I'm honestly surprised the PTSD numbers aren't higher, but it confirms my armchair theory that 'doctors' are misdiagnosing people with Complex PTSD as Borderline. It happened to me, at least. I was misdiagnosed several times - well, I guess the initial DX of MDD was accurate, if broad. I was DX with Bipolar II, then Borderline, then finally C-PTSD. But I feel like C-PTSD has only really become discussed in literature in the last 10-15 years? And I've been at this shit much longer than that. I guess it's not that surprising that they still just do not know that much about any of this. People are expressing shock and dismay that sexual harassment could cause women to leave a job with trauma and it's freaking 2019, so I shouldn't be surprised nobody knows wtf they're talking about.
Also, only mentioning this because others have talked about being harmed by psych meds, and reading your accounts has made me so incredibly grateful that I came out unscathed. In college, I was medicated very heavily with anti-psychotics "just to be safe" after one possibly hypomanic (self-reported, unhospitalized) episode (I don't really think it was one though, looking back on it). I remember having terrible reactions to Abilify and then getting put on a cocktail of Lexapro, Lamictal, and something else I can't think of. For some reason the Abilify stands out in my head but not the other anti-psychotic. I cut everything off cold turkey after 6 years and I didn't have any reactions. I still can't quite understand how that happened given everything I was on at the time I stopped (I also stopped my Gabapentin at that time, because it had stopped working). I was insanely depressed from life at the time and going through a breakup and losing my job and I was like, this shit isn't helping, fuck it.
In college something that really kept me going after a lifetime of misery was the concept that mental illness is an illness just like diabetes — it was the first step in allowing me to separate from the notion that I'm just a bad person. The shitty thing was once I got into real therapy and talked about the first 18 years of my life, I came to realize that actually, I was probably fine and I had been ruined by abuse and constantly moving around the country for my dad's job. That realization has been as devastating (if not more) as if I'd just had, like, a true brain disorder/other incurable life-altering disease. The abuse led me to make horrible decisions in my early 20s and form terrible, toxic relationships with people that would lead to the nothing existence I have now.
Also, just an aside, Pete Davidson is constantly talking about how he has Borderline Personality Disorder when he clearly has CPTSD. They present very similarly, the difference being that the sense of self in someone with CPTSD is consistent— just consistently negative. I think that diagnoses and labeling can be very very helpful to people in terms of helping them organize thoughts around what's going on, but labeling people with something like Borderline (a hallmark of which is no insight! My mother is Borderline) when they're trying to get help for themselves seems limiting.
Sorry I'm so long-winded and sometimes sound like a know it all. I don't mean to. I just don't do anything other than read constantly so I always have a lot to say and nobody to say it to :(