@paranoid android I hope the responses you have received from all of us who share your struggles can provide you with the drive you need to begin accessing appropriate therapy if you haven't already, reading up more about the condition and creating your own toolkit, and knowing that the pain you experience when doing therapy for PTSD is worth it at the moment in which you live a life where you are not tormented by this disorder.
You are absolutely not alone here. It is treatable, it just happens to be the only mental health issue where to get better you have to deteriorate rapidly and it's fucking unappealing. The sooner you do it, the sooner it'll be over. The longer you wait, the longer you continue to suffer in shittiness.
My complex trauma issues were just impacting my life so much I worked on them bit by bit with my therapist. He's not huge on labels plus he has to use the DSMV which doesn't include complex PTSD so he was treating me for that, but like he just treats whatever my biggest issue at the time was.
One thing that can happen with diagnostic labels is that people can over identify with them. I did it with bipolar initially and if I felt happy I thought that meant I was manic and if I was sad that meant I was depressed.
For some people a diagnostic label is super useful because it gives a tangible name to their pain. They can connect with others and find unity.
Some therapists. Don't diagnose patients. They find it allows them to focus on just the presenting issues, and some patients go off and research the diagnosis then all of a sudden they have every single symptom. It's not faking per se, it's real as they do have it, but they feel something that is a hint of a symptom and they dial into it and massively magnify it. Then the patient is now worse off than they were before.
You do not need every symptom of a mental illness to meet criteria. One I lack for cPTSD is visual flashbacks, which are quite literally the most well known feature of PTSD. Never had one. Not once. And I can't ever say I will.
But I still have it. Some of the more subtle symptoms people talk about finding infuriating to deal with which I did mention is the inability to sit with ones back to the wall. This is totally normal with PTSD. In fact it is so normal and universally present it's actually used in malingering tests. Psychologists will set a chair up with its back facing the door for a new patient they are testing for maligering, exaggerated or hystrionic PTSD. It's not an official diagnostic symptom, which the group of fakers all know off by heart back to front. But it is a fucking thing anyone who actually has the condition knows is really fucking annoying. The people who fake will literally sit down no second thought and do the whole session sitting comfortably. Ones who aren't faking will request the chair be moved or they will become hyperaroused.
Working on small PTSD issues like this where you can have a measurable outcome, like being able to sit in a different chair could be a worthwhile goal, because you could see some genuinely good progress
Plus we all know how fucking annoying it is running perpetually early to ensure you get the special seat.