile. We’re the opposite. We survived years of trauma that would break most people. We adapted, evolved, became whatever we needed to become to survive.

Yeah, we’re difficult. Because easy gets you killed when you’re living in a war zone. Yeah, we’re intense. Because feeling things halfway wasn’t an option when we needed to track every mood shift for survival. Yeah, we’re too much. Because being just enough wasn’t enough to keep us safe.

The Questions That Change Everything

Start asking yourself:

• Which of my “difficult” traits showed up after trauma?

• What purpose did each trait serve in keeping me safe?

• Who benefits from me believing I’m the problem?

• What would happen if I stopped trying to be easier?

• What if difficult is exactly what I need to be?

Because here’s the truth: The world needs difficult people. It needs those of us who can’t just “let things go” when things are wrong. It needs people who feel deeply, react strongly, and refuse to pretend everything’s fine when it’s not.

Your Complex PTSD gave you superpowers. Yes, they’re miscalibrated. Yes, they’re exhausting. Yes, they make you difficult. But they also make you:

• Incredibly intuitive (hypervigilance is just intuition on steroids)

• Deeply empathetic (you know what pain feels like)

• Fiercely protective (you know what happens when no one protects)

• Authentically yourself (you’ve already survived the worst)

• Unfuckwithable (because you’ve been fucked with enough)

Your Next Move

Stop trying to fix your personality. Start understanding your nervous system. Stop pathologizing your responses. Start honoring what they protected you from.

Find a trauma informed therapist who gets Complex PTSD. Not someone who’ll try to make you less difficult, but someone who’ll help you understand why you needed to become difficult to survive. Someone who won’t rush you to forgive or forget or move on. Someone who understands that healing happens in spirals, not straight lines.

Learn about Complex PTSD. Read “The Body Keeps the Score.” Look into CPTSD communities. Find your people, the other “difficult” ones who get it. The ones who understand that sometimes being difficult is the sanest response to an insane situation.

Most importantly, stop apologizing for being too much. You’re not too much. You’re exactly enough for someone who survived what you survived.

The plot twist of your life isn’t that you’re difficult. It’s that difficult is what saved you. And now? Now you get to decide how to use that difficulty as a strength instead of a shame.

You’re not broken. You’re not too much. You’re not wrong.

You’re a survivor whose personality adapted perfectly to an impossible situation. And that? That’s not a flaw.

That’s fucking brilliant.

— Cody Taymore

Kill The Silence

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