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Sufferer Trying to find other people who developed PTSD from an armed robbery or similar

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cazc

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Hey everyone
Without going in to more details than the title (I would be happy to give more details privately and with trigger warnings) I was involved in an armed robbery five years ago where I fully believed I was going to die. I have been very lucky to reach the point I'm at now, where I am generally happy and my triggers have a much smaller effect on me than they did before, but of course I still have to navigate the world with my PTSD in mind and may well do for the rest of my life. Anyway, I am trying to specifically find people who have gone through a similar thing to me. I've talked to people about PTSD but never found someone who I felt understood the actual trauma. If this is you, or if you know a site I should look on, please message me. Thank you so much and you will all be in my thoughts
 
i've hesitated replying here since this is not what you are looking for.

but i didn't see that any one else had chimed in. i just wanted to let you know that the experience you had you aren't alone. i didn't get ptsd from my experience and my perceptions are not going to help you. because they won't.

but it did happen to me more or less. and you are not alone. even on this forum. i am sorry that that was what had brought you here. and i've seen a few other people that detail experiences which more closely match yours.

armed violence is a truly heavy thing. but having been robbed is a distinct dimension so i hope you can talk with someone who more closely matches what you are looking for.

i do know what it is like to feel distinct from your peers based on the trauma you have experienced. and it can be very iselating. sorry this reply is super f*cking pointless. my brain isn't on right today. but what can you do.
 
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i've hesitated replying here since this is not what you are looking for.

but i didn't see that any one else had chimed in. i just wanted to let you know that the experience you had you aren't alone. i didn't get ptsd from my experience and my perceptions are not going to help you. because they won't.

but it did happen to me more or less. and you are not alone. even on this forum. i am sorry that that was what had brought you here. and i've seen a few other people that detail experiences which more closely match yours.

armed violence is a truly heavy thing. but having been robbed is a distinct dimension so i hope you can talk with someone who more closely matches what you are looking for.

i do know what it is like to feel distinct from your peers based on the trauma you have experienced. and it can be very iselating. sorry this reply is super f*cking pointless. my brain isn't on right today. but what can you do.
I am really grateful for this response. Thank you. It's not pointless at all. To be more specific, I was not personally robbed, I worked in a shop that was robbed and the armed violence was part of that, so I think I would still like to talk to people who have been involved in other armed violence. I'm not sure about how many details to put in a public forum like this (not for privacy's sake but because I don't want to trigger other people). And yes you're also spot on about the weird kind of isolation it carries. I'm very grateful that people are open to talk about PTSD as a whole but my specifics still just feel like you only see it in movies or other fiction. I'll have to have a look through this forum when I feel able to :)
 
I was not personally robbed, I worked in a shop that was robbed and the armed violence was part of that, so I think I would still like to talk to people who have been involved in other armed violence.
you can definitely feel free to talk with me if you like. armed violence in general was a big contributer to what did give me ptsd. as for triggering other people i wouldn't worry about it.

everybody is responsible for their own triggers as srg mentioned. in particular you are unlikely to trigger me. but i do also under stand the need of feeling more responsible for other people's feelings. and it is something i still struggle with.

it's hard to get a lot of this out because it's inherently upsetting for other people to have to listen to. but that's kind of the point of this place. and we do also have a lot of veterans and first responders here and law enforcement and whatnot.

but for me having been a civilian and a child are distinct components of my trauma that make it harder to connect with. i wasn't trained, i was being threatened all the time, blah blah. being a civilian and encountering these circumstances on their own is way f*cking different.

it's not worse or better or what have you. it's just different. thankfully it is rare. some times i get real frustrated and feel lonely and inhuman because of everything but ultimately i am glad that it is rare and that most people around me can't under stand it. it sucks for me but that's life.

the other useful thing about this place is that ptsd pretty much looks like ptsd no matter what your trama is. i've found myself able to relate to people that have trama from things that are nothing like my trama, but they still have ptsd. they're still dealing with the same shit i am.
 
First off? Welcome to the community! 😁

It’s totally mind blowing that as the 2nd most common violent crime in the US (nearly 3 times as common as rape/sexual assault), and in the top 5 in most countries? That robbery & armed robbery are so little spoken about, and that there are so few resources dedicated to the victims of these violent crimes.

***

Secondly, to put on my ModHat for a moment 😉 … and assuage some concerns… I’m going to excerpt a couple things for you below, links to the originals in blue, and toootally worth a read. But the most relavent points I’ll be quoting below.

Individual Responsibility


All members are expected to manage their own emotional and psychological regulation.

MyPTSD does not use trigger warnings. Mind reading what could be a trigger for another is a negative thinking style, a problem all PTSD sufferers need to correct at some level. Whilst some view its use as a courtesy, it is impossible to know what will, or will not, trigger another person, regardless the graphic detail contained. After all, this is a space where those affected can discuss trauma and its consequences.

Community Constitution

I just loooooove that last bit I bolded. ‘After all, this is a place where those affected can discuss trauma & it’s consequences.’ Just being ON the site, is trigger warning enough. We’re a PTSD site. We discuss trauma. That’s what we do.

If something is distressing to me, as a member? (All mods are members, first). I have all the power, to simply stop reading, and page away, or take a break, or do whatever else my conscious dictates. Up to & including clicking “ignore” if I want to remove member & all their content, a thread, or even a whole forum from view on MY screen. Doesn’t affect anyone else’s view, it’s a tool for my own use, in my own emotional monitoring and regulation. I don’t have to / am not “supposed” to depend on anyone else reading my mind, and knowing what I -and the hundreds of others on site- are going to find difficult and manage my emotions for me. Which is an impossible kind of helplessness. As Triggers & Stressors can literally be anything… we’d cease to be a peer support community discussing any and all things PTSD & Trauma, and just be a whole bunch of blank screens.

So, truly, there’s no need to worry about how anyone else is managing the things that are hard enough to manage for our own selves.

Again, welcome to the community! 😁
 
Welcome, @cazc.

You might find browsing through this area of the board useful: Trauma & Stressor Discussion, looking for the thread prefix "Assault" or "Other".

The forum search engine can also help find specific topics.

If you need more help looking, you can ask via Contact Us. But, you should also feel free to start your own threads on any PTSD topic you'd like.
 
Welcome... I am fairly new here also. Sorry my PTSD is not from an armed robbery but I can understand you feeling isolated related to not finding people with your situation. I feel very isolated by mine (PTSD from being violently attacked three times in 8 months by forensic psychiatric patients) Few people in my field will admit to having PTSD from this type of thing even if they have it. I delayed getting treatment for six months because I work in an atmosphere where you suck it up and just move on. I am getting treatment now and have been trying to find other medical professionals with a similar situation to mine but have not found any yet. I am sorry about your situation and hope you find some others to talk with. I have learned here though that so many of us have very similar symptoms and coping mechanisms regardless of the origin of our PTSD. My thoughts and prayers go out to you.
 
Heya. Armed robbery isn’t what caused me PTSD, but I did live in an environment where such a thing was common and a true, constant risk, as poverty and circulation of firearms made it very common. I completely get that while indirect as it hasn’t happened to you, the constant worry about it and knowing it’s somewhat realistic to expect and not something you have any control on is hard to manage.

I don’t know where you live and if you work in a kind of business that is more of a target of such things (let’s say, as a small jewellery in a crowded place would be as opposed to a professional shop of aluminum products where you only pay with bank transfers and a VAT number in some area difficult to access, and also taking the number of firearms in circulation into account), but depending on it, you might want to work more on "how to deal with the risk" or "avoiding the risk", or both.

By example one way that I dealt with that fear was to purely and simply, leave the country I was in. I also did it for other reasons. But it really was a big one. Now in the country I’m in, the risk of being shot in a robbery is virtually non-existent. If I remained in Latin America, I would have had to work with the idea my fear is reasonable and to adjust it to the actual conditions, knowing there is a lot I cannot avoid, and that very likely, it’s going to happen again. Here, the method would be to reason myself out of it. But I still, in the streets, have the rapid scan to check if people might be armed, have their hands in their pockets, look like they’re coming too close from you and so and on. That’s just stuff you learn when street violence is an actual thing, and while now it’s been far better than it used to be, I still am anxious when I withdraw money, have cash on me or feel like I’ve forgotten my wallet.

If anything, it still is something that makes my heart jump out of my throat, even if I know that an armed robbery here is significant enough to make a big headline in the newspapers, while in my place a robbery that hadn’t killed anyone wouldn’t even make a paragraph line, it’s just added to statistics. To make an article it should have been particularly random or heinous or significant in any remarkable way other than, being an armed robbery. Because it isn’t even an information. Your neighbours will already have told you it happened there yesterday, the two guys in the car, one with a cheap tuxedo, they’re being weird lately. (because the tuxedo is the remarkable thing)

Choosing a workplace that has less vulnerabilities or not working in retail, if available, is also something you might consider if none of the above works.

While with childhood abuse most of the work consists in avoiding to doing things that are an emotional flashback and producing all sorts of maladaptive patterns against triggers of things that are no longer true, and that you might make true again by the very fact you’re avoiding it in the wrong way, same can’t be said of something as armed robbery. Your idea about it or your ways to cope with it will have no effects on guns and robbers.

What you’ll have to do is how to accept a certain level of risk, mitigating that risk if applicable, and preventing your own anxiety and PTSD to bleed on the areas of your life that so far were functional and healthy and creating relationship problems where they weren’t before.

I don’t know if this helps much but I hope it does!
 
Oh thank you, I've registered now!
Yes I was shot in the head during a robbery in pharmacy where I was employed it was in 2013. There was 4 of us .3 of us worked there the other a customer. He shot all of us, 2 died. I have severe survivor's guilt. If you want to know more please reply. I pray for your peace.
 
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