Intro [0:00]
Hello my dears! My name is Johanna, and I welcome you to the Johanna Draconis - The Deconstruction Of C-PTSD podcast.
In this episode we will talk about the stage between ball and ring trauma - and therefor PTSD and C-PTSD - the double trauma or macarons trauma. I mentioned before that there seems to be something missing - and now I finally pieced it together.
So let us talk about it.

Prelude [0:29]
I feel like I am almost a bit too excited about this, but this is something I have been searching for a quite a while and has been a thorn in my side, because it just felt it was wrong and that there should be something. But after a lot of searching I finally found it!
Now the whole set is round and no longer feels incomplete. As mentioned in a past episode - there was no point in making a step called something like a big ball trauma, because that would be the same basically just in significant bigger shape.
In hindsight it seems so obvious, that I can’t believe I didn’t put it together sooner. Funnily enough the sweet description of the trauma - macarons - is actually the most accurate, as the parts are held together by sticky substance - which is exactly what is happening.
Traumas held together by being stuck together but not necessarily having anything to do with another. And similar to the sweet - there are different sub versions of it. We go from bad to worse - while explaining briefly what you need to keep an eye out for.
We start with satellite, then we go to combined - but separate and then to coexisting.

Satellite [1:47]
As you expect with satellite - its about a smaller object close to a bigger one. Let us use the example of a car crash again - the trauma of the car crash itself would be the main trauma - and the severe damage of your car the satellite.
Now the main aspect of a car accident trauma - is the potential of death, the trauma of force, the potential of harm to oneself or others and so on. The severe damage is something you would only register afterwards and only loosely connected to the accident trauma.
But like a satellite its still in its orbit and keeps popping up. You can have multiple satellites of course - you usually have, but our brain is pretty good at removing them. So we only have to deal with the larger ones - if at all.
The problem you might have with this version is, that it is hard to find these satellites, because they are only loosely connected to the trauma and might trouble you sometimes, but not other times. They also have the ability to trigger the main trauma, which is annoying.
But unlike the ring trauma there is no reinforcing or the like. Usually this still falls clearly in PTSD territory.

Combined - but separate [3:07]
Then we have combined, but separate. Now if we go with our example again this would be the car accident trauma and then followed by a medical trauma. No while these two are connected they have two VERY different trauma cores and centers.
They are both significant in size for that and likely will trigger one another. Usually they follow in a direct line of events of each other, but close enough that they are still connected via at least one trigger or other connections.
And the more they trigger each other - the more the connection between this two will be reinforced. Depending on the traumas that are connected that can cause enormous issues. It is also difficult to treat the one without the other.
After time the traumas will almost meld into a super trauma with 2 different cores. Similar to the ring trauma, when you handle this combination you have to treat the one side as far away from the other as possible and try not to trigger the other one.
While of course you have to make sure the other side doesn’t get too active. Divide and conquer. Depending on how much time has passed and on the trauma itself - it can be PTSD or C-PTSD.

Coexisting [4:28]
Now lastly we talk about the coexisting version - which is quite similar to the combined version. But as you can hear from the name the 2 separate traumas only coexist and have no connection to another - except them happening around the same time.
For our example that would be the car accident and you receiving a call about the death of a beloved family member - completely unrelated from each other, but because they are so close to another - they can easily trigger each other.
Now you might wonder, why this is worse than the combined version - isn’t teaming up worse than just coexisting? One would think, but instead both grow without molding into one and instead just become two traumas that are stuck together.
They all develop their own triggers and their own shape completely separate of another. Which means if you resolve one of them - the other is still there without a big chunk missing - unlike the combined one. But the treatment is almost the same as combined.
Though you might not want to touch the one trauma, because it causes the other big trauma to also get triggered. Now this can be PTSD, but usually because of just the size it is C-PTSD, especially if it had a while to grow.

Outro [6:03]
That was it for todays episode, I hope you found it helpful. Hope you are safe and well. And as always, if you have any questions or feedback and the like, please let me know at contactme@johannadraconis.com.
More information and transcript you can find as usually under johannadraconis.com and links are in the description.
I hope to see you next time. Watch yourselves and have a wonderful time.