Forgetting the neurology of it for now (Classic neurology/learning much of which is now debatable, though the practical application of the theory still works). I can see what you are saying, that my breakup found the “nearest past example” of something similar and tagged on to that, thus the new experience became “horrific” rather than just painful, which would imply that, as painful and horrible as my breakup was, in reality it was just that. Painful and horrible. If it was alone, then my mind would not be re-traumatised and would have processed the situation rather than avoided as much as possible (e.g. the drinking) having any thinking going on. So now, I might not get triggered by the events of 58 years ago as a small child as it’s been therapied to death and then some, but thoughts of my breakup still lead to firing of that ancient (and multi-entrant) neural pathway. I have transferred the “ownership” of it to the breakup; when nothing in the breakup would have caused that degree of traumatization. Thus my c-PTSD is now a new kind of PTSD; after all I have never heard of anyone developing PTSD from a divorce. This is what the psychiatrist meant when he said childhood had primed me for creating a vastly overdeveloped horror of the breakup. Hmm, this all makes sense. I wonder what the new “knowledge is power” can now perhaps but breakup events in correct context and process and deal with them without “traumatising” myself. I shall let that mull in the sub-conscious realms for a while….