The Persistent Denial of Complex PTSD: Why Society Still Refuses to Believe Incest Survivors
By Holey House
There’s a reason so many incest survivors spend years asking themselves, What’s wrong with me?
Why do I overreact to small things?
Why can’t I feel safe, even when nothing bad is happening?
Why does love feel like danger, and danger feel like home?
The answer is not weakness, madness, or brokenness. The answer is Complex PTSD (C-PTSD)—a condition that grows from prolonged, repeated trauma, especially when that trauma happens in childhood and within relationships meant to protect you.
And yet, despite decades of research, testimony, and lived experience, C-PTSD is still denied, minimized, and mislabeled. Not just by society, but by the very systems that claim to help survivors heal.
To understand why, we have to go back to where this denial began—back to Freud, to hysteria, and to the deliberate silencing of incest survivors over a century ago.
The Origin of Trauma Denial: Freud’s Great Betrayal
In her groundbreaking book Father-Daughter Incest, psychiatrist Judith Lewis Herman traces the roots of trauma denial back to the very birth of modern psychology.
In the late 1800s, Sigmund Freud—the father of psychoanalysis—set out to discover the cause of “hysteria,” a mysterious affliction believed to plague women. The term “hysteria” itself comes from the Greek hystera, meaning uterus. The assumption was that women’s suffering was literally caused by a wandering womb—an organ thought to drift through the body, wreaking emotional havoc.
Freud’s female patients—many from wealthy, “respectable” families—came to him seeking relief. They told him about fainting spells, body pain, intrusive memories, nightmares, and uncontrollable emotions. They also told him something far more horrifying:
They had been sexually abused as children—often by their fathers, uncles, or trusted family friends.
At first, Freud believed them. In 1896, he published The Aetiology of Hysteria, asserting that childhood sexual trauma was at the root of what was then labeled “female neurosis.”
It was the most radical truth ever spoken in his field. And society couldn’t handle it.
The Moment He Folded
Freud’s peers—wealthy, educated men who often resembled the fathers his patients accused—were outraged. If Freud was right, it meant sexual abuse was not rare, not confined to the “lower classes,” and not happening with strangers in alleyways.
It was happening in parlors and bedrooms.
It was happening in “good families.”
It was happening to their own daughters.
Faced with backlash and ridicule, Freud recanted. He abandoned his “seduction theory” and replaced it with the Oedipus complex—a myth that claimed children fantasized about sexual desire for their parents. Suddenly, those same women who had trusted him were no longer victims of abuse; they were liars, dreamers, hysterics.
Their truth was erased, and a century of denial began.
That moment—Freud’s cowardice—wasn’t just a shift in theory. It was the institutional birth of trauma denial.
“The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud.
This is the meaning of the word unspeakable.”
— Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery
How Freud’s Lie Became a Culture
Freud didn’t just rewrite the stories of his patients—he rewrote the rules of an entire field. His denial set the template for generations of mental health professionals who would follow:
When faced with evidence of sexual violence, pathologize the victim, not the perpetrator.
That legacy lingers.
When an incest survivor presents with flashbacks, emotional numbing, or body pain, she’s often diagnosed with:
Borderline Personality Disorder
Bipolar Disorder
Anxiety
Depression
Psychosomatic illness
These labels may describe the symptoms, but they erase the cause. They turn trauma into temperament, and survival strategies into character defects.
It’s not an accident.
It’s a continuation of Freud’s decision—to protect “respectable men” from exposure by sacrificing women’s truth.
Complex PTSD: The Diagnosis That Dared to Name the Unspeakable
Fast forward nearly a century. In 1992, Judith Herman introduced the term Complex PTSD in her book Trauma and Recovery. She described it as the psychological impact of prolonged, repeated trauma—especially trauma that occurs in captivity.
Captivity doesn’t always mean chains or locked rooms.
For incest survivors, captivity often means living in a home where the abuser holds power—over your body, your safety, your survival.
You can’t run.
You can’t fight.
So your body learns to adapt—by shutting down, splitting off, and surrendering its sense of self to survive.
Herman identified a distinct cluster of symptoms that differ from traditional PTSD (which was modeled primarily on combat trauma and single-incident events). These include:
Affect Dysregulation – chronic difficulty managing emotional states; emotions feel “too big” or completely absent.
Structural Dissociation – parts of the self split to manage trauma; you may feel like “different versions” of yourself exist.
Somatization – trauma stored in the body; chronic pain, migraines, seizures, gut issues, and autoimmune conditions without clear medical cause.
Impaired Self-Development – arrested growth in social or relational skills; you may struggle with identity, boundaries, or self-worth.
Disorganized Attachment – alternating between clinging and withdrawal; love feels both intoxicating and dangerous.
Sound familiar?
It’s the lived experience of countless incest survivors.
And yet, the DSM—the official diagnostic manual of psychiatry—refused to include it.
Why the Denial Persists
When Herman submitted her proposal for C-PTSD to the DSM committee in 1994, it was rejected. Again in 2013, for the DSM-5, it was excluded.
Instead, survivors were given piecemeal diagnoses—each capturing fragments of the truth but never the whole. The mental health establishment continues to pretend that trauma can be neatly categorized, sanitized, and stripped of its social implications.
But make no mistake: this is not a scientific omission. It’s a political one.
Because to acknowledge Complex PTSD is to admit:
That child sexual abuse is epidemic.
That it’s often perpetrated by family members.
That “family values” have protected predators, not children.
That many forms of “mental illness” are not genetic flaws but the consequences of systemic abuse.
And that truth threatens the very foundations of the systems—religious, medical, and patriarchal—that still profit from silence.
The Epidemic of Trauma Denial
Let’s call it what it is: an epidemic.
Every time a survivor is told “you’re exaggerating,” “that’s in the past,” or “you need to forgive,” the epidemic spreads.
Every time a therapist avoids using the word incest, the epidemic spreads.
Every time a psychiatrist treats symptoms without addressing trauma, the epidemic spreads.
The denial of C-PTSD isn’t just ignorance—it’s a collective defense mechanism.
Society doesn’t want to look at the wounds it caused, so it rebrands them as individual weakness.
Because if we name it, we have to fix it.
And fixing it would mean dismantling the very systems that created it.
The Emotional Cost to Survivors
When your trauma is denied, the denial becomes part of the trauma.
Incest survivors already live with betrayal as a core wound—the person who should have protected you was the one who harmed you. When society joins that betrayal by denying your diagnosis, it reopens the wound every time you seek help.
You may find yourself thinking:
“Maybe I’m too sensitive.”
“Maybe I made it up.”
“Maybe it wasn’t that bad.”
That’s not confusion. That’s gaslighting internalized.
And it’s deadly.
Because healing requires truth, and truth cannot survive in denial’s shadow.
The Myth of the “Good Family”
The denial of C-PTSD is deeply tied to the myth of the “good family.”
If we admit that incest is widespread, we have to face that abuse is not an anomaly—it’s embedded in our social structure. It thrives in families that appear loving, religious, and respectable. It hides behind Sunday church attendance, family portraits, and small-town reputations.
C-PTSD is a mirror the world doesn’t want to look into because it reflects not just individual trauma, but cultural rot. It reveals that our institutions have failed children generation after generation—and still do.
The Role of the DSM: A Manual of Maintenance
The DSM is often called “the Bible of psychiatry.” But it’s not written by prophets—it’s written by committees. Committees influenced by politics, funding, and pharmaceutical interests.
Every disorder that makes it in opens the door for insurance coverage and medical recognition. Every disorder that stays out keeps survivors in the shadows.
By refusing to recognize Complex PTSD, the DSM effectively says:
Your suffering is too complicated to treat, too uncomfortable to name, and too politically inconvenient to acknowledge.
It’s the modern version of Freud’s betrayal—only now it’s coded in medical language instead of myth.
What Denial Looks Like Today
Denial today doesn’t always sound like “You’re lying.”
It’s subtler. More palatable. More professional.
It sounds like:
“We don’t use that diagnosis here.”
“Let’s not focus on the past.”
“You’re catastrophizing.”
“You just have attachment issues.”
And yet, every time a clinician avoids naming incest or Complex PTSD, they reenact the very violence they claim to treat.
The Truth Judith Herman Gave Us
In Truth and Repair, Herman argues that recovery from trauma requires justice—not just individually, but collectively.
Healing cannot happen in isolation. It demands that society listen, believe, and act.
She writes, “Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.”
In other words: Denial destroys both the person and the culture.
When we silence survivors, we silence our humanity.
The Body Remembers What the Mind Denies
Incest survivors often carry their trauma in the body long before they can name it. The nervous system becomes the historian of what the conscious mind was forced to forget.
Muscle tension, gut problems, chronic fatigue, migraines, sexual pain—all of it can be the body’s protest against silence.
It’s as if the body is saying: If you won’t speak it, I will.
Somatization isn’t weakness—it’s survival. It’s the body’s last-ditch effort to make the invisible visible.
Healing: The Radical Act of Remembering
Healing from Complex PTSD, especially as an incest survivor, is not just about symptom reduction—it’s about reclaiming the right to tell your story.
Here’s what that healing can look like:
1. Naming the Truth
Say the word incest. Say C-PTSD. Watch how the air shifts when truth enters the room. That discomfort is your freedom arriving.
2. Reparenting Yourself
The inner child who lived through the abuse still waits for safety. Speak gently to her. Create routines that signal, You are safe now.
3. Finding Safe Others
Healing happens in safe relationships. With trauma-informed therapists, trusted friends, or survivor communities who can witness without judgment.
4. Listening to Your Body
Every ache, every flinch, every tightening of the chest carries a story. Ask your body what it’s trying to say, and thank it for protecting you all these years.
5. Creating Art from the Ashes
Write. Paint. Dance. Sing. Trauma steals voice; creation restores it. Every act of expression is rebellion against the silence that kept you small.
For Clinicians and Advocates: A Sacred Responsibility
If you work with survivors, know this: your belief is medicine.
When you name C-PTSD out loud, when you validate the link between incest and lifelong dysregulation, you offer something revolutionary—truth without judgment.
Survivors don’t need to be pathologized.
We need to be witnessed.
Stop asking, “What’s wrong with you?”
Start asking, “What happened to you—and how can I help you feel safe enough to heal?”
The Revolution of Recognition
Complex PTSD is not a fringe concept—it’s the most accurate description of what happens when a child is forced to survive in captivity.
The world may still be denying it, but survivors are not waiting for permission to exist.
We’re naming it.
We’re teaching it.
We’re building communities—like Holey House—that exist to fill the gap Freud left behind.
Because the denial of C-PTSD is not the end of the story. It’s the beginning of a movement toward truth, repair, and reclamation.
Final Words: You Were Never the Lie
If you survived incest, you’ve lived inside a web of denial—first in your home, then in society, and often in therapy rooms. You were taught to doubt what you know in your bones. But your body remembers. Your tears remember. Your boundaries remember.
And so do we.
You were never the lie.
You were the truth the world refused to face.
Complex PTSD is not just a diagnosis—it’s the name for everything they tried to hide.
And speaking it aloud is how we finally begin to heal.
At Holey House, we believe that what’s “unspeakable” must be spoken—gently, bravely, and together.
Because healing doesn’t happen in denial.
It happens in truth.