Not Ptsd? But Maybe Not "normal"?

[EverOnly358]

I also never answer the phone and will always phone back!

I never answer the phone! It's always on silent mode. Everyone knows to contact me via Skype. So I'm always on Skype, and when my friends come online, I'm immediately, "Hi, how ya doing?" because I treat it more like a phone. People think I'm so weird. And like, if my kids need me... they'll Skype me first and not bother calling. I have Skype on my phone. I never actually use my phone for phone calls, though.

 

[rightkindofme]

Y'all have more in common with my husband than me. I'm the one with PTSD. He doesn't feel cold. I live in knee high socks because I am ALWAYS freezing. I get so cold that I shake and cannot fulfill my normal duties without five layers of clothes if the weather gets below 60 F. I'm such a wuss.

I'm not normal in a variety of ways but slightly different from everything listed here. I have worked really hard on being a less repetitive eater over the past few years. I used to live on ramen. I ate ramen as my only source of food for most of my first thirty years. Poverty sucks.

I always have a body hugging inner layer of clothing so that I make sure that nothing can "slip" and reveal skin I don't want to show. I always have pants under my skirts. I always make sure that going to the bathroom involves lifting and lowering at least five things.

It's a thing.

 

[mytai]

@rightkindofme Ah a fellow layerer. Not a word but I'm going to use in anyhow. I don't wear as many layers as you do, except maybe when I go outside in the winter. But I always have to have under layers. I always have tank tops tucked into my pants with shirts over top, or sometimes two. One to tuck in and one to pull up. I don't do the pants with skirts thing, but I usually wear compression shorts underneath.

Not sure why, maybe it's a comfort thing. I rarely ever get safe touch, or hugs, so it's like my clothes are hugging me... At least the under layer is.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I think a lot of it boils down to hating to make a decision. My family hates to go out to eat with me because I can never choose what I want. I always get one of two or three things off of any given menu, but can't narrow it down from there.

I have three colors of the same style shoe. They're my favorite and I want every color in the rainbow as well as vintage styles. (Thank you ebay!) When I find a style of shirt or pant I like, I will buy up to 10 of them in various colors. My aunt has been known to do the same thing, and she was traumatized as a kid as well. My mom always used to say it was a waste. I think it's more efficient. I mean you find ONE item that you like and that looks good on you and then get it in various colors. My latest "like" is a button up shirt that Macy's keeps in stock and clearances out old colors when they get in new ones. I've started hunting down these shirts on deep clearance, lol.

My phone is always on silent unless I get an unknown call, and then I'll turn the ringer on for a few days (I enter a lot of sweepstakes and many companies call about a win but don't leave a message and they only call 2 or 3 times). Other than that, I only answer my phone if I'm looking at it when I get a call as it's on silent with no vibration.

@Mayday,
Can you explain the hand issue? I have a friend who is the same, but I can't ask him why as I don't want to pry if it's an issue of his abusers making him do things with his hands. Thanks.

 

[Britt.f7]

I definitely have quirks. I like to get from point a to point b in the easiest route available, even if it is not necessarily the quickest. I hate, absolutely hate, backtracking. However I have been known to take the back roads to places, instead of the road most frequently traveled.

I get stuck on certain foods, games, things l like doing. I'll go at them with gusto and then drop them like they are the worse thing ever.

I like most of my food overcooked. I'm really weird about how the textures of food feel in my mouth, so I definitely have hangups. Hearing people chew(or seeing it) annoys me to no end. And I worry about how I sound.

I love shoes, but more so when I was thinner. I find I'm bummed that I mostly wear tennies now. I prefer bare feet. A priest use to laugh at me because as soon as I'd get out of church, I'd kick my shoes off!

I use to enjoy kissing, but I really don't anymore. Don't tell my husband. Nothing he's doing wrong. I am also weird about touching. No feet massages, unless I'm getting a pedicure. Some will massage between spouses or family members, and I'm a no go on that.

I'm sure there are more but these are a few of that I could think of quickly.

 

[rightkindofme]

Food texture is a big thing for me too. I like my eggs scrambled and burned. That is the only way I will eat them. I used to not be able to eat onions at all because the texture made me gag. I have worked hard on texture issues over the past few years.

I'm a kisser. And a cuddler. I don't sleep unless there is another body in the bed. I can go weeks without sleeping.

 

[mytai]

I'm really weird about how the textures of food feel in my mouth

I'm such a texture person too. Doesn't matter if the flavour is something I would love, if I can't get past the texture, it doesn't go in my mouth. Jello, fat, calamari are all big nos for me because of texture. Although if the pieces of calamari are small enough and not rubbery I love it, but that is hit and miss.

 

[Promicarus]

I wonder how many men there are out there with similar "quirks". Seems most responses are from women. A sign that 'quirks' of habit/habituation,themselves, are reflexively associated with weaknesses, so not readily admitted to by men? Or just a matter of 'gender roles"--being "picky" thought to be associated with femininity, a matter of 'choice being a woman's prerogative' but not a man's for example? Especially the sex thing, of course. But I hate Subway, too, by the way. This thread has made me feel better today.

 

[Promicarus]

Promicarus: You prefer sandals to shoes? Don't like to sleep with others? Have an anti-sock thingy? Eat/Order the same things for periods of time? And stick to favorite fashion styles?

I used to wear sandals exclusively. Then everyone else did, so I stopped. Then I moved back to Texas, and it became a safety issue (Where yo boots at, boy?). Whether I like to sleep with others depends entirely on the other involved...but it's very few and far between, the enjoying of it...it's helped though, to realize, for me, that if they're not a person I look forward to actually sleeping with...then they're not someone I should be "sleeping with", in the first place. Just me. My instincts have proven pretty reliable on that one. My sock battle is all/or nothing...either have to have them on at all times, for a period...then can't stand them at all for a period. I could eat the same thing every meal for weeks (and have), and fashion/styles, as well.

 

[EverOnly358]

I think a lot of it boils down to hating to make a decision. My family hates to go out to eat with me because I can never choose what I want. I always get one of two or three things off of any given menu, but can't narrow it down from there. I have three colors of the same style shoe. They're my favorite and I want every color in the rainbow as well as vintage styles. (Thank you ebay!) When I find a style of shirt or pant I like, I will buy up to 10 of them in various colors.

Me, too... when I go to restaurants, I have to read every single item on every menu before making a decision, and then I usually can't decide and end up getting more than one thing just in case one of the two doesn't work out. It's totally ridiculous. Or I just order exactly the same thing I always do when I'm not feeling adventurous. And I am so fussy about my food. I like everything just so, everything on the side, everything well-done or burnt or crispy. As for clothes... jammies, shirts, jeans, shoes... I have several of the exact same ones, in different colors. Life is so complicated... sometimes getting up and getting dressed is next to impossible, so I need it to be as easy as it can be.

I really wonder, like @Promicarus said... are these girl things or quirks related to PTSD or just quirks. It's interesting and pretty funny, too. :joyful: Good thread.

 

[Promicarus]

@[DLMURL="https://www.myptsd.com/c/members/d123.21414/"]D123[/DLMURL]

I have a theory-just a theory-that PTSD is actually part and parcel of the female experience, from youth. Think about it--until age 13, girls are on a pretty level playing field with boys. Many boys even have memories of being physically bullies at earlier ages than that by girls. But think of puberty from the perspective of a girl at that age--you're equal in pretty much everything, and can even hold your own physically, in a fight, in most instances--then all of a sudden, within a year---half of the population not only becomes so physically bigger and stronger that you no longer stand a chance, but the testosterone kicks in, making them aggressive little as*holes, on top of which, they become suddenly sexually predatory. Hmmm...kind of sound like the kind of thing that would inspire feelings of wariness and inadequacy in a dangerous world--similar to the underlying basis of PTSD?...For guys, it would be the equivalent, I think, of suddenly being thrown into a prison with weightlifting homosexual predators (prison not for the criminal element, as much as the "you can't get out", element--the experience of being "trapped"--a little girl isn't going to find a refuge from the "maleness" in the world, after all)

Think that might be a little traumatizing, guys? I have to wonder, as well, if this 'sensitization' might play a part in what's always been known as "women's intuition". When you have to get wary of 50% of the population, starting that young, you get a lot of time to hone such senses.

Of course, we don't think in these terms. It's all too standard to the human experience, and accepted as a part of human maturation/societies for us to consider it as a distinct phenomena, for study, I think.

Plus traumatization still carries a stigma for most of the world, so putting it in those terms would be tantamount in the eyes of the average person to 'impugning womanhood'...a naivete which at least those of us here don't have to be saddled with. When you know symptoms of trauma have nothing to do with personal weakness, it puts it in a new light, after all.

So maybe the 'pickiness' that traditional gender roles assigns as a 'feminine' attribute--is as much a function of just the fact that women, being less physically muscular, and agressive, and the constant source of male sexually aggressive focus--is a trauma so "built in" to the human experience, that we don't think about it at all in those terms. But when the same thing shows up in traumatized males, for example--isn't it a potential confirmation that it does in fact arise from trauma, rather than some other innately "feminine" state of being?

As the student fish said to the professor fish, "What's this thing called the ocean you keep going on about?

Just food for thought.

 

[Barconian]

I wonder how many men there are out there with similar "quirks". Seems most responses are from women. A sign that 'quirks' of habit/habituation,themselves, are reflexively associated with weaknesses, so not readily admitted to by men? Or just a matter of 'gender roles"--being "picky" thought to be associated with femininity, a matter of 'choice being a woman's prerogative' but not a man's for example? Especially the sex thing, of course. But I hate Subway, too, by the way. This thread has made me feel better today.

I must be part woman then! I can relate to most of the comments... The decision making, eating same food over and over, shopping centres. I hope I'm not the only male who shares these idiosyncrasies or I will start to wonder about my manhood :D