Is PTSD “popular?”

[Skywatcher]

I’m scrolling through my DVR “manage recordings” to delete all of my old shows because tv is just too difficult to keep up with anymore. I even “fail” at binge watching. I clicked on a show in the process and the description is about a ptsd group trying something new that ends up turning into a difficult situation. There is this other couple of shows where the main character has ptsd. SVU has been dealing with ptsd for years. It just seems so common and popular. Even my news people talk about ptsd quite frequently—natural disasters will do that. I just don’t think that this drama on tv is anything like my experience, possibly because my experience is happening to me and it’s not entertaining.

For me, PTSD really sucks. I hate it. Multiple traumas is probably not in my favor. When it’s on fictional TV it just seems “Popular?” Anyone else having the non-glamorous version and wish to vent a little?

 

[Strangelongtrip]

Im also in the multiple traumas boat. It doesn’t make a pretty TV drama. Part of me loves that people are talking about it, part of me hates that because of the nature of making storytelling entertaining, there has to be an “end”. There has to be a happily ever after where the hero/heroine no longer has to deal with symptoms and lives their life gleefully, when real life is a cycle and often miserable at times and happy at others. I think romanticizing it at times can be dangerous as well, but at the same time I’m like well...at least someone without it can see some of what I went through and try to understand. I can’t watch SVU and never have been able to. My rapist and abuser liked watching it (wtffff that’s something I’ll have to bring up to my T lol). I think maybe a lot of the writers of these shows don’t actually have PTSD too, which is probably why it’s painted all pretty.

 

[Mee]

I don’t know those things but I think over time media portrayal of ptsd has changed. When I was very young it was quite frequent that an older person would be depicted as having ptsd from combat. And lots of war dramas and period post war stuff had a story line of shell shock.


I don’t watch too much tv but in social media I see a rapidly increasing understanding and discussion of contributors to longer term trauma or developmental trauma. I think just understanding not just PTSD but that trauma in short term impact is bloody awful is useful. Maybe a more supportive, coregulating community approach to support would lessen impact for some helping them prevent developing PTSD through being made feel safe, not unsafe , in the aftermath of one incident trauma? I don’t know.

I do believe that the happy ending portrayal is unfair. And the idea it’s just flashbacks that we stand at a basin or mirror usually to have and can wash our hands and go about our days, grumpy but ‘fine’ is a bit of a disservice.

 

[Skywatcher]

I think you are right about the “happy ending” on tv. I guess that I just worry that my friends and family will see a show like that and have these expectations that I will have one or two dramatic therapy sessions and be all healed up. Not addressing the shame/trust and multiple types of therapy and therapists we try to find the right one. The expense. The fear, starts and stops. The complex or multiple diagnosis.

 

[Strangelongtrip]

@Skywatcher I totally understand that feeling of those expectations. I had an ex who watched 13 reasons why and thought he suddenly understood my diagnosis completely. I felt great that he was trying, but as time went on, it became clear he expected it to get better faster and he had no more patience for me. It's frustrating, because it shows people what it's like, but not really. Like a false hope soup haha.

 

[Mee]

@Skywatcher I totally understand that feeling of those expectations. I had an ex who watched 13 reasons why and thought he suddenly understood my diagnosis completely. I felt great that he was trying, but as time went on, it became clear he expected it to get better faster and he had no more patience for me. It's frustrating, because it shows people what it's like, but not really. Like a false hope soup haha.

I think 13 reasons is fascinating. I liked it a lot and got from it the ripple effect of our actions and that our behaviour is important. From it I think I confirmed the idea that social grooming to accept coercive behaviour is part of what is going on in society ( and always has ) and that bullying and social pressure and upbringing and so on are like little ‘g’ grooming. It seems many others got other things. I know some people I cut out because of manipulative or straightforward ugly behaviour to others loved the first season in f 13 reasons. This lack of reflection in our own group dynamic was not insignificant to me.

 

[Skywatcher]

13 reasons made me worry about my daughters a lot and gave me one of the strongest rape flashbacks I’ve ever had.

 

[Mee]

13 reasons made me worry about my daughters a lot and gave me one of the strongest rape flashbacks I’ve ever had.

Yes, I can understand both. I certainly found it incredibly difficult and upsetting watching.

 

[Sideways]

I try and notice when mental illness is mentioned in the media as an aside. Like, "This person has Anxiety/Depression/etc and...." because when it's thrown into the mix like that, it helps normalise the thing.

Films like Split? Make me angry. It's a copout story line: this person had a mental illness and was completely psycho...

I just don’t think that this drama on tv is anything like my experience,

I think sometimes it's helpful to remember that the majority of people who experience mental illness in their lives? It is different to your experience. Like, a whole lot different.

For the majority of people with ptsd, and even the waaaay more common depression or anxiety disorders? It doesn't become a chronic condition for them. It's a period of illness that they move through, and out of, in a much shorter space of time than what the membership on this site represent.

Sort of like viewing it as "people suffering broken legs in a tv program don't represent the experience of a person who becomes paraplegic from the waist down".

I think maybe there's grief in that (we got the shitty, chronic version of the illness), but also some self compassion that's warranted.

And for the majority of the population it potentially is very helpful. Because if they do develop a mental illness at some point in their life? It will most likely only be a temporary shitty phase of their life.

I'd like to see more of what chronic mental illness is really like represented in the media. But then, there's an infinite number of ways chronic mental illness can effect a person.

And if you go looking? I think there are some representations of that which have been handled really well. All those years ago when "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" was released, I remember thinking that as a kid we'd often referred to people as "retards" as a put-down and how stupid that was. Because just watching that film? It was clear to me that we'd had no idea what the hell we were saying.

So is it "popular"? Meh, depends on the quality of the media you're paying attention to, and how much thought has gone into producing it.

 

[Mee]

Split...that was something sort of different though wasn’t it? Weren’t we meant to be questioning whether it was ( poorly portrayed) mental health issues across the entire trilogy or something ‘super human’ ? I did not take those as meaning to be a portrayal of mental illness at all. The ‘monsterfication’ of them was an artistic point. Whether it helps or hinders mental health is interesting because my first instinct is ‘no, of course not’. My second is.... maybe over time. Such as the way we increasing view treatment for women’s hysteria in the past legitimatises the reaction of repulsion towards such? Although, maybe that’s not sufficiently culturally overthrown to support my second thoughts. ?. Hmm. It’s a really interesting idea, especially as you are saying something I often say about another topic and so hearing it about this and feeling the resistance being greater is really good for me Personal process. I didn’t think that that film would give me such food for thought about my own cognitive dissonance , thanks @Sideways!

 

[rightkindofme]

Well, I think this stuff is complicated. At 38 after 34 years of therapy I am not "all better" but my symptoms are few and far between and I rarely get full on triggered. It took a lot of work. In my teens, twenties, and early thirties I didn't think there was much hope.

I'm in a genuinely good place and it is nice that people in my life who struggle to understand how someone who has had as many problems as I have had can improve at all. I want them to see some examples. Fiction is never a perfect representation of life. Fiction has to make sense and life basically never does. That will always be in conflict.

 

[Mee]

Well, I think this stuff is complicated. At 38 after 34 years of therapy I am not "all better" but my symptoms are few and far between and I rarely get full on triggered. It took a lot of work. In my teens, twenties, and early thirties I didn't think there was much hope.

I'm in a genuinely good place and it is nice that people in my life who struggle to understand how someone who has had as many problems as I have had can improve at all. I want them to see some examples. Fiction is never a perfect representation of life. Fiction has to make sense and life basically never does. That will always be in conflict.

The select function is not currently functional for me, I only wanted to quote your last sentence. That’s a whole interesting scope of culture; because ‘fiction has to make sense’ is essentially a manifestation ( even when it doesn’t play out as just) of just world falacy perhaps? And that’s why genres of fiction not being just but making sense has its own following because it feels like not being part of that fallacy, but if it makes sense.... it sort of is still falling into it. I have read some experimental fiction that tried to challenge some of this but by definition I think unless it’s free verse or stream of consciousness ... planned work has a point and ‘makes sense’ .