I've been thinking a lot about the term "
PTSD episode"
Since this post is about the term "episode" and what that term is referring to, I am going to expound further on the use of the term.
I'm going to do it bluntly, of the sake of clarity. I do not intend to be negative at all. To answer your topic title question, YES other terminology is much better to use, and not just with the term "episode" but on many of the things you describe.
I can understand why someone would want to lump behaviors into things they can all a "PTSD episode." I can see how supporters want to be able to tell what behavior is due to PTSD and what is due to other things. I also can see that you are trying to sort out how time plays a role, especially from the perspective of someone who doesn't have PTSD.
You can dismiss it all the responses to you as "out of hand" but you are missing WHY the responses are so strong.
Think about that, why are the responses so strong? I believe it is partly because you are lumping too many things together for too diverse a group of people, using too many inaccurate unhelpful descriptions that promote bad stereotypes of PTSD. It also doesn't accomplish what you hope to accomplish - which is a good goal, but needs to be gone about differently.
First off, let's evaluate if "episode" is even the right term to use.
I contend that it is generally NOT a good term to use. My reasons are both personal and scientific/clinical.
Personal:
As a sufferer, I personally cringe when someone calls my behaviors or symptoms an "episode." It feels really invalidating. I have heard "episode" used in many painful contexts, and I have yet to hear episode in a context where the use of that word, "episode" was done in a way that was helpful. I have heard it used in many painfully invalidating ways. "Did you just have another one of your episodes?" or "you were acting irrationally." These are both phrases that have been said to me, and other PTSD sufferers, that were painful to hear. It's personally invalidating. It feels bad.
Clinical/practical:
The term "episode" is very very rarely ever used in clinical literature when talking about PTSD. It is used for other conditions, but trying to lump sets of symptoms into different types of generalized episodes doesn't
generally clinically fit for PTSD. People can go through time periods of having PTSD symptoms and then time periods where those symptoms go into remission, but this is usually
not marked by outside behavior alone.
There is also already much more precise language to use where people will generally understand what you are referring to a lot more easily.
For example, the first type of "episode" you describe could be more precisely labeled as the
behavior of an "angry outburst."
That language is not only more informational and keeps everyone on the same page as to what you are referring to, but it also invites more helpful practical solutions, understanding, and responses. It recognizes the emotion (anger or the "fight" side of the flight or flight response) and the behavior, an outburst.
Using terms like "irrational" to describe an angry outburst in the context of PTSD symptoms is bound to cause more confusion and even possible harm to understanding what PTSD, and is not, to the general public, and especially for supporters.
If someone is suffering from PTSD and has truly irrational behavior, it's important for a supporter to know, that's not PTSD alone.
The angry outburst can
seem quite irrational to an outsider, and in that context, carefully explaining that the anger seems to be more than what the situation calls for - this can be helpful to point out. In order to explain that the behavior can be better understood as a disorder of trauma survival responses happening when trauma is over and no longer needed. This is clinically a very different than than a clinically "irrational" response. If we start treating it as an irrational response, then that shuts down solutions and confuses what we are talking about clinically. Since you write that you are trying to help supporters understand what is going on, you need to use language that describes whites going on that is actually accurate.
There are also all the other reasons others have expressed as to why episode and the other language you use is not accurate. It is a spectrum of symptoms, and you can't group them into subcategories like you are.
Tried to define episodes as periods of time with higher concentrations of expressed symptoms within those spans of time whereas the non episode time would be a less symptomatic time but not completely void of symptoms.
What you describe as symptoms are not things a sufferer experiences, but things a supporter sees. S
ymptoms are not always things that other people see. You are confusing the terms for a behavior and symptom.
I think you understand that a supporter can miss symptoms for awhile until it is too late. What people are trying to explain to you is that this is actually occurring in BOTH the scenarios you describe and affects the "spans of time" of PTSD symptoms that you are trying to determine through your process of "research."
The
behavior of an angry outburst can last for a short time. However, if an angry outburst is there, PTSD symptoms are usually there as well, for an extended period of time, even though the angry outburst comes and goes quickly.
What you describe as a PTSD episode lasting a short period of time in scenario 1, as an intense spike in
symptoms, like on a stock market chart, is not generally a sign of symptoms of PTSD occurring for short period of time. It's perhaps a steep blip of intense outward
behavior that a supporter can notice, but the suffering and symptoms the sufferer has is not actually a steep blip. And you do damage to understanding PTSD and healing from it when you insist on referring to it this way. Sometimes even sufferers think it is this way, but the path towards recovery often involves
learning to recognize the slow steady rise of symptoms that occur long before the outward intense blip of behavior that occurs. I have sat through many psychoeducational courses and flat out graduate courses on PTSD, and a big point they drive home is that PTSD sufferers themselves will sometimes feel like their emotions and symptoms go from 0-60. As they heal, they begin to be able to connect to the body sensations, thoughts, and emotions that indicate that their emotional state and risks for outward behaviors were often actually rising at a slower rate, but they didn't notice it until it was at 60, and their stress cup was overflowing...
That's important to recognize, because once someone can see that this is really what is occurring, then there are many more interventions that can be done to prevent the intense spike in outward
behavior, when symptoms are slowly climbing towards that spike in behavior.
The slow rise in symptoms that usually occur with an angry outburst are often not noticeable to supporters as well as sufferers themselves. I am going to use some personal examples, but they are similar to experiences many PTSD sufferers describe here on the forums.
When I am struggling with my own symptom/behavior of an angry outburst. I am often suffering from chronic on-going sleep deprivation from nightmares and this increases my chances of the behavior of an outburst. Other times, I have been hungry from not eating due to anxiety, or I am extremely depressed, or experiencing high anxiety from internal or external triggers. Or I could be dissociated and not aware of my feelings until they spill completely over.
The outburst can come and go quickly. But my symptoms have usually been around for months or years prior to the outburst(s), and sometimes even I didn't realize it until I started to feel better.
This is how the short behavior of an angry outburst is not actually a PTSD episode that is short lived in time, even though you are trying to describe it as something that is PTSD symptoms that are short lived in time. (Others have been explaining this already, and this is another attempt to try to describe what you are not yet unerstanding.)
Another example of how an outward behavior someone notices is not always a sign of t
he length of time that those symptoms are occurring, is dissociation. When I am dissociative, people usually have no idea I am dissociative unless they really know how to see it, even if they have known me for decades and know I have PTSD and I have dissociation. Dissociation is actually considered to be a sign of really bad PTSD symptoms to the point that the brain is so overwhelmed by symptoms that the person can't even be present with themselves or the world.
So not only is the noticeable behavior not a sign on the length of time of a symptom occurring, it's also not always a sign of the depth of suffering and symptoms that are occurring.
There is much more accurate language to use than "episode" when talking about behaviors related to PTSD and the length of time symptoms last. You are not the first (nor the last) person who has tried to understand and summarize these things in broad categories, and few are successful in creating new things clinical folks who have studied PTSD for decades have missed. There is even heated long standing debate about the difference between the groups of symptoms people suffer from when trying to determine if complex PTSD and PTSD are two separate conditions or not. You are likely to get lively debate on this attempt to group symptoms as well. It is what it is. The debate is passionate because you are talking about large groups of extremely diverse people, and there is almost alway push back when lumping such people all together like this.
Furthermore, u
sing accurate language is especially important to consider when you are seeking to post a thread or article for an audience is a group of sufferers and supporters who tend to use more specific language than "episode" about grouping symptoms together.
I also hope you are able to consider that there are
a lot of things about PTSD that someone outside of it can not see, but that the sufferer is still suffering from. Everyone here has been trying to help inform you. Dismissing the feedback as you have, referring to thoughtful responses from well educated folks as "out of hand" will not only shut people down to participating in informational discussion of this topic, but it will invite more passionate responses to your uses of language and how you come across on these issues. People have a point there that you are missing and will interfere with reaching your goals.
Edited to add: I hope your dental pain and situation gets better soon. :hug:
