SOTS, I'm on the same page with you except for the part about those who suffer from Post Traumatic Relationship Syndrome are likely to have had been abused in childhood, even though I would fit your criteria. The research papers did not specify that as far as I'm aware of - I would need to pay to access the bigger studies to know if that was a salient issue.
The difference for me is that I actually thrived even while suffering the misery with my stepmother - her abuse made me stronger. I was wondering myself what made it different, and I went through the same agonizing probing process that Kimera's friend went through. (Note: Kimera, I didn't find your posts at all insensitive, as you are not trying to invalidate the experience of trauma) I concluded that
1. It's all about Attachment and Marriage - I let my defenses down when I married my ex, whereas my defenses were up with my stepmother, a horrible bully. It is my way of being defiant - I will be stronger than my bully, even if she had more power over me.
In fact, I harbored the insane fantasy (in hindsight) that we both hurt persons would understand each other's traumatic childhood, would support each other in our future growth, would avoid our parents' mistakes and build a healthy family. I really put myself out for him as I did for hurt animals I used to nurse back to health (mostly birds and cats). I paid the rent, the bills, so he had more money to himself, I bought him gifts, eg clothes, I really tried to build a secure attachment for him. When he told me his exgf broke up and aborted their baby I thought to myself I would never do that to him, he wanted his own children, what a traumatic experience! I didn't think "Hmm...what's wrong with him that his gf would choose to leave and go through the pain of abortion?" Today's Pangloss would.
2. I was changed by the trauma of my marriage - that part of me that felt compassion and hope had to be killed for me to leave my ex. I wanted the part of me that believed in secure, healthy attachment back. I am now colder, gun shy and hyper-vigilant about people, I don't like this new me.
3. As for shame, I do feel somewhat stupid that I couldn't recognize the depth of the problem, but I had no idea about PDs, except for vague, abstract knowledge about psychology. I simply thought my stepmother was cruel, not disordered. Shame arises from Self-Blaming. I circumvented this through logic - I simply couldn't grasp how fundamentally different my ex is, eg. I don't know what it is like to be empathy-impaired, to be unable to attach to another, to harbor the impetus to hurt others, especially the most vulnerable in one's immediate circle, etc.
The last time I met my ex for a family event, I was pickpocketed. His first reaction was "How can you be so careless!" A few thoughts raced through my mind - 1. The pickpocket is a professional, a specialist, it's his job to be stealthy. I'm simply no match for his skills to be undetectable. 2. Why should the victim be blamed? Why blame at all? I will likely be unable to detect the next pickpocket who bumps into me, neither will my ex. 3. If it were my friend who was pickpocketed, my reaction would be "Are you ok?" and "Do you need any help?"
So we are really like Apples and Oranges, we can't fathom each other, we apply our own lenses based on what we are fundamentally. This I know now, but not then. This knowledge had to be gleaned through experience. Tbh, I still had little knowledge after identifying NPD traits and reading online articles. This is why I came here, to ask questions to understand the condition better. I'm still unable to grasp except at a cognitive level, and vice versa.
If I were to feel shame, I will have to feel regret for my ability to love, to hope, to desire a healthy attachment, to be tolerant, to be giving, to be able to hang in there when the going got tough, to repeatedly forgive,...I stayed in an unhealthy relationship because I had no idea about PDs, I thought I was strong, hopeful that one day my ex would see reason.
I have failed and have learned, but I don't feel shame because I simply didn't know better. It's like a child who has never smoked being offered cigarettes for the first time and found herself choking. She might have choked on fire smoke before, but she had no idea about cigarettes.
So all of these do dovetail with what I manage to find on the research on PTRS here:
https://theneurotypical.com/posttraumat ... drome.htmlWhy Post-Traumatic Relationship Syndrome?
The original impetus for the development of Posttraumatic Relationship Syndrome (PTRS) was clinical experience with clients whose symptoms were distinct from those with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and to whom the traditional approaches to treatment of PTSD were inappropriate in a number of ways. Most notably, a major focus on getting in touch with the repressed traumatic memories is contraindicated in PTRS. The numbing of emotional responsiveness is not present in PTRS and with an overuse of emotion-focused coping, the client chronically approaches the traumatic memories too eagerly, leading to a harmful reliving of the trauma. In PTSD, there is a tendency to err on the side of too much constriction; in PTRS there is a tendency to err on the side of too much intrusion.
Another reason for the development of PTRS is adherence to the concept of a spectrum of posttraumatic disorders. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder has so dominated our concept of post-traumatic illness that it is often "perceived, albeit incorrectly, as a generic term for posttraumatic illness... [However], not all posttraumatic illness is posttraumatic stress disorder". The definition of posttraumatic illness in which the full criteria of PTSD are not met is the case in PTRS.
Interpersonal traumatic Stressors are particularly likely to create severe and long-term trauma responses. Even in the DSM-III-R's discussion of PTSD, it is noted that PTSD is likely to be "more severe and longer lasting when the Stressor is of human design". Further, research has shown that one of the biological functions of attachment is the regulation of physiological arousal. This may explain, in part, why people are more vulnerable in intimate versus non-intimate relationships and why traumatic Stressors in the intimate type of relationship are often harder to bear than those in the non-intimate and also harder to bear than traumatic Stressors attributable to nature or accidents.
I think what helps me to calm the overwhelming emotional intrusion is understanding what it is. I still don't know if it is triggering or calming at times, but for me, personally, incomprehension leads to repeated replaying of the dynamics as I searched for answers.