Why Arent The Criterion A Traumas The Focus Of My Thoughts

[Mallaky]

Hello,

I am not feeling too well right now, so I hope I manage to communicate well. I am in a very confused state right now, so apologies.

There is something I do not understand about myself and my symptoms. In the process of writing and thinking about my trauma diary I found out I have, so very suprising to myself, several criterion A traumas.
Why did I have to search for them for so long, they were buried deep, and why do they not occupy more place in my "worries" and recurring thoughts? They surface violently and vanish rapidly, so that I would not have ever pieced my life together without starting the trauma diary.

I mostly focus on the emotional abuse and bullying that my grandmother, the caregiver most of my life, did. I suffer from PTSD with dissociative symptoms, as of yet still undiagnosed. It feels so wierd, that her behaviour feels like the worst that happened to me, but is in fact not responsible for the PTSD. The experiences that qualify as criterion A can feel insignificant compared to my hate for my grandmother. I often have a hard time remembering the traumas. I dont really feel the pain of them, and it feels like i never did, but when I was a teenager tried to kill my grandmother.
What is going on?

 

[Sandstone]

You learned to hide stuff from yourself because your grandmother "forbade" you from having a right to feel pain and to need that pain to be cared for. So you hid the traumas from yourself. They caused you pain, pain wasn't allowed so they weren't allowed to exist.

That's very simplistic, and doesn't tell you what to do about it, because I don't know yet

 

[Intrepid]

Here's another simplistic idea. It could be that the hatred toward your grandmother masked the feelings about the trauma. Is that a possibility?

 

[Eleanor]

I suffer from Link Removed with dissociative symptoms, as of yet still undiagnosed. It feels so wierd, that her behaviour feels like the worst that happened to me,

Here is another suggestions - your grandmother's abuse caused Structural Dissociation and that made you more vulnerable to PTSD and has made it harder to deal with it now that you have it. There are a couple of threads about Structural Dissociation that you could search for and take a look at....

 

[anonymous]

I don't think you can say that the bullying and emotional abuse didn't cause your ptsd. Well, specifically the emotional abuse. It's a dangerous trap to only focus on what you think caused your problems. That is, the emotional abuse is at the forefront of your mind but you seem adamant that it didn't cause your problems. Denial will get you nowhere.

 

[Friday]

What hurts the most now, is not always what hurt the most then.

What did the most damage, and what hurts the most, can also be different creatures.

Pain is subject to change.

 

[Mallaky]

Thank you all for your input.

They caused you pain, pain wasn't allowed so they weren't allowed to exist.

That is very true. I was not alllowed to be alive at all. She was the only one allowed to have needs. Thank you, very helpfull. Still thinking about this.

Here's another simplistic idea. It could be that the hatred toward your grandmother masked the feelings about the trauma. Is that a possibility?

Maybe. But not the hatred alone. I also loved her alot. I wonder if many people with abusive background have this dichotomy. I have very complicated and changing emotions to her. As she is dead I guess they will never fully resolve.

There are a couple of threads about Structural Dissociation that you could search for and take a look at....

Thank you. Fits like a perfect glove. 100% fit.

I don't think you can say that the bullying and emotional abuse didn't cause your ptsd. Well, specifically the emotional abuse. It's a dangerous trap to only focus on what you think caused your problems. That is, the emotional abuse is at the forefront of your mind but you seem adamant that it didn't cause your problems. Denial will get you nowhere.

Hey, I think you misunderstood me a bit. I am not adamant it did not cause my problems. I wondered, why the classical criterion A, the necessity for PTSD, was so far away in my mind and the emotional abuse the thing I focused on for so many years. It certainly contributed a lot to me developing PTSD, but I felt the importance and balancing of it was a bit out of whack. Months could go by where I did not think, nor could even recall, the classical traumas, but the emotional abuse haunts me. On the bad weeks daily.

What hurts the most now, is not always what hurt the most then. What did the most damage, and what hurts the most, can also be different creatures. Pain is subject to change.

Very dense, deep words. Very true too. I will have to do some more thinking about this. Normally I consider myself a quick thinker, but everything having to do with the past is slow, slow stuff for me. It certainly rings true. Thanks

Big thanks you guys. Very helpfull input!

 

[BlueOrange]

I've been asking myself this question a lot in the last couple of weeks. My experience may or may not be your experience, but it seems relevant.

My Criterion A stuff is (mostly) far less important to me and traumatizing than a lot of other stuff.

My older half-brother made a credible threat to put me in the hospital with a broken skull. That's a Criterion A stressor, but it doesn't trouble me half as much as the other stuff. It used to trouble me when I was going to be around him, but:

• He was much older, and for most of my childhood, he was living elsewhere
• When we were both adults, I was able to talk about it to him, and he was able to listen. So I feel like it's over. (It's not impossible that I'm kidding myself, but I'm not usually this good at it.)

I broke my leg in a perfectly normal accident, and was made to walk on it for several hours because nobody believed me when I complained. That one is still causing me problems 30 years later, but it's not the 'breaking my leg' (the serious injury) part that's the problem - it's the 'nobody believed me' part. Still, being denied treatment for a serious physical injury probably is a Criterion A stressor. When I have flashbacks to this (which I still do), I can't move my leg. (Recently, this has improved a lot, and I get a 'severe pins and needles' thing instead.)

Most of the stuff that really screws with me is stuff that is well within the realm of normal experience. Being humiliated at school. Being blamed for things that weren't my fault (like my father's moods). Moving house repeatedly, across national and cultural boundaries. (Cultural boundaries were worse than national ones.) Pressure applied for academic success.

I am completely convinced that I suffer from trauma-induced structural dissociation. I'm no longer convinced that I have PTSD. Three days ago, my shrink put the words "Dissociative Identity Disorder" onto a form for the first time, so I don't think he's convinced that PTSD is the most accurate diagnosis for me any more.

So, I think it's possible that the reason your Criterion A stuff doesn't upset you is because sometimes the Criterion A stuff isn't the most upsetting. When my life was clearly and visibly in danger, people helped me cope - I'm good in emergencies, and I know exactly how to handle them. The thing I never learned how to cope with is 'everyday life'. I'm learning it now, but it really is the small stuff that everyone assumes you can handle that I find the most difficult. And very few people are willing to help with that, because they assume I can handle it.

 

[greenleaf]

A huge number of people experience "Criterion A" events without developing PTSD and related dissociative things... I have read various places that having a good social support system, or the history of good support in childhood, are protective against developing the disorders. To me intuitively that seems to tie into part of our brain finding a lack of social support in life-threatening circumstances, to be deeply threatening. We are tribal, social monkeys with computers! A lot of our mammal/primate brain in recent millenia developed to support the socialness. If our social network isn't good enough to keep us safe, maybe our monkey brains freak out, not just our reptile brains. (Wow, that was scientific-sounding! :rolleyes: )

I also found the frequent lack of support, lack of identifying threats to my life/health as "bad enough" to merit action, to be what has probably influenced me in the worst way in life. Trust of individuals, trust in general societal tendencies, "backup" in emergencies, that sort of thing, I have a part that feels like there will be no help, and it's totally walled off; not a separate person but a distinct perspective, sort of, connected to old images and places -- I can recognize it better now at least. Working on that stuff for the past few months quite a bit... But the strongest feelings generally aren't about my brother's violence... until something in the present triggers that connection, then that can get really strong... Luckily for me that's fairly rare now, I think I sort of "extinguished" a lot of my triggers by exposure during decades where I had therapy though it incompletely dealt with dissociative stuff, in my current view.

 

[Mallaky]

I am completely convinced that I suffer from trauma-induced structural dissociation. I'm no longer convinced that I have PTSD.

Did I misread the articles? I thought those go together. And PTSD is an official diagnosis, but structural dissociation a theory. Am I getting this wrong?

A huge number of people experience ....

Thank you greenleaf, you give me alot of hope. I relate strongly to what you said.

 

[BlueOrange]

According to the structural dissociation theory, there are three disorders of structural dissociation:

PTSD - one ANP and an EP frozen in the traumatic event
DD-NOS - one ANP and multiple EP
DID - multiple ANP and EP

A single massive event will cause PTSD. Chronic traumatization (perhaps lower severity events over a long period of time) may cause multiple parts to be frozen (DDNOS and DID).

 

[Summer Ava]

I broke my leg in a perfectly normal accident, and was made to walk on it for several hours because nobody believed me when I complained. That one is still causing me problems 30 years later, but it's not the 'breaking my leg' (the serious injury) part that's the problem - it's the 'nobody believed me' part. Still, being denied treatment for a serious physical injury probably is a Criterion A stressor. When I have flashbacks to this (which I still do), I can't move my leg. (Recently, this has improved a lot, and I get a 'severe pins and needles' thing instead.)

Oh my gosh, this happened to me. It's one of my traumas. I wasn't believed by a teacher, and she forced me to walk on my broken bone in excruciating jarring pain. It was very obvious to the eye that my leg was terribly broken. The trauma is not the break, but the horrendously painful experience of being forced to walk on it and the neglect/denial/refusal of care. I was only a small child.

I have never spoken to anyone else who has experienced this too. I feel so grateful to have read your post here.

Nearly 30 years later, whenever I see any violence or an injury happen to people -- even if it's just a cut finger, I experience sharp pain in my leg.