Undiagnosed Brutal Assault At Work Opened Pandora's Box

[landytoday]

Reading some of the comments here makes me both relieved and devastated. So, maybe someday it will go away. IF you work really hard to make it so. Well, I don't have the energy or even the slightest desire to work hard to fix a life that wasn't broken until that day. I had a horrible childhood. The stuff nightmares are made of..really. I won't go into details. I am now 46 I have had multiple incidents of horrific traumatic events. Including the premature death of my spouse through an auto accident and ...and...and....it's rough. I don't WANT to think about all the different things that are now causing me to live in hell and feel like I am going crazy..

OK, here is the deal. I was asymptomatic of PTSD, or anxiety for all of my adult life. Then 9 months ago I am brutally assaulted at work by a mental patient and NOW every memory I ever wanted to forget from my childhood is all I think about. Is it possible for PTSD to be basically domant until a final catalyst fires it up?

 

[Cannon Fodder]

I can't quote anything official, but from research I've done online it is definitely possible for PTSD to be dormant and then triggered later in life.
Google "dormant PTSD" and you'll see you aren't the only one speaking about such a condition.
Also, Complex PTSD can be described as having dormant symptoms.
Hope it helps!

 

[frisch]

I can only speak of my own experience. The answer I have is Yes.
My event happened when I was young and I just contained it most of my life. It was a 'one-liner' and stated as a matter of fact item and was only shared with a handful of people. Until recently, some 40 yrs later, it became intrusive in my every day life. I didn't know what was causing it as I was still in denial. Finally when I acknowledge that I needed to seek therapy as medication was not working, was when I finally was able to realize the source of many of my issues.

Therapy is working for me, but that is a decision you will have to make on your own.
And yes... it is very hard, but it is much better then the alternative and I am ready to move onto a better life.

 

[Venusian]

It was 42 years before Pandora decided to show me her box. It wasn't another trauma that opened it for me but a move to another city. It was the first time I had lived on my own, my children are grown and the son who had still been living with me decided to stay where he was. Before now there was always someone else that needed to be taken care of, my younger siblings, then my husband, then my children. I have always had PTSD although it was mild and I didn't know that was what it was until I began to fall apart last year. The blocked memories and flashbacks started to just pour out and I could hardly believe what I was remembering but there they were. The memory, sometimes it was a visual memory, most often it started as a body memory that were terrifying and didn't stop until I accepted it as real. Since then the details have begun to fill in the gaps and they are still coming back. I began therapy after months of trying to deal with things on my own and on an online forum. It helped but there is still a lot of work that I have to do to understand how to deal with all of it.

I wanted to echo frisch..., you aren't alone.

 

[PTSD sufferer]

Hi LandyToday,

Welcome to the forum. You will find much support and information here.

From what I understand PTSD can have a latent effect, sometimes years after the trauma happened. Our brains are funny things, they can do all sorts of things to try to protect us, some even suffer from dissociate amnesia (forgetting the entire trauma) and retrograde amnesia (forgetting the years associated/ and around the trauma).

You see traumatic memories are stored quite differently to normal memories, and sometimes in various fragments throughout the short and long term memory (temporal lobe and hippo-campus) and cognitive processes (thinking). We still have much to learn about the memory and trauma.

Some may have lots of traumas, and without help during that time, when something happens that reminds us of the events of the past, or of the emotions felt at the time, that can result in full blown PTSD. For example, if one of your early traumas was being attacked by someone you consider/ or was, mentally unstable, then this happens later in life to you again, the anxiety of the past and PTSD symptomatology may occur.

It could even be a more subtle connection, such as a single item (say a letter opener), that your brain has connected to that event in the past, which occurs in the more resent event, and thus triggers the old memories. Considering such 'triggers' (subtle or overt) can send those with PTSD into flashback mode, then it is plausible that, the same could be the straw that breaks the camels back so to speak.

If you take a look at the stress cups in Anthony's introduction to PTSD, you will notice that the more stresses there are, the fuller the cup, and this cup overflows with PTSD. Its like a worry cycle, when we get anxious we remember everything that went wrong in our lives (the past) and our anxiety and symptomatology increases. So I wouldn't be surprised if this most recent trauma, has you thinking about past traumas.

It is always best to ask these questions of your T, and conduct your own research through reputable academic journals about the possibilities and your condition...

Welcome to the forum, I hope life will be much brighter for you soon. PS xxoo