People who know, but don't *get* it.

[EmmaOwl]

Ugh excuse my typos lol!

Ugh I hate that. I know you can spell, though...and even if you couldn't, well F. Scott Fitzgerald was atrocious., so don't worry over it. He's an inspirational tale...well sort of. His egotism was too extreme to futz around with the finer points of grammar. He got into Princeton, but he was also kicked out, pretty damn quickly. :D
Oops waay off topic on my own thread. Well, that's my literary story of the day.

 

[Llith]

This so much. I don't think I can expect anything from people but I guess it disappoints me in some way every time someone clearly shows they do not understand.

My friends never got it, even for simple traumatic things that it felt safe to tell them. I would tell my best friend something and she would go 'oh like on x soap opera last week?'... its like. Okay you don't get it going to give up them. She knew I had had a house fire when I was younger and yet when I broke into tears when I was round her house we were watching a drama where there was a fire she couldn't understand why I was crying.

Everyone things I am so 'strong' because thats how I act, even if they know what has happened to some extend they still think I am doing fine. My mum keeps trying to convince me to quit therapy, but then she is not very helpful most of the time so I may just discount that ahhaha.

Ah well! I guess in some ways I will be glad they do not understand :) They are getting to live their lives without PTSD hanging over their shoulders and jealousy is an ugly emotion!

 

[Deadman]

I guess in some ways I will be glad they do not understand :) They are getting to live their lives without PTSD hanging over their shoulders and jealousy is an ugly emotion!

I'm starting to think you are right. I don't want people to truly understand. No one should have to know what we know.

 

[EmmaOwl]

in some ways I will be glad they do not understand :) They are getting to live their lives without PTSD hanging over their shoulders and jealousy is an ugly emotion!

I don't want people to truly understand. No one should have to know what we know.

These are kind and generous ways to look at this issue. I feel the same. It's a tough one because it can set you up to be misunderstood.
@joeylittle you have a very good point about not knowing or assuming anything about what other people feel.

In retrospect, the one hesitation I have is, the Capitol-blowing-up thing - I would expect him to know better than to say that to me. He is all too aware of my PTSD and its various causes and why I am in the office every three weeks or so, over a number of years....
I can and I do walk in to the office and tell him, "Oh I left the house 3 times this week! And one morning, I didn't remember my nightmares! But I did bite my tongue and shoot, I chipped a filling."
He knows me well and he knows what is a big deal for me.

But everyone slips up. And it can be amazing how much your impressions of things can change in two days - especially when you first wrote about it 5 minutes after arriving home from a painful procedure!

 

[heyheyhey]

Ugh I hate that. I know you can spell, though...and even if you couldn't, well F. Scott Fitzgerald was...

Haha thanks :)! I wonder why we can't edit ourselves? Loved your detour lol!! Interesting! I love his rouge ways lol :P!

 

[The Albatross]

If I want my teeth in my head where they belong, and I want them to be serviceable, then I go to the dentist and I don't give two flips if he "gets it" or not provided he takes care of my TEETH. Sheesh. I really don't understand where/when the hell people decided everybody had to adjust to them. Old school and proud of it here. I endeavor to rise to the occasion rather than have anybody lower the bar for me. I see the dude 4 times a year for cripes sake.

I'm a peer and I don't get it, at all - not every person I pay for a service for is obliged to be "sensitive" to me. It's nice, sure but not obligatory.

 

[EmmaOwl]

If I want my teeth in my head where they belong, and I want them to be serviceable, then I go to t...

Because it f*ckING HURTS. He knows it hurts. He wants to distract me and the first thing he suggests is this new show that starts with the Capitol being on fire. He is well-intentioned but missed the mark.

There's no "sensitivity" I expect. It's not that he's the dentist it's that he's a PERSON who knows me. WHY recommend that show in an attempt to distract me? It was a kind thought, but he wasn't thinking. Jeez. It's not that complicated. I know my original message was overwrought but I thought I corrected that well enough in a subsequent message.

I see my guy something like 18+ times in a year, not 4. He realized, on Thursday, that he had made a mistake, he realized it because of my reaction, then. When I was in today he went a totally different route to offer distraction! He is not *obligated* to offer distraction, but he does. And I wish he didn't talk to me about BLOWING UP BUILDINGS. Why is that so hard to understand??

 

[Nessa7]

If I want my teeth in my head where they belong, and I want them to be serviceable, then I go to the dentist and I don't give two flips if he "gets it" or not provided he takes care of my TEETH...

I disagree with this. With medical professionals there is a much wider range of consequences for not getting it. When one of the extremes is malpractice and physical injury some amount of adjustment is a good idea.

In the example I gave, the doctor could have easily scratched my cornea. She even mentioned it the last time she lunged at me before my nervous system switched to fight mode.

 

[desiderata310]

Alright, so there are SOME people for whom going to the dentist is a HUGE ordeal. It took me years to find a good one and then after seeing him for a decade, I moved. IT's been devastating.
I've been talking to my therapist about this because there is a TON of trauma surrounding things in my mouth, being in that kind of vulnerable position AND hey! the one thing that my old dentist finally figured out: it takes me forever to numb.
I deal with trauma from being orally raped and trauma from having about 8 teeth (I had double sets of several adult teeth) pulled as a child WHILE I WAS NOT NUMB.

There is actually something out there called 'trauma informed care'. It means taking the extra time to find out about the patient and their PTSD and trying to find ways to avoid triggering or retaumatizing the patient.

My old dentist was trauma informed. He took the time to talk to me about what happened and to come up with ways to help me be comfortable while we worked. For me that meant for a cleaning I had to have nitrous and I was STILL going to shake and cry. HE knew that and he would check in with me every so often to make sure I was still OK enough to continue and give me breaks when I needed it.

I've not been brave enough to seek out an new dentist in my new town. I'm working on it but you better believe that I am going to ask up front about trauma informed care, that I am going to ASK for an extra long initial visit to talk about these things and that yeah, I am going to figure out a way to speak up for myself.

I don't think there's anything wrong with admitting that there are things that are just harder to deal with for some people. I don't freak out when I go to a hair dresser. I don't freak out if I go in for my yearly physical but I will when I go to a gynecologist or a dentist. Guess what? There are HUGE big bouncy ball reasons for this. I'm working on it but until I figure out how to disconnect the amygdala during these occasions, I am going to have to ask for more consideration so that we can attend to the purpose that I am there and not keep me from seeking medical attention until it's gone too far.

 

[Abigail7]

I don't think that having compassion for another and being sensitive to the needs of others is "lowering the bar". If we went with this line of thinking, we have to extend it from "mental" compassion to "physical" compassion...do away with the ADA? (Americans with disability act.) Tell those in a wheelchair that we won't "lower the bar" for them by installing ramps and they must figure out how to get in the building on their own?

Compassion for others is a part of what makes us human. It is what binds us and brings us together. A world without compassion for another's struggles is a world I wouldn't want to live in.

It makes me sad that allowances for PTSD struggles and symptoms is somehow seen as a weakness. We are not weak, and it's most certainly not about lowering the bar. I wish all of us with PTSD could show compassion for others with PTSD. It's bad enough that the world throws enough bad stuff our way, I don't think we should be throwing it at each other.

 

[joeylittle]

I also think, though, if you are capable of being annoyed/angry/frustrated at a medical professional for not remembering to avoid your triggers...they aren't triggers, but stressors, and we can learn to manage stressors.

There are days I notice I get internally frustrated at my care providers not being more tuned in to certain things.

And then I think - this is good, because I'm not actually having a trauma reaction: I'm having a reaction where I stay in the present and get stressed. So next step: work on the stress management.

 

[The Albatross]

What Joey said. :tup::tup: Only she said it better than I did. She's absolutely right about stress management... but ever the one to go further: It is my personal responsibility to manage my stressors and my reactivity and my emotional regulation.... it's not anybody else's. It would be nice, like I said up thread, but it is not obligatory.