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Do you need PTSD to post here?

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Where A&E (hehehe, sorry not sorry) tend to come up with new people is that none of the symptoms of PTSD are unique to the disorder.
- 10 people can have nearly every symptom on the list and have 10 different disorders, because those symptoms aren’t coming from trauma.
- Similarly? 10 people can all experience the same trauma, and have 10 different disorders. Trauma doesn’t equal PTSD.
Hit the nail on the head @Friday!!!

My health symptoms are the reason I didn't reach out for help sooner - something like 14 parallel symptoms between my existing conditions and PTSD.

Finding trauma that fits the PTSD criteria is the only way to tell if you have PTSD. All the other disorders are in a manner of speaking window dressing. I did mechanical maintenance for many years and its in a way the same. Is what you are seeing a result of another problem? If it is you need to find and fix that first. Then you check everything else in case the original problem caused other problems.

As for posting here, I think if you are sincere, respectful, and looking to get help or insight, you will be accepted here, with or without PTSD. I think most of the community can spot people in trouble and looking for help. It doesn't matter if you have a diagnoses. Fakes, people who want guinea pigs, and all their like get shaken out pretty quickly from what I have seen.
 
Here’s an interesting little story. I thought I was diagnosed in 2014 when I joined and was being treated for ptsd by a psychologist. Psychologists don’t diagnose. The psychiatrist I was seeing at the time “didn’t like labels” I found out last year by mistake from a community psychiatric nurse that I have an EUPD (which is what they were calling borderline at the time) diagnosis in my file.

now I’ve had sick notes from GPs that stated PTSD and had literally no idea that someone diagnosed me with EUPD. Last year when I found out I got my medical notes. I found out that a psychiatrist who saw me once for 20 minutes while I was in crisis and hospitalised because the Trauma focused CBT was not going well gave me that diagnosis. not only that BUT I didn’t even have a ptsd diagnosis in file.

guys that was so upsetting and really shook my faith in the mental health field and I didn’t feel like I could post about it here. I felt like I would be shunned or dismissed by this community. Ive seen others being dismissed after having their diagnosis revised. I was so worried about people invalidating me and being like well you probably do have bpd and not ptsd. It was also very triggering because one of my abusers had a bpd diagnosis he used as an excuse for abusing. I was looking up the diagnostic criteria for ptsd alll the time just to reassure myself.

well anyway I had to wait a year and a half so shit that must’ve been over a year ago feel like I’ve lost a year, it was pre pandemic. Anyway I had to wait a year and a half for a psychiatrist appointment who was like yeah you have ptsd probably cptsd. So now I feel like I can share this. Psychiatrist get shit wrong we all know that yet I’ve seen people taking the word of a psychiatrist they don’t know over people here. Not everyone has access to diagnosis. A year and a half to see a psychiatrist and I was calling and pushing them. Also I specifically asked to see a psychiatrist a lot of people get fobbed off with councillors and 8 sessions of cbt or even worse a online cbt course. a lot of people might’ve given up by then or not be as symptomatic and because they don’t know ptsd can be cyclical think all better.
 
As for posting here, I think if you are sincere, respectful, and looking to get help or insight, you will be accepted here, with or without PTSD. I think most of the community can spot people in trouble and looking for help.
I agree with this, generally. And the proof is in the pudding...there are also people who appear to be looking for help and then post repeatedly about how help is unattainable...That might be a person going through a really rough patch, but even then, they can usually acknowledge their own pattern.

People who say they want help, but really want internet drama and attention? That's annoying as f*ck.

how it's said sometimes by some people more than content.
Kind of par for the course, since most of the people here are living with some level of PTSD. Which means, they have shitty days. Or - they are just extremely direct. I don't think you're asking for advice, but the most supportive thing a member can do in a situation where they think the OP is getting unfairly judged, is post to the OP. If you can offer support and empathy, by all means, do it. The least useful thing is to argue with the member you think is being an asshole. That just derails things. But also....plenty of members here are much more sensitive than others, and that can turn into feelings getting hurt.

The great thing is - it's temporary hurt, and the more we practice that, the better we are at recovering in real-life situations that are hard or stressful.

My concern is always, actually, for the individual poster. When people are in pain, and for whatever reason PTSD makes sense to them as the reason for it...

PTSD is one of the more palatable mental illnesses. Easier to swallow. If you have PTSD, you can believe it's not because of some unexplainable genetic factor - that there's something wrong with your mind - no. Instead, an event happened to you, and as a result, you developed PTSD.

That's a lot easier for people to swallow than to maybe face the fact that they are bipolar. Or have a personality disorder. Or on the schizophrenia spectrum. Or, or, or. Those things can be more frightening than PTSD. PTSD means - something terrible happened to you. Bi-polar disorder means...well, it means something's wrong with you. That's hard as hell to accept.

And of course, actually having PTSD - that's hard as hell to accept, too. That's the irony.

In my experience, people who are eager to assume the identity of being a person with PTSD, often don't actually have PTSD. They probably have some bad shit that's happened to them, and they are 100% deserving of help and healing. And, if they are willing to examine themselves, change their behaviors...then they'll start to feel better, and their growth and healing will help the whole board believe that growth and healing can happen. So, those people - they are fine, with or without an 'official' diagnosis.

But...if they get hooked on the validation, but don't progress to challenging themselves, even in the smallest of ways...and they spend too much time here? Eventually, they will start to pathologize Every. Single. Thing. Scared to go to the store? It's PTSD. So they accept it as their fate, and stay stuck. Learned helplessness, it's a thing.

So - when there are people posting here, and they are looking for a diagnosis - looking to see themselves in the members here - and they see something familiar they think "yes! That's me!" - but...a few threads down the road it becomes clear that they are selectively ignoring other symptoms, ones they are more uncomfortable with....or, they are building up their own sense of how sick they are, based on what they read here - those people? Being here doesn't help them. It still doesn't mean they end up leaving, or being removed. They might take themselves off, or we might do it for them. It has a lot to do with how they conduct themselves, much more than whether there's a dx or not.

But spreading misinformation about the condition? Not ok. Thinking that anxiety+depression+bad thing that happened , equals PTSD? Incorrect, misleading, unhelpful.

Wanting to learn about PTSD because it affects your life in some way? That's amazing. Wanting that terrible breakup to be on par with that terrible bombing, because 'trauma is subjective'? Nope.

Willing to admit you're wrong, or to change your mind about something? Fantastic. Soapboxing (and defending) bullshit? No.

Them's my thoughts.
 
but the most supportive thing a member can do in a situation where they think the OP is getting unfairly judged, is post to the OP. If you can offer support and empathy, by all means, do it. The least useful thing is to argue with the member you think is being an asshole. That just derails things.
If I could love that infinity, I would. Maybe we need an infinity like system... oh wait, nope.
 
But spreading misinformation about the condition? Not ok. Thinking that anxiety+depression+bad thing that happened , equals PTSD? Incorrect, misleading, unhelpful

Willing to admit you're wrong, or to change your mind about something? Fantastic. Soapboxing (and defending) bullshit? No.
Just to be clear, I don't *think* you're speaking to me specifically here or anything (but hey if you are, that's whatever too, heh) but neither of these were my intention here. Just wanting to clarify that.
 
When I see new people claiming to have PTSD and write a very long wall of text with little punctuation it makes me think it's not true. I know it's very trendy among my son's peers to "have a PTSD moment" or "PTSD much?" in response to someone else. I read an article in 2014 on a psychologist forum where they were discussing how PTSD would be an epidemic because one could get a lot of attention for something that wasn't one's fault.

I also know that one of the symptoms is to downplay your trauma. I know many people had a hard time accepting their diagnosis. I just know it ruined my career, my life plans and hurt my son and I would give anything NOT to have it. That makes me suspicious of people who shout out that they must have it because of some not traumatic moment that is trauma because they felt traumatized. Not that everyone has every symptom. I am also suspicious of people who list everything on the PTSD requirements in the same wording.

For myself I know that I still have a hard time believing my trauma happened to me and that I have a mental illness. That sets me up for not believing others so I decided recently to just refrain from speaking if I felt they were looking for attention. At least this week I have, lol.
 
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