Welp

[Zmesf]

I am not sure if this is the right sub forum to post in, sorry. I am really struggling.

I was diagnosed with a text book case of ptsd when i was a 5 or 6. I am literally just being told this 15 years later. I have gone through my entire f*cking life internally wondering wtf is wrong with me. Dealing with anxiety and all sorts of things that i don't even know what to call. I don't know whats normal and whats not.

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about myself, and trying to objectively waver through the bullshit. This is what i have concluded so far:

1. My entire life i have felt the little boy who went through the trauma wasn't me. Of course i know it was.

2. I have anxiety problems.

3. I am very depressed.

4. My problems have always been there, but have gotten amplified by stress (i fell into months of depression, because of a girl and i don't think i have recovered).

I am not seeing or talking to some one, and i haven't talked to my original therapist (i'm not sure of the specific terminology) in probably over a decade. I want to.

I also feel like wimp and a narcissus.

 

[Ian Vp]

Welcome to the forum. I am going to say something that was said to me right from the start and am now passing it on, "Dont be so hard on yourself." You have reached out and now I hope people with some understanding of your trauma will help you. Ian

 

[Kintsugi]

Hi Zmesf,

Is there a way that you could get in touch with your original T? I think I am going to do this very thing this week. I believe they are supposed to keep your files unless told to destroy them by the client or something? The point is, it may not be impossible.

I will never be able to go back to my original T, though I'd like to. But there are a lot of therapists out there, and I'm sure plenty of those would love to help you improve and enrich your life.

Who kept your diagnosis from you? Have you divulged to anyone that you feel betrayed because you felt so many unexplained things? (I felt this way when my T finally told me what PTSD was)

Understanding PTSD in yourself is a big part of the battle in my opinion. Differentiating between my Self and PTSD has been integral for me in moving forward.

Welcome to the forum.

 

[Zmesf]

My father told me nonchalantly over dinner. I don't feel betrayed, but i wish i could have dealt with it earlier. I feel like i was robbed of a fun carefree childhood that would have set me up for a happier and more fulfilling life.

Even as a kid i remember when ever going some where new the whole drive agonizing about the dimensions of the rooms, how many people are going to be there, or how long i have to stay. Only now do i realize that those probably aren't healthy thoughts to obsess about.

My thoughts are so unorganized and i have no clue what is important. These posts are the most i have ever talked about these things in my life.

 

[scott_1971_h]

I was diagnosed with a text book case of ptsd when i was a 5 or 6. I am literally just being told this 15 years later. I have gone through my entire f**king life internally wondering wtf is wrong with me. Dealing with anxiety and all sorts of things that i don't even know what to call. I don't know whats normal and whats not.

You've joined the right club. I have had PTSD for about that long too.
Scott

 

[Kintsugi]

Hm. Do you feel robbed because you have PTSD, or because it was kept from you?

I can tell you that understanding differences between you with PTSD and other with no PTSD is helpful in advancing, but to a child, I'm not sure if trying to explain would have necessarily done enough good to provide some sort of idyllic childhood.

I also have had PTSD since I was about 5. I wasn't told of PTSD until a decade later, a year after I disclosed my main abuse, three years after my symptoms got out of control, and about 7 years after my symptoms started showing overtly at all. Internally, though, the whole time... my symptoms were there. They were obsessive and unhealthy like you are describing. Knowing about PTSD couldn't stop all of it, certainly, and still does not.

PTSD does rob you.

 

[Zmesf]

Do you feel robbed because you have PTSD, or because it was kept from you?
Both. But what i meant was i never made the connection that my problems/anxiety could be connected to what happened to me as a kid. The anxiety i feel is so ingrained because i have dealt with it for so long with out knowing it was abnormal. Knowing about ptsd earlier would have helped me.

I really want to take a vacation from being me.

 

[mohsen]

I am not sure if this is the right sub forum to post in, sorry. I am really struggling.

1. My entire life i have felt the little boy who went through the trauma wasn't me. Of course i know it was.

.

Have you been officially diagnosed with PTSD? Doctors often misdiagnosed people as having PTSD While they're suffering from another dissociation disorder such as DID,MPD,psychosic.

 

[Lionheart]

I don't know whats normal and whats not.

You have probably been left to guess at what normal is and therefore it makes sense that you wouldn't know. At least this has been true for me. I felt dumb, left out, strange because of being left to guess at what is normal. My therapist explained it this way, "You are a normal person having a normal reaction to abnormal life situations."

 

[Vee Lagrome]

You have probably been left to guess at what normal is and therefore it makes sense that you wouldn't know. At least this has been true for me. I felt dumb, left out, strange because of being left to guess at what is normal. My therapist explained it this way, "You are a normal person having a normal reaction to abnormal life situations."

Yes, this is a very good way to describe it. I mean, any person who has been in a very serious car crash, was raped, beaten up by their parents, or any other very serious and possibly life-threatening situation SHOULD have anxiety. That's how you learn to avoid situations that could kill you is by avoiding situations that almost killed you in the past. Any person who does not have any post traumatic stress following a very serious event is abnormal or is lying to themselves.

It is really difficult to be thrown out there with a "It's PTSD, good luck". That's how I learned about it a few years ago. It's a really helpless feeling. I had zero clue what to do and all I knew was that I felt like I was schizo and/or dying, like my whole self was just crumbling. My first few therapists (who were not trained to work with anxiety disorders - i didn't know what to look for in a therapist at first) told me that I was simply beyond help and that people "like me" were just hospitalized for their lives unless they magically were cured of the PTSD, which pretty much never happened. They burned it into my head that I was a broken person, I was beyond repair, even meds wouldn't save me, and that my trauma was just so much beyond what people experience that I could just never hope to have the same range of emotions that "normal" people have.

These things are absolutely fictional and the fact that you are FEELING things now means that you are able to be helped and that you can heal. It's a real struggle to be thrown out with a diagnosis and a "good luck", but I think you have taken a really good step by joining this forum. :)

Welcome, by the way. :laugh:

 

[scott_1971_h]

Have you been officially diagnosed with PTSD? Doctors often misdiagnosed people as having PTSD While they're suffering from another dissociation disorder such as DID,MPD,psychosic.

PTSD could be co-morbid with any of them. From what you've told us it probably is but you need to get it checked out.
Scott

 

[Zmesf]

I feel like my personality shifts a lot depending on the personality of who ever i am with. Does medication change that? I just want to be myself whoever that is