What I've Learned About Ptsd

[VikVikViktorious]

-everyone's experience is different
-you can overcome your symptoms and return to "normal" life. But "normal" will always be in quotes because trauma changes the way you look at life, no one is immune to that.
-for many, the trauma started so young that ptsd is all they know.
-for some, the trauma was simply too much for their body to handle.
-from what I can gather, the majority of sufferers are women who were abused as children.
-stigma is a real, powerful factor on our brains.
-support from loved ones and/or other sufferers is a VITAL aspect of recovery. Suffering in silence causes unimaginable stress and pain.
-there is help out there.
-therapy and meds are proven methods of recovery, and it's okay admit you need help and ask for it.
-there will be good days and there will be bad ones.
-and, well, it's gonna be on your mind often so you may as well embrace it, analyze it, share your feelings, and look forward to some feedback/discussions/likes/controversy etc as I just have!!

 

[Milo's papa]

You're so right. Everything you mentioned is spot on. After eight plus years as a supporter, I could not have said it any better

 

[PTSDisweird]

-everyone's experience is different
-you can overcome your symptoms and return to "normal" lif...

You are too attractive man, and that comes from a heterosexual male.

Agree with you at all the points except the one with women mostly. We men dont speak about our emotional well being. Sometimes its just us thinking that its not manly and shows weakness, but most of the times its the society, or even worse our own family that doesnt accept our true feelings. As a result we bottle up our feelings and try to find somewhere else relief, which most of the times is more damaging. In my experience, as many men as women are traumatised, maybe in other forms each sex, yes, but trauma is trauma. Its that men have hard time admitting our feelings. For example i was bullied by my biological father since i remember myself till now, and still going. What happened when i told him that i am an emotional person and i wanted him to stop? The aswer was man up and come help me with stuff to build muscles and dont act like woman. My mother bullied me too. What happened when i cried for help? Here i will cook something good, just dont speak. A lot of men have faced even worse behavior by their parents, but the most intelligent ones leave out stupid society dysfunctional standards and speak out. And hell is it helpful. Well done to women, at least they can cry and get supported, at least easier than us.

 

[DharmaGirl]

Very well said. Do you mind if I share this with my family? I will tell them it's from someone on the internet if that's ok with you, I just want to share it and not "out" you if you don't want to be.

 

[VikVikViktorious]

@DharmaGirl please do share! I went from being a man who didn't believe that mental exists- to one that preaches to (select) friends and family about the horrors of sexual abuse and its effect on the human brain. Imagine explaining to them, that I wasn't even that upset/effected by the abuse... It's my body/brain that was so pissed and just went nuts. It simply doesn't make any sense to the avg person, and I totally understand that, because mental illness as a whole never made a stitch of sense to me.

@PTSDisweird - I'm so glad you mentioned your input. And I agree with you 100%. The fact that I was SO effected by the abuse was a large factor in my suicidal urges. This is why, in my educated opinion, there are far more female members on this forum-- and there are far more suicides in men. Had I not gotten helped- and embraced my illness- I would've been another statistic. I had to dig really, really deep and seek out things to live for and accept that I needed to swallow my pride. I can imagine how a "macho war vet" living in constant irrational fear would rather kill himself than admit what's going on and seek treatment. This is why I mentioned "stigma is real" right after my male/female "statistic" I made up. The fact that I couldn't mention to my best friends what was happening within my brain had such a powerful effect on me. I wanted off this planet.

Thanks for the input! I enjoy these discussions thoroughly

 

[PTSDisweird]

@DharmaGirl please do share! I went from being a man who didn't believe tha...

What you mentioned about male suicide rate, I wanted to mention it too and I was thinking it while typing my previous reply but I forgot it lol.

Well said, everything you mentioned. This macho stereotype wasnt even realistic in older societies, let alone in the modern ones. Both sexes need support. After all, isnt suicide more humiliating than speaking out to a family member, a friend or a doctor/therapist?

 

[EveHarrington]

What you mentioned about male suicide rate, I wanted to mention it too and I was thinking it while...

Yes, but if you're dead, there's no humiliation to feel. Just an end to your pain.

 

[PTSDisweird]

Yes, but if you're dead, there's no humiliation to feel. Just an end to your pain.

You wont live to feel it, but your loved ones, the people who knew you, all the people who will listen about this...How will they feel? How will you be remembered? Yes you wont be there to feel it in your skin, but you will be remembered as this one person who commited suicide, you will become one with humiliation and disgust in people's minds. In bad times, suicide must seem like the easiest and best way out, I've felt it. But to be honest? It's the worst thing a person can do in his life. In my opinion at least.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

support from loved ones and/or other sufferers is a VITAL aspect of recovery. Suffering in silence causes unimaginable stress and pain.

Indeed! Its not just unimaginable stress and pain, it muzzles you. It hinders you from even recoverying in many ways where you have to figure out the puzzle of taking a detor around the fact that you are fully alone and how to preceed in recovery alone with no support. No support as in zero, zip, nadda (other than this site). If not for this site id have no one, thus why im here.

Its also how to figure out how to navigate recovery when all you hear, constantly, is invaildating minimizing of your trauma that makes you question yourself to insane levels. Every single tiny detail is questioned constantly which makes you circle back constantly.

The sadest point in therapy is when i heard my therapist say "you are so utterly alone with this".

I also agree with everything else you said and can relate to them all.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

After all, isnt suicide more humiliating than speaking out to a family member, a friend or a doctor/therapist?

For someone that's been suicidal since I was 8 and havent had a day where it didnt cross my mind. No it isnt!

Suicide isnt selfish, it isnt more humilating, it is the complete lack of hope. It is that the pain inside is greater than the fear of death. It is the complete belief, correct or not, that your loved ones are better off without you and that grieving you would be easier than having you in their life.

The saying that suicide is selfish pisses me off and saying that humiliating than anything is incorrect, in my opinion. Humilation never crossed my mind personally. How everyone will think of me later never entered my brain. When you are in that much pain, it just doesnt.

Im not saying its right or suicide is ever an answer, it isnt, but also saying

you will become one with humiliation and disgust in people's minds.

Is just wrong to say in my opinion and if that's said to me when im on the edge, you will highened the "great im even more digusting" in my head.

But thats just me.

 

[PTSDisweird]

For someone that's been suicidal since I was 8 and havent had a day where it didnt cross my m...

I mentioned that at hard times, especially at the years after the onset of my PTSD, I have imagined myself dying, and oh my, how relieving it felt. Humiliation? No, not a single time in my mind, at those times. Selfishness? In my opinion, yes I felt kinda selfish.
So, I am not the type of person who has never felt that way, but I have an opinion on the subject whatsoever. I speak from experience. And I DO know how bad and darkest times feel. I also do know that with time, and if you work on it with the proper support, better times come.

That said, I never called people who suicide selfish, above. I felt that I would be selfish if I did it, but that applied to me. It was my own perception about it at my own case. Didnt say that it applies at all cases. You are right, humiliating isn't the right word. It's tragic. No problem is that huge so that you cant cry for help. No problem has to lead you to take your own life. No matter how dark the place you are at the moment is, and how you percieve things at that given time. Its my opinion, you dont have to agree, I just tried to explain it as good as I could. Unfortunately english is not my native language, so I cant use it perfectly. :)

 

[Tinyflame]

As a person who's unsuccessfully attempted twice, and battled it recently, I consider SI extremely humiliating (for mysef), and revealing it remains the grossest, most humiliating thing ever, which I expected it to be gross, humiliating and repulsve and stigmatizing.

I do not see people who complete it as humiliated.

I also do not see it as selfsh when people do not have family or children.