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Ptsd As A Young Child?

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Hush92

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Hi, this is something that has weighed on my mind for some time. I wasn't diagnosed with PTSD until I was 19 and always figured the traumatic things that caused it happened when I was 16-17 but I had a lot of unsettling behavior as a young child and I worry that even at that age I had it. However my big puzzle is that I have no idea what would have caused me to develop PTSD that early on....anyways could you take a look at my story and see if you think the same? Or if you had ptsd as a young child was it similar? Thank you.

As a child frequently I struggled with intense fear for my safety, especially at night time. This lead to me developing things like rituals to try to keep myself safe that I'd stay up all night doing or hiding in different areas of the house because my room didn't feel safe. I would even get what I now recognize as panic attacks this fear was so overwhelming. I also dealt with hyperarousal and was constantly looking for threats. I had horrible and graphic nightmares with content that should not really have been in the dreams of someone that young. I had a strange desire to trap and hurt things and I'd act out these wishes with my toys, I'd put them all in cages, and my mom remembers being unnerved when in a workbook of mine I drew cages around every single character in them. I also had a number of nervous tics.

I just have no idea what could have traumatized me. My worst fear is that something terrible happened to me as a child and I repressed it which then caused all my subsequent mental health issues throughout my life.
 
Have you ever had a full psych screen? No way to even begin to diagnose off of a few anecdotes but there's some things there which hint towards being OCD or a Spectrum-Kid. If so, fixations can come from anywhere, even just a 30 second commercial for a circus, or a trip to the zoo one day, no trauma required whatsoever.
 
I wasn't diagnosed until I was 41. But I suffered childhood trauma, molestation, rape and gang rape as a kid and teen. For me, to be diagnosed that late, was a relief. It really didn't matter to me, when I got PTSD, only that I had it and could now work towards helping myself. All of us are different and have different needs. I suggest that you just work with what you know for now and if things pop up in memories, then work with them as they do....
 
Have you ever had a full psych screen? No way to even begin to diagnose off of a few anecdotes but there...

What is a full psych screen? What differentiates it from a normal one? I do have a psychotic disorder so I guess it is possible that it was just my paranoia even at that early age. I did have a tendency to form fixations. I've been told I have elements of OCD but not really enough to warrant a diagnosis. I have had and do have symptoms that are associated to autism but I would never receive that diagnosis as I have excellent social skills. My fixations though allowed me to become good friends with kids with aspergers in the past because often I would be just as obsessed with what they were talking about as they were!

Thank you for the insight.
 
my PTSD symptoms started around 5 y/o, of course at the time I had no idea what was going on, but I thought i knew the source. I started replaying the trauma almost from the start to try and decipher what the details were and discover why it scared me so. So i replayed to explore and learn at first (even though it really freaked me out each time). Later, maybe out of habit i would replay the trauma scenes in my head for the rush, i sorta had started going dead inside, and replaying the trauma ALWAYS would get a lot of emotions going, a sort of self harm like cutting does for some. Later i would intentionally replay the scenes to gain mastery over them, to get so used to the emotional and physical reaction that it beck almost routine and would not interfere with my life so much.

All through this time, lasting almost 25 years, i learned more and more about my trauma, peeling back layer after layer, finding out the real extent of what happened to me. The replaying and resulting discomfort helped motivate me to finding out the truth. So in the long run I guess it served a function.
 
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