C-PTSD isn’t just PTSD that lasts longer. It’s what happens when a nervous system develops inside ongoing threat. In the brain, chronic trauma keeps the alarm system (the amygdala) on high alert, disrupts the hippocampus’s ability to place experiences in the past, and pulls resources away from the prefrontal cortex—the part responsible for reflection, choice, and emotional regulation. That’s why people with C-PTSD don’t just “remember” trauma. Their bodies react as if it’s still happening. PTSD