Understanding Ptsd - By Anthony Parsons

[Iam]

Thanks Anna-Lisa. I know she has told me before that with PTSD the aim is to learn to manage our symptoms. I know that I have longer and longer periods of time when my symptoms are under control to the point that I am almost symptom free. Then when I get triggered they pop up again. I don't get triggered as much now, or at least am able to get the symptoms under control much faster usually. If I get severely triggered it takes longer. I can remove the stress but the symptoms are still apparent and I am more sensitive to any other triggers occurring at that time.

It's very frustrating to get the symptoms under control only to have them flare up again. I guess I get false hope that I've beaten this damn thing. Grrrr! As Anthony stated above, all we can do is keep chipping away at it.

I'll post what Ann tells me about a "new" dx. I suspect she'll say it's malarky ;)

 

[anthony]

Iam, you can no longer meet the diagnostic criteria for PTSD, thus you no longer have the diagnosis. It doesn't mean your cured...

You have to think about PTSD on a severity scale.

If you consistently no longer endure the minimum symptom level and are participating within life, then you no longer meet the diagnostic criteria for insurance and legal purposes.

If a stressful event happens, or traumatic, because you have PTSD you are now susceptible to it every time. More than likely, if involved directly within a traumatic event, even witnessing, you may find heightened symptom return.

Once you have it, you are susceptible for your entire life. Again, a small percentage have lifetime PTSD, which means they will suffer minimum symptom requirements or more every single month, if not weekly / fortnightly, without participating too much in life itself.

Think like cancer. They can remove it, its considered in remission, so you don't have it now... but your now genetically highly likely to get it again. PTSD is the same... once you've had it, you can heal completely, however; you're now highly susceptible to ensure worse symptoms when faced with too much stress or a traumatic event. Just like cancer, when it comes back it does so worse than the first time round as a majority.

You may now consistently only fit GAD. Again though, if highly stressed or exposed to another traumatic event, that will change back to PTSD if you display the symptoms again. Eventually, you will become worse and worse if constantly exposed to traumatic events within your life. The less stress and issues faced, the less likely you are to endure PTSD again. It may only take a normal life event, such as the death of a friend, to bring back your entire past of trauma and PTSD. Yes, even though normal death is not traumatic enough to give you PTSD, the normal death is only the trigger... the PTSD will come back due to all your past trauma, even though you healed it, your brain will drag everything up again.

 

[anthony]

Anthony, you explained everything very well except: You cannot DIVIDE everything between YOUR military experience and our Civilian experience with nothing in between. There ARE things in between... and, yeah, I DID suffer abuse before the combat experience... so did my dad before his Viet Nam.

Anthony, my therapist is doing a VERY good job on a thing that she can't imagine. I DO trust her. I also made her cry, two times and that was a betrayal to me: I need her to be strong and not cry... except, I describe everything THAT well.

Hey Tabula,

Yes, there is a lot between things I say here and your experiences... hence why helping someone has to be one on one, because any document, statement or other can only touch generics, not specifics.

Yes, I get the point about the combat site, however, the rule exists for good reason... veterans don't play nicely with others as a majority, so they have their own area so they do help one another. Whilst there are lots of different way you could describe combat experience, that site is purely for military trained who have served in combat. Nothing more, nothing less.

This site covers everyone else.

No, no offense taken. Again though, this document was written some years ago and lots of changes since then and now... the rewrite is started, and whilst not all that difficult to change, I tend to sit on things and think about them, decide what I want in it, what I don't... etc. I could just rewrite it and release it within a day, but chances are I would hate the outcome and be constantly changing it, so I just sit on it, do little by little until happy with the complete document, then release.

Yes, you need that individuality treatment though... its the essence of PTSD therapy.

 

[Iam]

Iam, you can no longer meet the diagnostic criteria for PTSD, thus you no longer have the diagnosis. It doesn't mean your cured...

Think like cancer. They can remove it, its considered in remission, so you don't have it now... but your now genetically highly likely to get it again. PTSD is the same... once you've had it, you can heal completely, however; you're now highly susceptible to ensure worse symptoms when faced with too much stress or a traumatic event.

You may now consistently only fit GAD.

OK......that makes sense to me Anthony. And actually, that is good news! Maybe I will be lucky and nothing in my life will be traumatic or stressful enough to cause me to slip back into PTSD. Now that gives me hope!

 

[kimberley dawn]

I thought I was more or less "cured" for the last 6-7 years. Didn't expose myself to any triggers if I could help it, and the days I felt like it was comming back, I went hiking with the dogs til I was totally exhausted. I also worked mostly with dogs then, not people..
Then the three eldest of us got triggered bad. (I'm the only one with any diagnosis in the psycik area). I smacked right back down to back-flashes, anxiety, no-trust, well the hole shebang. My brother got such a back ache he couldn't go back to sea for the first time in his life. My sister was diagnosed with herpes on her frontal "whatever" in her brain.

But I faught it once so think I can fight my way back up again this time too, with the right support.

Looking forward to the new document here!

 

[Nicolette]

You may now consistently only fit GAD.

Does this then mean that a PTSD diagnosis, can at times, be a timing issue depending on what stressors or lack of a person is experiencing?

What I am trying to say that if Iam went for assessment for the first time today she is told she has GAD. But we know she has PTSD.... so does the diagnostic system sometimes fail this way? Again I also presume the opposite can happen when someone is diagnosed with PTSD but under tremendous stress, but once removed only has GAD?

 

[anthony]

Does this then mean that a PTSD diagnosis, can at times, be a timing issue depending on what stressors or lack of a person is experiencing?

Yes... only about 6% of those with PTSD will have lifetime PTSD, being lifetime symptoms. The majority of PTSD sufferers will recover and no longer meet the diagnostic criteria... but if exposed to further stressors, it will return.

 

[lost4awhile]

Anthony and Iam- Speaking about fitting the diagnostic criteria for ptsd, does anyone else who experiences this or even has a good week fear what will happen in their lives if yet another traumatic event occurs? Wouldn't it be so nice to pick up the pieces like everyone else seems to for once?

 

[Loloma]

Anthony,

I fit into the 6% category. My PTSD covers a lifetime. Began as a child, which in turn affected my life choices and put me in situations that had terrible consequences. I picked the wrong partners in relationships, first going from one that was extremely aggressive towards me and the children, to the other that was passive aggressive. In hindsight he may suffer from BPD. Looking for love and affection was my downfall, and a huge problem if you suffer from PTSD. Your just not rational enough not to see through your huge rose coloured glasses.

We cannot pick our parents (wouldn't that be nice). However the long term affects of dysfunctional parents on their children can be devastating, as was the case with my siblings and I. We lived in constant fear even as adults especially where my father was concerned, while he was still alive ruled our lives. It only increased later with his death, when the authorities started hounding us all. There are still areas that I have not touched in my diary regarding my father's activities that let to the deaths and suicide of my siblings. Still not up to it..

My PTSD will always be there, and when another trauma happens I fall in the black hole, isolate myself, the self doubt appears and I'm lost. That's where I am now.

 

[Iam]

Speaking about fitting the diagnostic criteria for ptsd, does anyone else who experiences this or even has a good week fear what will happen in their lives if yet another traumatic event occurs? ?

I think so L4A, at least I was worrying about that. I think that is why I struggled so much when my anxiety sky rocketed this last couple of weeks when a bunch of stuff hit me all at once. My fear of slipping back into full fledged PTSD symptoms made my anxiety even worse and really upset me. Anthony's explanation helped me sooo much. Lots less anxiety today because of it.

Both my Ts have warned me not to fear PTSD flaring up again. I don't think they would have told me that if it wasn't a common fear. My trauma T said that I will experience negative emotions just like everyone else, albeit maybe a more intensely, but that doesn't mean the PTSD is coming back. To use my coping skills and if I am struggling I can always call her and come in for a tune up. That's for future as I am currently still seeing both of them. The key here, is in the future to call and get help early on so it doesn't become PTSD again.

Don't know if I answered your question?

 

[Iam]

I fit into the 6% category. My PTSD covers a lifetime.
We cannot pick our parents (wouldn't that be nice). However the long term affects of dysfunctional parents on their children can be devastating, as was the case with my siblings and I.

My PTSD will always be there, and when another trauma happens I fall in the black hole, isolate myself, the self doubt appears and I'm lost. That's where I am now.

(((Loloma))) I understand and am so sorry you have to go thru this. Looking back it's obvious that I've had PTSD since I was a child. My father is a recovering alcoholic and was physically abusive while I was growing up. My mom has BPD and still tries to be abusive. I say "tries" because I keep my boundaries fully in place and won't talk with her when she is acting that way and we purposefully live far from her. Her voicemails still increase my symptoms. I get calls from my step dad wanting me to help with her. Even get calls from her friends making me out to be a terrible daughter for not coming and "helping" my mother. My anxiety sky rockets just typing that out. It is a constant struggle for me not to slip back into that dark hole.

I am so sorry you're there now, because I know how hard it is to get out of it. The one thing I can say is, hold onto knowing that you've pulled out of it before and have been able to manage your symptoms to a better degree than you are at present.

On the diary thing.......that takes time. Write in it as you are able. Keep working at it, don't give up, it's worth the hard painful work to be able to live a better life.

 

[Girl3]

A life without PTSD would be - to me - the most remarkable of lives. I have never lived without it as far as my memory serves (48 of 51 years.) In fact, I don't even hope to be free of PTSD - just less harried by the symptoms and have a better set of cards with which to play.

Iam - I know the BPD mother - she is my own. I can tell you stories that probably mirror your own, but it all boils down to "your fault" and "you're a bad child/person."

As for the imbalance of the brain - the brain is not a train station with different spots that are terminals. It is more - for lack of a better example - like Google. If you input certain data, and have a search without "safe" on - you'll get a lot of different hits, with a wide range of meanings, and all with different outcomes if you search further. NO area of the brain by itself is the PTSD center. The amygdala is involved because the amygdala is in charge of primitive - do I run, fight, or freeze decisions based on minimal data input. It is the lowest form of survival - because if you are being chased by a lion, you don't really want to cerebrate over is the lion hungry, does it look angry, is it in heat, are there cubs, etc. Because by the time you consider all that data, you're rapidly becoming lion-poop. Likewise, the hippocampus contributes - as does the thalmus, and the cortex. Right brain activities are spacial/performance/patterns while the left brain is analytical/speech/logic. If patterns trigger PTSD behavior, it doesn't mean that you can be logical or speak appropriately or analyse things.

Training the brain to do things is a matter of repetition, decision, and reinforcement. To learn any new task requires that a new imprint be made, repeated, and reinforced. The hardest part for most of us is the decision to imprint something new. We get comfortable with our patterns of behavior. Finding a new prince charming to fix my life is easier than taking care of myself. Fighting is easier than stopping and figuring out what a normal socialized human being would do. Stabbing someone who breaks into your house is easier (for me) than calling the police and reporting an attacker and wait for the police to show up. Granted most people wouldn't opt to attack their attacker - and you may think it dandy - but most people have not in fact stabbed their attacker.

There is a great amount of science backing that the brain can be retrained - areas that aren't even normally related can be trained - to carry out functions. But it requires commitment - time and effort - by the person. It cannot at this time be enacted upon you - nor is there any medicine that can make you automatically do what you need to do.

PTSD for the combat veteran IS different than that of the civilian, just like PTSD for the lengthy lifetime variety is different than for the one-trauma type: but it is all PTSD and is being studied under the aegis of PTSD. I can vouch that rape is different than incest which are both different than stranger-assault which is different than domestic abuse. Awareness under anesthesia is totally different than being sexually abused by your Karate teacher. But I can also vouch that PTSD, regardless of trigger, invokes many of the same feelings regardless of underlying cause. I've never associated guns with my PTSD and take comfort in my concealed weapon - for which I have a permit. Each of us triggers to different things - our therapy must consider those differences.