Rambling On Ptsd Diagnosis

[StellaBlue]

So this is probably not going to make sense - it is confusing to me.

I have had this diagnosis for decades...figured it was just a label...

Criterion A is "the person was exposed to: death, threatened death, actual or threatened serious injury, or actual or threatened sexual violence". I meet the criteria ...except there are times, and one of them is now, when I just can't believe that I meet the criterion...except that...because...well...I didn't die (except that I thought I would... "Holy Crap...he's going to kill me this time, arms protecting head, worried about the gut are as he's kicking me...or the knife...or...)...and the sexual violence part...well, I have always just called it a misunderstanding. Evidence...bruises, broken bones, blackened eyes...not important. There's this cognitive dissonance thing going on. I don't know, maybe because I'm finally addressing it with a therapist who is trained to do trauma work. I know it's there, I know what happened, there are no repressed memories (or if there are, I don't remember them :)). I know what I felt, I know the terror...and yet, I feel like it's someone else, like it's no big deal, like I'm making too much of it. But I am NOT that person...I am not someone who that could have happened to...I am not..

I don't have symptoms unless I'm addressing the trauma or I'm "triggered"...(I do get that this is ironic - but I'm kind of serious here)....

I suppose it's denial...and I don't know what I'm asking for...maybe just someone to explain to me what this is...or to just say they understand...

 

[scout86]

I think I understand. I don't know that I can explain it. I suppose it IS denial. Kind of. But, it seems like it's kind of "normal" to think that "stuff like that happens to other people", Then it either didn't happen to YOU, or you're an "other people"? I know I've been going through a "Wait? You mean my family really WAS crazy?" phase that's probably similar to what you're talking about. Don't feel alone!

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I think that your mind is doing everything it can to protect you. So right now, your brain is sticking its little fingers in your ears and saying "lalalala I can't hear you!" in regards to your diagnosis. Denial is a powerful thing.

The thing is that we all want to get better, but I'd say that most of us end up doing things along the way in order to deny the trauma, divert attention away from dealing with the trauma, or something else along those lines. I was in the trauma unit of a psych hospital twice. I think that ALL of us in there, at one point or another, engaged in some sort of behavior that allowed us to divert attention away from working on our healing. We weren't consciously doing it. It just sort of happened, and the staff was very well trained in picking up on such behavior.

My current issue isn't denying things that are directly related to my PTSD. I went through acceptance a number of years ago. Now I'm trying to get a grasp on other denial issues. Its so bad that I don't even really know the truth myself, and because my story keeps on changing, I know I look like an idiot to the rest of the world. (Stupid brain, make up your mind!!!) Its not that I'm trying to lie, but I know it must look that way. Sigh.

 

[Meadowsweet]

@StellaBlue this is exactly the kind of denial that I experience. I think it is a kind of dissociation that involves a separation between when the different parts of the experience. So the emotional experience and the sensory experience (pain etc) are separated from the intellectual experience.

Feeling completely detached from the emotional and sensory experience, the recall feels more like something we've read about someone else or watched on TV.

I do the same with PTSD too, I go through periods relatively symptom free, and trauma seems a million miles away, in a different universe, happened to someone else, and the whole PTSD thing was me being over-emotional and silly and I've stopped it now. But the bolded part here is something that I recognise as being what I was told in childhood (STOP being ridiculous/emotional - you're just being silly, now stop it etc), and my mind has adapted. The extent of what I was feeling was too much to hold in, but too much to show, so I had to put it somewhere else in order to function how I was expected to.

I don't know if you can relate to that at all. I've just come back to the forums after quite a few months in denial and am just having to accept over again that I'm really struggling and I need to do something about it.

 

[shimmerz]

But I am NOT that person...I am not someone who that could have happened to...I am not..

I think this is most of it for me. Because I feel like this happening to me says something about me that I have a difficult time digesting. How did I let it happen? What should I have done differently? How did I not see it? Why couldn't I leave? These are all very scary questions that I just don't have an answer to and I think that holds me back from many things.

 

[InvisibleSun]

My experience with denial is very similar. I have struggled immensely with the idea of my PTSD diagnosis and have often minimized and detached myself emotionally from my traumatic experiences in an attempt to avoid their exsistence. I've always found it very odd..My traumas are more like a real bad story..like a sad lifetime movie..I can talk about my trauma and exhibit no emotion..deliever it in a very matter of fact.."this kinda shit just happens" sorta of way. I'm working on connecting my emotions, but these things take time. Your feelings are very real...I definitely understand.

 

[meltot]

Oh man, I have issues with this, too. My pdoc has pointed out so many things that I've absorbed as normal feelings/behaviors and normal ways I think I should be treated, and so sometimes it feels like nothing is amiss because my emotional/mental experience is uniquely mine—I've rationalized/normalized it to myself. Add in some hearty memory blocks and time so far removed from my criterion A, that it doesn't seem connected. I've only had incapacitating or loss-of-control type symptoms a couple times (nightmares notwithstanding)...panic attacks and flashbacks are extremely rare and elude me, probably because of protective auto-dissociation. I only recently received an official diagnosis, and it was weird as heck. I've known for years that I must have something relating to PTSD, but this limbo of time I had between realizing this and getting the official confirmation from the pdoc was this cross between mercy on myself for my symptoms but also the uncertainty that meant that maybe I don't have it and perhaps I can be "cured". Pdoc explained why I was an absolute shoe-in for it, and I went home crying my eyes out from cathartic relief (vaguely religious-based guilt complex creates a hell of an environment for self-blame) as well as the dread of having a 'life sentence', as it were. As if I hadn't made so much progress and showed myself already that it can be maintained.

Thanks for this post, I'm glad many others can identify with this.