Does Anyone Else Cry While Having A Ptsd Attack?

[Me Myself and I]

I was wondering if it was just an emotional thing or it's basically a PTSD symptom?

 

[safenow]

I'm not a doctor, but I think it's an emotional thing. There are a lot of PTSD symptoms. Most of them I don't cry over. But that's just me.

How long have you been diagnosed? Or are you a person who loves a person with PTSD?


safenow

 

[Me Myself and I]

I'm sufferer. It's been two years now :(

 

[Resilientbibliophile]

Hello,

Within formal P.T.S.D. literature describing the dynamic of what one is perceiving and how they are reacting to it, the barely or uncontained emotional response to stressors is key. In short, one doesn't divorce out emotions from P.T.S.D. for the concepts and definitions are deeply intermeshed. If P.T.S.D. was sold as a grocery store cake mix, 'Emotions' would be right near the top or just beneath 'Overwhelming circumstances rendering one helpless and exposed' on the sideboard list of ingredients!

With regards to myself, P.T.S.D. recall prompts dour depression mixed with crying jags that can last for two to three hours, whereas at other times I'll be lost in fantasies based upon 'what-if' scenarios of what could have been done or said to 'claim control' of situations I couldn't in moment such events occured. Rage, wild and out of control outbursts (usually in the car and largely out of sight) consistent with releasing what I couldn't possibly express in the moment or the environments where much untoward happened is what I'm talking about here.

There is likely a bit of gender-coloring to what I experience (scary and mindlessly male), and while I'm a bit better able to tell myself that I didn't say this or do that in the moment when bullying behavior was at it's most intense, there is a short-term aphrodisiacal quality to out-of-scale outbursts consistent with a deep-seated desire for revenge. A momentary and largely illusionary sense of power (think sadistic glee really) for expressing rage is quickly followed upon by an acute sense of guilt - and then the cycle repeats for exposure to triggers and triggering environments that carry me back again. People speak of emotional flattening, of trying not to feel anything or habitually registering no emotion. In sum it's a costly form of self-control that demonizes the very experience of emotions. Awful in total to be in the thrall of surely, whereas to trust people, to trust environments, to trust authority however constituted is an exceedingly difficult business.

I'm better now to the extent that I will almost shout to myself that 'this isn't happening, what you imagine you said or did to protest unfair behavior in any violent way isn't supported by the historical record - that this is all fantasy', but again, there is a habitual attraction to 'turning the tables' even within my imagination in relation to all that was voicelessly endured; i.e. the stigma, the giggling, the absence of any coherent official response, etc. When people know they can generate a reliable response from some marginalized party that is in no way capable of resisting, and if such cruel behavior is officially ignored or worse - wordlessly sanctioned, there really is no limit to what may be inflicted upon someone emotionally frail and not especially popular. Even for all the work done, these are still early days for me. Thanks...

M.

 

[timid_flower]

I don't know it it's part of PTSD or not, but I find that the more I work on sorting out my feelings about my trauma and open up, the more I am crying. Sometimes I feel crying is all I can do to keep myself from completely falling apart.

 

[Britt.f7]

Yes, there are times when I am having sexual relations with my husband that I will start to panic, feel filthy, feel as though I am being raped, and cry. I've been known to curl up into a fetal ball. I have reacted this way off and on for the majority of my sexual life.

Thing is, my husband is nothing but gentle and understanding. He would never hurt me intentionally and feels horrible when that happens to me. I never know when it is going to happen, though there are somedays I know to be worse then others and I just stay away from touching all together.

So, I guess, the answer would be a definite yes.

 

[blue-Ocean]

Yes, I have become very emotional since having PTSD.

It is to be expected with what goes on such as flash backs and things. Remembering things in flash backs is just as upsetting to when it happened for real. To me it felt like reliving it all over again but I never cried at the time of the event but cried non stop with the flash backs. So if you were numb inside during the trauma it sure will come out now as its all been gathering up inside crying is a release.

I have become tearful at trivial things but less now than when I first had PTSD,it gets easier with time but still have bad days.

 

[rightkindofme]

I think that crying is well within "normal" for PTSD sufferers. That doesn't mean everyone cries every time they are having a hard time or that everyone cries. :)

I cry a lot. Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to end the California drought by myself.

 

[maddog]

The more overall symptomatic I become, the more I seem to cycle between the extremes of totally numb emotionlessness and overwhelmed emotional outpouring. And mostly, the latter experience includes lots and lots of crying, sometimes over trivial things, sometimes driven by emotions I can't even name or understand, sometimes out of the strange stirrings of positive things such as attachment and the feeling of compassion from others...

The emotional landscape has always been a baron one for me, and to start to colour it with experiences has brought me more tears - both positive and negative - than I ever could have imagined.

The fact that emotional disregulation in general is a core symptom of my overall complex trauma picture certainly adds to the random unpredictability of my tendency to cry or not to cry.

Maddog

 

[Red Feather]

I cry a lot. Sometimes crying triggers intrusive thoughts and than a panic attack. Whenever I have a panic attack, I am also crying. I think it is because I also did this when I was a kid. Having PTSD and crying are two different things. One does not have to include the other, but it is more likely in anycase.

 

[timid_flower]

The more overall symptomatic I become, the more I seem to cycle between the extremes of totally numb emotionlessness and overwhelmed emotional outpouring. And mostly, the latter experience includes lots and lots of crying, sometimes over trivial things, sometimes driven by emotions I can't even name or understand

I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes I feel I go from one extreme to the other and I can't control it.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I do not know how to cry. I leak out the occasional tear. So I do not know. I think you are normal for what you have been through.