Poll At What Age Were You Diagnosed with PTSD?

[trapped]

I'm just curious, to see at what age people here were diagnosed with PTSD?

My therapist and my doctor and several instructors keep insisting that's what I've got, but most other people keep telling me I'm too young (23), and haven't been in any wars, and therefore the fault is all mine and I just need to "not be such a wimp and deal with things better".

 

[Marlene]

Trapped,

I was diagnosed at 38 with PTSD. I got it at 10 and I've spent my life living with the results. Tell the people who tell you to not be such a wimp to go piss up a rope. They don't live in your brain like you do. And if that's all the compassion they have, then you don't need them in your life.

Lisa

 

[2quilt]

War is not the only source of trauma. They should know better than to say somethng so dumb and to trivialize your pain.

 

[cherryblossom]

I'm 35 now, but I was officially diagnosed 4 years ago. My PTSD is as a result of being raped when I was 20 (nearly 21). It's only now that I know more about PTSD, that I can see I had many symptoms before my diagnosis (hyper vigilance, always on edge, and very sensitive to other around me, also being really jumpy at any sudden movements).

I have to be quite honest, in that I don't understand what age has to do with it. I'm sure plenty of people here lived with symptoms before they had an official diagnosis. I don't think you can be too young to have a diagnosis of PTSD, if the trauma affects you, and you fit the diagnostic criteria, then age doesn't matter.

 

[linasmom]

I was diagnosed in my mid-twenties (I'm 30), however, both Therapists that I've seen for my PTSD believe I started showing symptoms of PTSD in my childhood.

 

[empowered]

I was diagnosed when I was 47 but I have lived with the symptoms since childhood.

 

[brokenchild]

i think i was diagnosed around age 14 or 15. i'm 21 now.

 

[catjudo]

Diagnosed when I was around 21 but had symptoms for years before getting help.

 

[becvan]

I was diagnosed at age 32? Somewhere around there. However I was diagnosed with traumatic amnesia at age 15, then childhood traumatic stress at age 23, then finally the complex PTSD at 32. When I first exhibited symptoms PTSD was not widely known, so I was actually diagnosed with the same thing three times, just all under different names. lol

bec

 

[Roo]

I received a diagnosis, finally, this year. I'm 49 and have lived with trauma and its various aftermaths all my life. If the terminology/understanding of PTSD had existed in, say, 1983, I'd have been diagnosed then ...

 

[Seychelle]

I was diagnosed by a psychologist in my early thirties. I have memories of trauma going back to when I was a baby. I don't know when symptoms started, it's possible I've never been symptom-free in which case I probably don't have anything 'normal' to compare it to.

 

[dedic8edmum]

Well I will soon be 35 and was just finally diagnosed this past February, with C-PTSD. Like most I've suffered in total silence as far back as my early adolesence. Those who comment "you have to suck it up", only add to the shame, self doubt, and depression. I actaully remember thinking several times over the years..."I must be totally freaking crazy"!! I say your 23, and already on the road to seeking help, stick with it, your worth it, don't waste time judging yourself by someone elses ruler!! No one but YOU knows how the events of your life have affected you!! Best of LUCK!!

ttfn