Counselling Specialties
Trauma & PTSD, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) & Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
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— André Gide
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) can develop after experiences that are extremely difficult to comprehend and process. For many people who live with these disorders, life is full of pain from re-experiencing the events and their effects every day. Despite knowing that the events are over, the symptoms continue to play a major part of their days.
PTSD involves re-experiencing what happened, usually through triggers, flashbacks, and more subtle feeling memories. Complex PTSD develops after prolonged or repeated harm, especially when perpetrated by people who should have cared for and protected us. Many people don’t know that BPD is also strongly linked with childhood and relational trauma. Its intense emotional suffering often affects self-identity and reactivity. Dissociation can happen across these disorders when the mind disconnects from something too painful to fully take in. In DID, dissociation is more specific, involving distinct identity states or parts, as well as gaps in memory.
From a nervous system perspective, trauma and related disorders are exhausting: the need to always scan, perform, fawn, people-please, and “hold it together” is incredibly taxing. The jump from calm to painfully overwhelmed can happen so quickly that it feels like it comes out of nowhere. Much of this happens in the background, diminishing our ability to remain present and making it feel as though emotions, thoughts, and behaviours just take over. Trauma treatment, however, is effective and often life-changing. Through therapy, recovery is possible and realistic.
I never expected trauma therapy to change this much for me. I’m more connected to my body and emotions, and it’s changed how I deal with the memories and flashbacks. I spent years shutting down my emotions and avoiding them. My relationships have improved, I’m much calmer, and hard things don’t affect me the way they used to.
It has often been said that trauma is about what happens within you, not just what happened to you. What happened to you changed your body, mind, and nervous system in very real ways.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
PTSD develops when the effects of a traumatic experience continue long after the event has ended. Despite knowing you are safe, your mind, body, and nervous system continue to respond as though the danger is ongoing. Because you feel like danger can happen at any moment, safety and relaxation no longer coincide, as hypervigilance becomes a necessary part of your experience.
Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD)
Complex PTSD develops when trauma is repeated or prolonged, particularly when harm happens within relationships involving love and dependency, thereby challenging the fundamental safety of closeness itself. Its effects become part of how you experience yourself and your relationships, affecting your sense of self, trust in other people, and ability to regulate what you feel.
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
BPD is strongly linked with childhood and relational trauma and is often lived through emotions that become painfully intense and take a long time to settle. This is often felt most painfully in relation to other people, especially around rejection, abandonment, or disconnection, which become emotionally overwhelming and affect how you experience yourself and the other person.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
In DID, dissociation interrupts the continuity of your experience so that distinct identities or ‘parts’ take the lead (i.e. “fronting”) at different times. When this happens, gaps in memory sometimes leave you without the full recollection of what happened: not knowing what you were doing or where you were, forgetting people who recognize you, or at times not recognizing yourself. The change between identities is typically involuntary and disruptive.
Treatments for trauma, BPD, and DID need to be highly individualized, responsive, and collaborative. This means that a relational approach to therapy is often highly effective. To process what has not been integrated and lessen the pain that still comes with it, you first need enough stability and safety in therapy. In other words, being able to reduce the emotional intensity depends on the ability to remain present in therapy.
The key to successful treatment is making sure that you are not flooded or overwhelmed by the process. The Pathway to Self method is designed to address that specifically, as we begin with very concrete methods for stabilization and resourcing. By starting there, we reduce the possibility of more complications and greater distress. Once we establish a sense of stability and relative safety, therapy will help you regain control over how you respond to the present and the past. The healing phase helps you work through memories, foster survivance (resilience), and reclaim your life once more.
The term Post-Traumatic Growth is often used to describe the end-result of trauma treatment. People who work with Pathway to Self often find that trauma treatment leads to increased self-understanding, deeper personal growth, and a renewed sense of meaning and purpose. With the right support, your life becomes bigger than what happened to you. You can find significant improvement in emotional regulation, while building safe, balanced, fulfilling connections and relationships. You feel more whole and complete, able to cement a sense of identity and reconnect with day-to-day life.