What To Never Say To A Ptsd Sufferer

[Ronin]

'That's bizarre' & 'That just doesn't happen'

I'm glad it didn't happen to you but I'd have a handful of former team mates & people I've met all over the place think different.

Hate how deliberately denying can some people be about some forms & intensity of violence.

 

[ReachingOutJ]

"You need to focus on the present"
That's easy for you to say. Try focusing on the present, when Mo...

My mother has said every single thing here, to me.

 

[DharmaGirl]

My former therapist told me the past doesn't matter. Really? That's why he's my former therapist.

It's not the past I'm focusing on anyway. My brain was injured because of multiple traumas when I was a small child, now I have the symptoms of the brain injury. I am working hard to change my brain and overcome this, so no, I am not focused on the past, I am trying to heal.

 

[Ocean5]

It's not the past I'm focusing on anyway.

I hate that. I wish people would stop telling me that. I don't even remember most of my childhood. And I knew I had traumatizing childhood. But I don't think about it. But people think it's so simple. Stop thinking and trauma is removed. They don't realize damage to early kids....

 

[ReachingOutJ]

Last night, after reading this post to someone to try to explain what flashbacks are like, and how real they are, I was still told "but it's in the past, it's not happening now." They just don't get it, and then they yelled at me.

 

[Saint Nik]

1. Get past it. You can't be suffering it still? (I forgot it was as easy as that! How dare I not 'get over it'!) Okay I will click my fingers, oh look. . .it's gone now! How did I not think of this before? Silly me(!)
2. It happened in the past, you have to stay present and mindful (oh? Even if I am reliving it, like, RIGHT. f*ckING. NOW???) - this was a counsellors advice. Re-educate yourself on what reliving trauma is. Don't you know the brain is so powerful and one image, flashback from the past can send your body into reliving the whole experience again? I have an example for you, and it's just to prove how the brain works: Sit with your eyes closed and imagine, yes, imagine a pear. Putting it into your mouth and sinking your teeth into it, the juices burst and drip down your chin, your tongue tastes the sweetness and feels the grainy sand feeling of the pear. What you feeling?Hungry? Mouth salivating? Maybe feel sick? Can you control those urges? That was just imaging a pear and your brain and body already acted, didn't it? Now imagine you are suffocating, you feel weird chemicals in your body and air doesn't seem to be leaving or coming into your body. You can't stop horrific images in your mind. If that happens, tell yourself to stay in the present with it and see if that stops the fear! Good luck!
3. Take a pill, that will help. (In my experience, it didn't, it made me worse)
4. Are you sure it's not just the critical voice in your head stressing you out? (Is this not a diagnose of schizophrenia? Either way, I have never been able to control psychosis I have entered!)
5. Be strong. Don't let this 'thing' beat you. (I thought I was being strong. What a great way to make me feel weak, though I have been at my most bravest in my entire life through this!) Actually it's the bravest decision I have made to stay alive through this hell.
6. It's going to get better. (I always want to scream "WHEN??!!" - This puts time limits on my recovery and when I don't see that I am getting better, it depresses me!)
7. You have just got to believe. (In what? I believed in Santa Clause and he doesn't exist!)
8. Many people get over this, its called Posttraumatic Growth is it not? (I don't know, but you saying this makes me feel you have just entered me into the PTSD recovery competition!)
9. Exercise and get out more, socialize. You need plenty of rest and sleep too. You have to start looking after yourself ( Okay, exercise can bring on my panic attacks 10x worse - puts me off immensely, though I have to force myself and this is also mentally exhausting. Going out and socializing actually drains the hell out of me and it's when I get these f*cked up thoughts I will die in front of people as I feel like I am dying most days. Try get to sleep? Can you actually 'make yourself' fall asleep? No, you can't. . .it just happens, like digestion, like taking a shit, I can't force these things to happen and I can't help it either when these things, such as sleep doesn't happen!) Looking after myself? I thought I was when I was on Super-human survival mode. Another day and I haven't died!
10. Are you not just over thinking things? Are you sure you are not being over-sensitive to things? You do know you are in control of what you think and how to help yourself? HA HA HA I over think? Okay, can you predict your next thought in the next 5 minutes? No, you can't. You can't even predict the next panic attack you will get, you can't even will one on, I have tried to prove a point! Over-sensitive? You mean 'feel' things, right? How can human beings stop themselves from feeling? Oh yeah, they can't, only when they are dead. . .right? I have control? No, that is an illusion. I didn't control my birth, I can't prevent my death. If I was in control - I would never have developed PTSD. I would be a functional human being in today's Society. You don't live by a script, you don't know the next line you will say, the next plot story line you will walk into. Sometimes you can't even control how you will react or respond. There is no control, just some days you just have the illusion you are in control, but ask yourself. . what made you even give advice to a PTSD sufferer in the first place? Where you in control of your stupidity and idiotic advice? Probably not, coz it was an assumption. . .you went with what you thought it was, meaning you weren't in control either. There is no control. There never has been.
11. Be firm with yourself, think positive thoughts! This is as helpful as a chocolate tea pot. Being firm with yourself doesn't work. . .Soldiers/fire fighters can develop PTSD and are trained in self-discipline. . .yet, they can develop PTSD, regadrless of their training and still suffer. Thinking positive? Okay. . .go and think and believe you can fly. And tell me when you have did this. . . can you fly? Oh, this isn't realistic? Neither is being firm or thinking positive.
12. You wouldn't last a day in the real world! (You wouldn't survive one f*cking night in mine!)

So to the people not experiencing this disorder, which is bang out of order...disorder, by the way! Just keep your shit advice and suggestions to yourself, if you have never experienced this! It's horrible! It's hell! It's like dying and always surviving it, just to die again.

While you wake up out of your nightmares, we wake up in to ours! EVERY. SINGLE. DAY!

 

[LadyUndomiel]

"it's never going to happen again" Says who? "just let it go" Screw you, if I knew how I already would have!

 

[reallydown]

Ah yes..."Stop overthinking"..."You think too much"..."That's the past"..."Stop being so negative/be more positive"..."You were a child. Your memories can't possibly be correct/must have been at least very distorted" (makes you wonder how anyone remembers anything?)..."It's over now. It's time to move on"..."You need a hobby/to get out more"..."You have to let go of the past"..."If you are feeling like this, it's because you are choosing to/choosing to focus on the negative." "You are annoying/always whining"..."You don't want to get better..." /"You aren't even trying to get better" "You are selfish"... "You enjoy suffering..." Anyway, I could probably come up with more and more variations on what's already here...

 

[Ronin]

'So your main trauma in that was rape'

No. It was rape as a part of many other goddamn things. It's not rape for being raped I'm struggling with, the whole thing makes a different picture. Nevermind I don't mean rape, singular, when I use the singular.

 

[jaccat]

Trying to explain disdociative amnesia to a friend:

"Well you wouldn't remember. You were a child."

No...wiping out the memory of your entire childhood isn't quite the same.

 

[Justmehere]

"But you are safe now."

Right. Safe enough to finally feel.

"Think positive."

I'm all for positive thinking, it just doesn't make much difference when my brain and body are suddenly screaming RUN at me when someone unexpectedly touches me.

 

[notsurewheretoturn]

Had a good one the other day,

'But you're an adult now, you can deal with it and then forget it' - and she was a nurse!