• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Do You Have PTSD?

Status
Not open for further replies.
I guess I just look at it a different way...
Seems most feel realived that they finally have a diagnosis and they know what this anxiety is. But to me, it feels like that if I admit I have PTSD, I'm admitting that it did in fact happen...
If I refer to it as just a bit of anxiety, I feel better. It's normal... Even though in the back of my mind I know its more than just a bit...
Maybe its silly...I don't know.

Manic
 
I'm just not the same person, but my spirit is strong....

I have PTSD. I have had to educate my family and they still don't really want to know why I sometimes act upset or moody. I used to rub my hands together and pet my thighs like I was massaging a sore muscle when I would talk about my traumas, which sounded like I was stuttering. My folks aren't really willing to learn about the condition specifically but they are happy that what I am doing on my own by staying with group therapy and reading lots of books on the matter, as well as spirituality and brain science, is helping me cope. The better I feel, the better their moods are.

It has been a long journey. There were several moments where I was called a complete failure and my father does not really believe psychology and brain science are serious or necessary. He would often tell me I didn't need that crap and that I just needed to be tougher. I finally had my mother intervene and talk with him because I was started to really despise his attitude. And I started leaving my books out in spots where he would see them in piles of two or three. One day, I told him was more educated on the topic and he needed to accept it, and I pointed at the books.

But now we are all in a better place and it is because I chose to do what I needed and wanted to do for myself. I am really proud of this. I have always had some kind of low self-esteem and people who pick up on this always start telling me what to do in some way and I used to want everyone to just be happy so I would pacify people. I don't do that anymore because through this experience I have learned that I cannot take advice from people who do not know what this condition is or just generally aren't listening to how I feel. I realized that more often than not in my life, I was right and when I was encouraged to go against my opinion or conclusion, I got hurt.

And I finally gave myself permission to be sensitive. My family is always telling me I'm too sensitive. I think they were trying to blame some of our disfunction on me so that I didn't blame all of my disfunction on them, you see. Well, I am really sensitive. So I have to set better boundaries for myself. I never really learned that. I thought I had to be tougher remember.

The hardest thing about this condition is that for the first time in my life, I can't create art. I think I have just quit. There is no more beautiful jewelry or watercolors on my desk and my supplies just collect dust. It's been about 10 months or longer since I have made anything. I just keep reading...and sometimes I get bored...I have never been bored, ever. Now, it's different, and I know I still have the skill...I just don't know if I will ever have the will. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

So I went rock climbing for the first time to prove to myself that my life wasn't over. I even started to wonder if art was keeping me from living by keeping me at a computer all day or at my desk creating. What if I just want to climb rocks for awhile? Well, my folks didn't really get that either, but my instructor did! What a view!

And I wouldn't say I am at the age where a person wants to be living with their folks again. I am a statistic in so many ways. I lost my job as a graphic designer due to the economy and I knew this would be a good time to get control of my condition and myself again. But in order to get home it took several calls to the police and relying on people I barely knew and didn't even like as people.

What's next? I am thinkin about a buddhist meditation retreat in West Virginia...breathing and meditation excercises are really working to help clear my mind which alleviates boubts of anxiety and that funny feeling I get in my forehead that isn't a headache but was never there before the traumas. And it's free, or donation. As an artist, you get to know where all of the free stuff is.

Take Care everyone!!
 
I no longer have problems admitting I have PTSD, my diagnosis was somewhat a relief from the confusion I was feeling about what was happening. I don't like putting labels on things but a least it pointed me & my GP in the right direction for treatment.

The problem I have now is as I have started to make some recovery people seem to be under the impression that my PTSD has gone when what I am doing is managing it until it creeps back unexpectedly as it has today!
 
I can identify with what you are saying here. I have PTSD and although I know that I've been abuse?d as a child and experienced a sexual assault as an adult, I struggle with the mAt eaning of having PTSD.

I still struggle with was it bad enough. At he same time, I'm relieved to have the diagnosis--it makes everything with my symptoms make sense. Like you, I sometimes tell myself it's just anxiety, but other times the anguish of my symptoms is so, so, so much more than that.

In public, however, I do tell people I have an anxiety disorder because If I do say PTSD, it opens the door to the question, "What happened that caused it?" I usually only tell people that I know or people who I think are mature or professional enough to be respectful of that information.

I don't know my babbling helped, but your post certainly got me thinking and articulating.

With healing,

pianogirl

I guess I just look at it a different way...
Seems most feel realived that they finally have a diagnosis and they know what this anxiety is. But to me, it feels like that if I admit I have PTSD, I'm admitting that it did in fact happen...
If I refer to it as just a bit of anxiety, I feel better. It's normal... Even though in the back of my mind I know its more than just a bit...
Maybe its silly...I don't know.

Manic
 
I agree with everyone who said that the healing comes with the diagnosis and the acceptance. I had no idea I had PTSD, I just knew something was wrong with me. I went to so many doctors until I finally found someone who specializes in PTSD and everything fell into place.

So, I have no idea admitting it, it's just getting through the rest of it.

Hang in there. :occasion:

Cate
 
Die Hard what is meant in the vietnam vets reference?
Gunchief


It was the initial panic attack I experienced after reading the Wikipedia article on PTSD that prompted me to look into it. I had come across the article before and made some kind of connection in my brain, like it made sense to me but I didn't really 'get it'. This time I was on my happy pills (legal) and it was like, WHAM, you have it. Those voices telling me to stop reading were kept at bay by an unusual amount of serotonin in my brain.

Was I 'traumatized'? I don't know. I don't know if some other label would explain it better. I don't want to exaggerate my problems and so I don't like being lumped in with Vietnam vets and Dave Pelzer-esque scenarios. Plus, the time period which I would have to examine to determine exactly what did happen, I have no clear memories of.

I think psychology takes the labels too far. I was diagnosed with ADHD, and I do have the traits, but saying "I have ADHD" just sounds awkward. It's not like cancer where you know you either have it or you don't. I guess PTSD is different because it has an objective component (the stressor), but still, we're people, not labels.

Then again, I'm in denial about a lot of things. But I'm also on my honesty pills. :wink:
 
I have PTSD took 15 years of being told by my wife something was wrong and people don't do what you do. And a very smart GP and a smart counselor.
There I said it.:occasion:
Gunchief
 
I struggled with PTSD and felt so ashamed that I wasnt getting better. One day my Dr told me to look at it like having a chronic disease such as diabetes which needs to be managed and learnt to live with. I found that acceptance helped.
 
My brother didn't care that I have PTSD. My family's very selfish and uncaring.

I have it, and I know how it feels to have involuntary violent thoughts. PTSD doesn't go away and the triggers that cam make you do something desperate are real. My family also thinks I should just move on....I wish I could family. I wish I could. It doesn't work that way. Now I have to learn how to control my triggers when someone pisses me off. Or I could wind up in jail or death row.
 
Despite the diagnose, lawyer, and ins co all agreeing that I had PTSD and some side resulting disorder, it took me forever to acknowledge it. Pride and denial were quite the barriers to healing, but once broken, it all made sense.
 
My name is Nursey and I have P.T.S.D. I do find that if you tell people they don't really understand especially as I am an emergergency room nurse! Also it wasn't one trauma that triggered my P.T.S.D but several spread over many years .Oh and my therapist and I have discovered recently that the fact I was physically abused by my Father as child could have something to do with it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top