Research A Very Interesting And Cool Explanation Of Ptsd

[novemberDark]

Yes affirmative Hashi, I never started taking them. Why, you want them? ....

I took the clonazapams, my body wasn't shutting down on itself before (should have known it takes some time to exhaustion naturally) but had to keep going, so needed the energy. Sleep to reload. I never asked for new ones later.

I tried trazodone once more recently (was given to stay asleep, didn't know it at first, which lead me to take 2 and to clonazapam.

I'm struggling yes but there are reasons why I am struggling.

My mind and body are reacting to what's happening in my life and I've at least identified what the causes are to be this way (can't fix them), but it's a start. Body started talking....

I'm sure I haven't got all of them clear yet, but that's because it's individual.
The main part re: the so called 'support system', that I got down (calms me).

 

[EFPA]

Interesting article. I do not like however, that the article (as many others do) limits the definition of PTSD to those people who have survived or witnessed death, traumatic events, lost loved ones, makes mere mention to those who have lost jobs at some point in their lives but in a way as to suggest that they are not traumatized to the same degree as the other trauma survivors mentioned above.

PTSD research has come a long way and what used to be just a veterans disease or "Shell Shock" that only affected the "weak" has now been acknowledged as a real illness that can affect even the strongest people anywhere in the world.

I spent two years spiralling into the deepest, darkest, most terrifying depression of my life and went undiagnosed with PTSD simply because I didn't fit into the cookie cutter definition. One day a doctor listened to what I was describing...the severe anxiety, the nightmares, the depression, the flashbacks, the complete loss of interest in life, the unexplainable occurrence of symptoms, etc...and said to me, "I think you have PTSD."

I copied this from an article the Doctor gave me who diagnosed me and helped me to see that I was suffering from PTSD. I put a * next to the ones that applied to my case.

Why do some people get PTSD and other people do not?

• Living through dangerous events and traumas *
• Having a history of mental illness
• Getting hurt *
• Seeing people hurt or killed
• Feeling horror, helplessness, or extreme fear *
• Having little or no social support after the event *
• Dealing with extra stress after the event, such as loss of a loved one, pain and injury, or loss of a job or home. *

I think there is a lot more research to be done, and I also think it is important not to compare yourself to other people and their situations.

Just because your situation isn't on a list does not mean you don't have PTSD. Just because it is doesn't mean that you do. one researcher described it as any situation that causes extreme helplessness and fear. Don't put yourself in a box. We deal with enough guilt and shame already.

 

[Lucycat]

@StrongerNow . Thanks for sharing that. I found it an interesting and readable article.

 

[greenleaf]

I suspect that PTSD might be related to some part of our brain "deciding" that our life is at risk, or close to it; it doesn't have to be a conscious thought, since it's probably the "reptile brain"...

What triggers this in one person might not in another; it would depend upon their perceptions of their worlds and various other factors. For instance, caregivers often seem crucial to life itself, for a kid.

 

[EFPA]

PTSD can be caused by the threatening of our lives, but it isn't always and doesn't have to be. Someone can develop PTSD from any situation where they experience extreme helplessness and fear.

This can mean too many things to put a label on...

 

[Deleted member 1860]

@EFPA,

PTSD, by definition, must meet criterion "A" of the DSM-V which means that not just anything can cause PTSD. Losing a job cannot cause PTSD. Being dumped by your significant other cannot cause PTSD. The list goes on... So you are incorrect in your statement that any situation that causes extreme helplessness and fear can cause PTSD.

 

[NarcSis]

I think Solara is right, the initial traumatizing occurrence must meet the diagnostic criteria but, just to play devil's advocate, say someone develops symptoms of PTSD after a particularly stressful life event (job loss, divorce, etc) that meet the criteria for PTSD and not just simply PTS. Would a qualified practitioner not want to investigate further the true nature of this occurrence and get to the exact cause?

I think like everyone, we strive for remission of symptoms throughout the course of our lives. Well, if your trauma occurred at a young age and perhaps you've blocked memories, at some point along your life journey you achieved remission and coped with life but then are faced with a highly unfathomable stressor that destroys your previously established coping mechanisms, could you not fall into PTSD world again?

I'm not an expert on childhood trauma but are there not instances of memory blocking and are there not instances of people living whole lives before PTSD actually invades their functioning in their later years?

Just completely hypothetical, not looking to rock any boats, I'm awake at 5am with hardly any sleep here. You know the saying, "If it barks like a dog then it must be a dog"? I'm just saying, if on the surface the cause seems to not "bark like a dog" then perhaps the "dog" is hiding and there should be way more digging going on there, no?

 

[austint]

This article is great. I wish I could share it with my mom so she would see me and treat me like a person instead of "you're so sick honey you are just so sick, you're a disease" but I know that would be just like rubbing my body with raw steak and prancing past the tiger's lair.

The part about not eating to be ready for battle at all times was very helpful. My abusers told me I had eating disorders for so long, but it never felt right, and once I got away my fear of food disappeared. I remember being so afraid at lunch time I couldn't eat because I would sit there watching my daughter eat and wonder if her dad came home drunk or had slept with someone else that day I would need to be able to pick her up and run out the door. I would even sleep with my car keys in my fist or in the back seat of my car to be ready to get away.

This article really is so helpful, I feel like I can forgive myself a little bit for breaking.

 

[Mystery]

Thankyou so much for providing the article, I learned so much from it. Very helpful to someone starting to learn about ptsd and for family members who don't get it yet :-)

 

[The Albatross]

Just printed out the article, thanks for sharing it.

 

[scot]

I am quite new here. I liked this article very much. Thank you for sharing. At one point I asked my now ex-Therapist (didn't go well) how much he actually knows about what physically happens in the brain with people that have PTSD. He honestly said he doesn't know much about that, but that he also doesn't focus on this kind of thing. My question is: how can one treat something of which you don't know how it works on a biological level? OK, many things we don't know, but still want to make people to get better, so we just try blindly. What else is there to do? However, there is so much to know about brain function these days..... Maybe I should send the article to my ex T...:)

What is missing in this article though is an explanation of how these changes in the brain take place. What is the mechanism? They call it "injury" like so many others, and I agree that this is fair, but what is actually happening? Did the nerves not survive doing overtime, did they got overheated or torn, like what I would associate with the word "injury"? The problem I have with this "injury" and "healing" thing is that it sounds like you just put some antibiotics on your burn, keep it nicely clean and cover it up, and it will be just fine within a couple of weeks just by itself. So, don't worry about it, our body knows how to heal itself just fine. This doesn't work for PTSD. OK, somebody could say this "injury" was so dramatic that it caused permanent damage, but how did that damage come about on a biological level? The answer is actually in the article, but hidden -likely for good reason. It says that PTSD means that the way how neurons/brain parts interact with one another changed (semi) permanently. I think the problem with how this actually happens, what re-dues that, and the word that describes that, is that this is in the general public associated with wanting, doing it consciously and if we fail, we brought that up on our self. However, this is false in this case because it needs to happen on the level of the autonomous part of our nervous system which fortunately is build to refuse to answer to reason and wanting. Imagine we could easily make us not automatically jumping out of the way when a car misses us walking on the sidewalk while getting into the driveway just by reasoning and wanting..... A functional "auto-drive" is vital, without it we wouldn't exist and it is fortunately not meant to be screwed with by consciousness for our own damn good. PTSD means this live saving auto-drive is messed up and stuck at high alert and alarm 24/7 instead of only switching briefly on for a couple minutes or maybe a couple hours in an event of a "real" threat, as it should - if it learned correctly when we are save and when we are in danger. I can read real scientific articles, know about how it works on a biological level (part of my job), and still have trouble getting my brain to behave reasonable....though, I get really frustrated by therapists that now less than I do (and I don't know much) and thus are the absolute "dream" patient and people telling me that I just need to "heal".

By the way, these changes are likely to happen in particular situations, but from a mechanistic perspective, its not situational because stress is simply stress for our autonomous nervous system regardless of the actual situation (read the article). It is rather stress level and duration related, so I agree, PTSD can happen in any extreme stress/long lasting stress situation, this is logic knowing the mechanism. It just happens to be that facing death or seeing someone being killed is a case of such extreme stress.....and that humans generally have the inability to withstand having to put labels onto everything.

 

[greenleaf]

Hi @scot. We do like labels! :-) We also can only easily understand concepts that build on concepts we already know... This limits things for a lot of us. Perhaps I can make a model of this all in dark chocolate for myself.

I think that the stress that causes PTSD is thought to have to be life or body threatening, not simply severe or long-lasting. My sense is that this is due to the involvement in PTSD of "older" brain parts that evolved in our more distant ancestors for self-preservation, not the parts that evolved a bit more recently to use forums. The "Waking the Tiger" book gets into that very nicely.

Re. the "injuries": I have some background in computers... I visualize these issues rather vaguely as systems of connected nets, feedback loops, and colorful little diagrams, where too much input in one place overloaded one system, made it shut down and shunt input to another area... the original sections that would have interacted now might get avoided, but the brain can rewire within certain scientifically unknown limits... but there might be infinite ways for it to do so.

Since I was pretty young, I have thought that assuming I could not do a thing meant that I could not do it, but perhaps only because of that assumption -- so I've been very creative in working with my thoughts, questioning such assumptions etc. Anyone ever read "Jonathan Livingston Seagull"? I read that around age 12, and I think it had a big effect on my thinking ever since. A beautiful book.

The problems that I don't know think I was able to deal with, were things involving what was going on with these other brain levels... dissociation seems to have kept me from thinking about certain things for decades; this seems to mean that "I" am keeping "myself" from thinking about certain things, but it's different levels in a weird way that I bet a lot of people never realize are involved in what is "them". Trust issues, for instance, seem to need actual trustworthy people around rather than a book, and not just once! Who knew there were so many levels to trust!? Well anyhow.

Why is there a cat tail on my keyboard?