Believing You Have Ptsd

[Deleted member 19804]

Ever since my diagnosis I have had trouble believing that I really have PTSD. In a way I want it to be true, because at least there is an explanation for the hell that my life has been since the traumatic event(s). And most of all, at least it would mean that I'm not just being pathetic or asking for attention. I know I'm not consciously making anything up, but I do have serious trouble taking myself and my symptoms seriously. I used to do the same thing when I had an eating disorder - I kept telling myself I was just being pathetic and asking for attention. Same goes for the whether or not I was raped story, the "what if it was my fault?" question.

I guess I'm just really afraid of being a bad person. And I probably still have a very strong core of self-hatred inside of me. I know I match pretty much all of the diagnostic criteria for PTSD, the timeline fits, I completely depend on my meds in order to get even close to the person I used to be. And yet I feel like I'm being an attention-seeker. That I shouldn't be complaining so much and should just get over it.

Does anyone else feel like this? Do you have trouble believing you have PTSD and/or taking yourself seriously? How do you cope?

 

[Sarah542]

I totally agree with you. I have a hard time believing I had Complex PTSD as well. It does explain my life however it doesnt stop me from keeping on searching for what is wrong with me. what makes you think you are attention seeking?

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

I used to feel like it. I used to feel like a no-good, whining brat. "Heeey, heey, look at me, I have ptsd!".

In my case, this feeling stemmed from parents who didn't want to acknowledge me. So every move I made, they'd label me as a whining, no good brat. They used that label so often, that I ended up integrating it, as if it were really part of my personality.

At one point, I started to finally take myself seriously, I think this mostly happened last winter. I went through a really bad time. A lot of hate came out, a lot of pain, a lot of fear. But when I came out of the depression, I started to discover there was more to me. Compassion, courage, love. As you start to discover who you really are, ptsd becomes less of a "big deal".

It's just one more feature you have. Together with all the other features you have. Hopefully you will learn, that all the features you have, deserve being listened to. They deserve being embraced. They deserve being forgiven, if they need to. They deserve your love. I think good development means integration of the good and the bad. Meaning that you become a whole.

It happened to me a lot faster than I expected. Positive change comes when you don't expect it ;)

 

[arfie]

I most certainly have. I started my therapy work in 1972 when "attention-seeker" and "bad person" were among the nicer labels available. You don't want the full list of self-sabotaging accusations I had to work through. By the time I arrived at the PTSD diagnosis somewhere in the first decade of this millennium I breathed a sigh of relief. FINALLY, something that makes a modicum of sense!!! I am not quite sure when the "c" for complex got added on. That addition might have been my own doing. Allot of officials don't accept it, but I am convinced that sustained, repetitive trauma is a different horse than isolated trauma. The symptoms overlap, but there are important differences.

I cope by not letting myself get lost in the doubts. I work with what is available and make the course corrections as I go. I build on what makes immediate sense and worry about the obscurities later. It's okay if I don't understand it all today. Small steps.

 

[RussH]

Hi Snow, you already know what I think about you, so I just want to say that in all my research regarding PTSD I can find nothing that says having PTSD, or an eating disorder makes you a bad person. So don't think of yourself as a bad person because you are not one.

 

[StellaBlue]

I have been diagnosed with PTSD by different professionals several times over many years. I never believed any of them until the last year or so...and even now, on occasion, I will revert into "I'm just crazy (NOS)". Right now, what helps me most, is to concentrate on symptom relief and goals and not on a diagnosis.

 

[sun seeker]

at least it would mean that I'm not just being pathetic or asking for attention

I know what you mean and struggle with the same thing, especially when I have an occasional good day and wonder why I can't get it together to do more with my life (and then I remember all the bad days...). It doesn't help when someone says something critical that reinforces my already low self image.

But I want to draw your attention to what you said about being pathetic or asking for attention, because this is something I've thought about considerably. In my opinion, it's a moot point. Suppose for a moment that you are in fact "just asking for attention." I'm not saying you are, this is a hypothetical exercise. Well, if you need attention so desperately that you would invent a diagnosis to get it, doesn't that mean there are some pretty huge problems that need to be looked at? Someone who really just wants attention could find a positive way to get it. The fact that you think of yourself as having PTSD means you are in serious emotional pain. Whatever we label the pain, it's legitimate and it came from somewhere. No one can say you're not feeling it.

I feel like this when people say that people who make suicidal gestures "just want attention." Well, I say if they are that desperate for attention (that is, to draw attention to how much pain they are in) then give it to them! If they could think of a more "socially appropriate" way of asking for help, they would have used it.

When I told my mother I was having memories of abuse, she apparently wondered aloud to a friend whether I was making it up or had been led to believe it by books or therapists and that the pain I was trying to express to her was caused by "something internal". My friend shot that down pretty fast from what she told me, but my response when I heard about it was "okay, suppose it's caused by something internal. And that something internal got there how, exactly?"

People who don't have significant trauma don't develop post-traumatic symptoms, it's as simple as that. Whatever the cause of your pain, it's real and you deserve to get the help you need. I don't feel I'm expressing myself as well as I'd like to so do ask if this doesn't make sense!

 

[Namenotdiagnosis]

I can totally understand where your coming from, I spent years been called physco nd nutter and I'm crazy coz of all the anger and hatred I'd consumed over the years, understandably my family were somewhat confused as I'd never told them about my abuse or rape so they were unaware of y I'd suddenly had this personality change!!! They put it down to the fact that is always had a temper and as I'm getting older it just progressed. I never tell n e one I have cptsd unless mental health or related diagnosis such as anxiety etc comes up in conversation, generally it will be when they are slating such diagnosis nd then continue to say it's all attention seeking blah blah blah , it's at this point I will say I have cptsd and have done for 15 years so when have you actually thought I'd been attention seeking !!!! I usually leave them with their mouths wide open, unable to answer, especially as I have a professional job and am v good it, I then get quite confrontational and opinionated and they then see a diff side to me! lol , probably because I'm very passionate about this subject and resent people who prejudge . People have asked me y? Nd I've told them it's not up or discussion as personal but if they want the ins and outs of this subject to prevent them for future prejudgment to ask me and il kindly give up my time to educate them!!! No one has asked me as of yet!

 

[Friday]

I'm the first to admit that I'm a terrible person.

I also have PTSD.

It's not my PTSD that makes me a good or bad person... There is absolutely nothing in the symptoms list that defines a person's character or goodness. Both the best and worst people in the world may suffer from nightmares, panic attacks, anger, ideations, avoidance, et al.

Other people may believe me to be a good person, or a terrible person. What other people believe about my character has no standing on whether or not I also have PTSD. It simply doesn't. The same way "Oh! But I thought you were such a nice person! How could you have a broken leg!?!" fails to enter the equation.

Denmark is a prison to some, and not to others.

 

[Deleted member 19804]

Thank you all for your replies. They were very comforting and helpful.

I want to clarify that I don't think that PTSD makes me (or anyone else) a bad person. I think that I'm a bad person no matter what and that unknowingly I must be a drama queen or something like that. That I'm expressing these symptoms because I'm not tough enough to deal with the real world. If that makes any sense at all.

what makes you think you are attention seeking?

I don't know. Maybe because in a way I wanted the diagnosis, so I could be taken seriously. So that I wouldn't be "just crazy". Funny thing is, I've always hated being in the spotlight of anything. It makes me feel very uncomfortable when all attention is directed at me, so in a way it's strange I would think of myself as an attention seeker.
It could be because of my very low self esteem, that I'm assuming I must be attention seeking because I'm not worth being taken seriously or something like that.

I know what you mean and struggle with the same thing, especially when I have an occasional good day and wonder why I can't get it together to do more with my life (and then I remember all the bad days...).

Exactly. I feel like I should be doing so much more with my life, go back to being a great student and just be happy. But for some reason I just can't. Apparently it's too much for me.

The fact that you think of yourself as having PTSD means you are in serious emotional pain. Whatever we label the pain, it's legitimate and it came from somewhere. No one can say you're not feeling it.

People who don't have significant trauma don't develop post-traumatic symptoms, it's as simple as that. Whatever the cause of your pain, it's real and you deserve to get the help you need. I don't feel I'm expressing myself as well as I'd like to so do ask if this doesn't make sense!

You are expressing yourself perfectly, thank you. I like your point that the pain has to come from somewhere. I do know for sure that I'm feeling it. It's the justifying that's hard for me.

 

[sun seeker]

That I'm expressing these symptoms because I'm not tough enough to deal with the real world.

So again, if this is so, why are you not tough enough? Go back to the source. I don't know your story but the low self esteem you are expressing would indicate how you were treated as a child. Small children develop a positive identity as a result of a safe environment and the right kind of interactions with caregivers. If that is interrupted for whatever reason, we don't develop the resilience to handle later life as well as people who did get that. If that is the case, how on earth is it your fault?

There is a psychiatrist whose name escapes me at the moment but he's written several books on trauma and recovery, and he said something I absolutely love, which is that the DSM would be a lot thinner if the people putting it together stopped looking to create more and more diagnoses and accepted the fact that most so-called mental illness is the result of trauma in childhood.

Think about the "attention seeking" thing. Even if you do want attention, it's not just any kind of attention. It's attention that validates how much you are hurting. If you weren't in so much pain, presumably you'd be happy with a different kind of attention. You feel the desperation for a diagnosis because it tells the world that your pain is real. I don't doubt for a second that it's real. Do you?

 

[StellaBlue]

There is a psychiatrist whose name escapes me at the moment but he's written several books on trauma and recovery, and he said something I absolutely love, which is that the DSM would be a lot thinner if the people putting it together stopped looking to create more and more diagnoses and accepted the fact that most so-called mental illness is the result of trauma in childhood.

It's John Briere. "If we could somehow end child abuse and neglect, the eight hundred pages of DSM (and the need for the easier explanations such as DSM ) would be shrunk to a pamphlet in two generations.”