C-ptsd Information.

[jimmy-joe]

Since I'm the only one on this thread who got heated (as far as I can tell), for clarification, the heat largely came from outside stress (PoS neighbors) and the insinuation that I'm mistaking "technical jargon" for someone saying my experiences aren't much.

A) PTSD (chronic) is a bit more intelligent and informative than "Complex PTSD" since 90% of PTSD cases are complex(I did make that % up, and what I mean, for those who nitpick as much as I do, is the majority), it's kind of pointless.

B) Crack is refined coke. It's called something different, but it's still cocaine.

C) For the insinuation, 15 years of BS cannot be related in full to well, anyone really, so it doesn't matter what someone else thinks of the trauma. They do not know.

D) I forgot.

E) I don't know if the second insinuation was at me, don't care. :D Because I'm just mad at everyone lately, and I still think CPTSD is hogwash. And I'm so used to being the receiver of one-sided arguments, that I will argue endlessly even without counter-arguments(against me) purely because I'm obsessive.

F) I remember D. Treatment of long-term trauma is still, building a trusting relationship with therapist/psych/whoever your guidance is. Then working through each of the problems, finding ways to rewire fixed detrimental thinking, managing anxiety/anger/depression, and building self-esteem. And facing the fears of course. (If you refuse to remember the past, or delve into particular areas because you don't like the way they feel......................................................................................................................................................................................fear)

 

[Martin Taylor]

I have PTSD and a mixture of DID and somatic symptoms such as migraines. Nobody's is the same really, there are vague similarities. You qualify offically as having PTSD with a subcategory (side note) of Chronic. My forms from my psychiatrist to the Social security administration said, "Post traumatic stress disorder(chronic)"

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Great link, thanks!

 

[jimmy-joe]

On the dissociation thing, I wasn't thinking of the whole scope before, was thinking only of the numbing.

 

[Phoenix_Rising]

OK, right off, I am going to admit 2 things. 1) I haven't done a lot of research on C PTSD (probably will now though, lol) and 2) my brain is overwhelmed so there are parts of this thread that I have not taken in.

I'm just going to comment on a few things I relate to, the first of which is about personality and personality disorders. I have never been diagnosed with one. Although I was sent to a group of that variety in my teen years, my psychiatrist thought it might help me, as though I did not have a personality disorder, my long term illness and medical trauma prevented me from developing a personality in any normal sense. I can say it was a very negative experience.

But, I will say, that I don't think it is true that trauma and personality/personality disorders are two distinct things.

It was not until much later in my life, when I started reading books on recovery, and attending group therapy, that I realized that things in myself I had always thought were "who I am", were in fact, not. They were a result of trauma and abuse. I still can't differentiate that. Who would I be, and what would I be like, without those parts that are so firmly entrenched in my being, that I identify as me?

In fact for years I struggled with how to overcome my feelings and view of myself because I had no idea HOW to be and do that. I didn't know how to think, feel, see, behave, or experience myself in any other way. To me, that is just part of my personality, it is hard to view it as a "symptom". It's integral to "me". It wasn't until my new T explained to me that I could learn to FEEL good about myself, which was so much more do-able, that I finally had a breakthrough that has allowed me to start working on this. That was huge. I never thought of it that way before. That is just one of many things.

It's kind of like a sapling with a stake driven through it when it is young. As it grows, it just becomes distorted and warped, but the stake is inside it, through it, permeates every part of it's bark. It wasn't originally an innate part of the sapling, but now it has grown it is innate, as are all the distortions it caused for the sapling to grow with that stake inside themselves. That's not a personality disorder. And just my humble and personal opinion, I think it is really insulting to trauma survivors to stick them with that sort of label. Otherwise, we'd probably all have "avoidant personality disorder" and that is just to start. But it's not. It's part of having PTSD, being hurt, being scared and terrorized, being traumatized. It's a scary thing to realize, well, if you take a, b, c, d, e, and f away, what would be left of me? Who am I?

I have seen the same in others, my mother being a good example. If you took all her issues away, I have no idea who she would be. She'd been unrecognizable. She's 90% dysfunction and 10% person.

It is only when you look around, and realize that all of the things you thought were "you" actually occur in most people who have experienced the same thing, to one degree or another, that there is even the slightest inkling that it isn't intrinsic, although it has become that way.

It also makes it difficult to heal, because you can't heal what you can't identify in yourself. And, once you do, working through that is an extremely frightening thing, in addition to all the other fears and pain, you fear what will happen to you if you let it go or it changes. It's like dying. What will happen to me? What will be left of me? Will I still exist? What is going to take it's place, and how will I do that, since I don't know any other way to be or experience myself internally and in the world?

The DSM IV is really (in my opinion) not very helpful for survivors. It could assign labels that really aren't true (for years, I was convinced I was crazy, and there was something wrong with me, as a result of the mental health system and my family's attitude), and, like many other things, it is flat out wrong.

How long did it take before DID (formerly MPD) was considered an actual diagnosis? And once it was, that it actually was not "multiple personalities", but one that had fragmented into many. Or that schizophrenia was not a "split personality"? There are disorders that are rare but exist, such as Maladaptive Daydreaming, that are not in that book and will likely not be, any time soon. There are so many manifestations of a variety of things, that they have diagnoses like DDNOS, because they can't account for all the variations in dissociation. Not all that long ago, Freud thought incest was something the victims were making up, and was because they fantasized about having a sexual relationship with their fathers. Like everything else in life, psychology, psychiatry, and the DSM are continually progressing and recognizing new things, and previous errors. 15-20 years ago they did not know that some antidepressants actually INCREASE suicidal tendencies in teens. Depression, anxiety, and abuse in general were not even thought about or acknowledged. Antidepressants didn't exist. People were thrown into asylums and so-called "mental health facilities" for things like having PTSD. Women were considered hysterical in Victorian times (if I was trussed up like a thanksgiving turkey I'd faint from lack of breath and be pretty irritable and emotional, too.) The point being, DSM really has not been around that long and things have changed significantly, and continue to do so, and as they do, so will it.

But again, all just my own opinion & experience :)

 

[Lucycat]

I find this pretty tough to follow. I was diagnosed by a psychiatrist with Complex PTSD. He believes in it and thinks it should be a legitimate diagnosis. He acknowledges that it is not in the DSM and advised that for legal purposes I should consider sticking to PTSD.

My psychiatrist does not 'believe in' personality disorders and thinks they should be encompassed with the CPTSD diagnosis. He doers not think personality disorders exist as a separate entity, but are all a sub group of trauma. It is hard when the professionals do not agree....

 

[Phoenix_Rising]

Lucycat,

Sounds to me like you have one of the very few and far between GOOD psychiatrists out there.

I completely agree with both of his views.

While I've heard of people who have no traumatic background at all still having severe personality disorders--in that case, maybe the diagnosis is legitimate, unless they have another diagnosable mental illness, bipolar disorder, for example, that might account for personality changes.

But that is a lot more rare than most psychiatrists would have you believe, that there is a person around every corner with a "personality disorder", which is more or less them saying any person who has any behaviour they don't like, or don't consider "normal" without caring one way or the other what the underlying reason for the behaviour is--and it often makes a great deal of sense once you understand the "why".

I personally think it is a very damaging diagnosis. Especially so for those who have been traumatized, but for anyone, because basically what they are saying is that there is something intrinsically wrong with you, and it can't be fixed.

Kind of like saying a person is damaged and a lost cause, so just learn to live with it, and if you don't, you are then considered to be "in denial".

On top of that, everything thereafter that you think, feel, or behave like is considered to be a result of your personality disorder, you no longer have legitimate feelings and thoughts, you are supposed to distrust yourself and think "oh, that's my personality disorder again". And if you don't, THEY will. It's a very good way to systematically train someone to be mentally ill.

What can you trust if you can't trust yourself? Or you do, but someone else (or many someone elses) are telling you that you can't? And again, if you resist, then they just use that as proof that you are in fact mentally ill, and you are in denial. If you get angry about being treated in such a manner, that is just further proof of your mental and emotional instability.

Phoenix_Rising

 

[Truckinjoan]

Even as someone that doesn't have Complex-PTSD, if you read the research on it and the symptoms, you can't deny that it has an extra set of symptoms, ones that aren't as common in "late-onset" PTSD. I mean, once you are an adult, some of the symptoms won't develope as they would if you were a child and traumatized on such a severe scale from the beginning of your life.

 

[Meadowsweet]

I've been psychologically/emotionally abused and I've been hit alot, and I feared the physical, psychological and sexual humiliation of that, and I know how damaging to the mind those experiences are.

But, there are 3 instances where I faced that line between life and death. And those significant moments feel different to all the others. There is an urgency about the feeling, but also, there is a missing link. I guess I know what it's like to feel pain, so I can process that thought. But I don't know what it's like to feel dead, so I can't process that and move on. I believe thats the difference the DSM tries to define, and what makes trauma damage different from other equally damaging experiences.

So I do believe PTSD should remain only as PTSD, because it's the trauma part that links all the totally different events that cause it.

But I feel that using the label 'personality disorder' to describe the effect childhood abuse has had on a person, is misleading, because we have aspects of personality from birth, and that is developed as we go through childhood. If it's caused by childhood abuse, then its surely a developmental disorder.

 

[anthony]

The problem is that personality disorders AREN'T all encompassed with trauma at all, hence why they exist individually.

Whilst you have a psychiatrist with personal beliefs, the majority of psychiatrists, being the board of the APA who feeds back and collates from 35,000+ psychiatrists globally to define the DSM, the majority disagree with your psychiatrist.

I disagree with your psychiatrist after reading more into personality disorders. They do exist uniquely and are independent.

The problem is there are over-lapping symptoms in nearly most disorders. That is where the problem stems. In one breathe I can say its a problem, but in the other I can say that that is realistic, as there are only so many symptoms a person can have psychologically.

Regardless how you look at it, mental health is a business that is booming. People get too caught up in diagnostic labels. Mental health professionals love to tell people they have something wrong with them, because its a business to find something wrong. If you exercise too much, you have a disorder. If you have sex too much, you have a disorder. If you fart the wrong way, you have a disorder.

The business of mental health, due to consumers wanting to have a label define them, has grown from this tiny little book of psychological problems to this massive thick book of labels, all of which the majority contain similar (over-lapping) symptoms that only cause more debate on what a person has, or has not.

Creating another label that pulls pieces of symptoms from existing diagnoses is just another problem in the equation, because once again, you can have 5 people all abused from the age of 5 through to 15 by a parent, but only one actually has complex trauma that has developed a personality disorder. The other four haven't even got PTSD, as a child brain is proven to be so resilient and tolerating and forgiving traumatic events.

Put all five before a mental health professional, and they will label all five, just based on past experience, and even convince the people at some points they have symptoms that they either don't have, or that they experience so sporadically, it would be considered normal... because everyone experiences psychological symptoms at durations in their lives based on current life stressors, and they don't need trauma to have it.

 

[jimmy-joe]

Personality disorders are a group of psychiatric conditions in which a person's long-term (chronic) behaviors, emotions, and thoughts are very different from their culture's expectations and cause serious problems with relationships and work.

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None(or at least very few) of the disorders are classified as PERMANENT. The personality disorders refer to thought/behavior/emotional patterns, it doesn't mean, "OH NO I'M NOT A REAL PERSON CAUSE MY SYMPTOMS FIT THIS DIAGNOSIS WHICH IS REALLY MORE OF AN IDENTIFIER, AND NOT THE DIAGNOSIS OF MY "TERMINAL" CONDITION."

:D ok that was my last one :D.

(Sorry the topic continued :p)

 

[Truckinjoan]

I was just watching Dr. Drew. He has such a grate way of bringing abuse out in the open! Anyway, he and the psychologist he had on the show tonight, were in agreement about the fact that the number one cause of "personality disorders" is childhood trauma (i.e.abuse). So, I think that would make the "flaw" in a trauma survivor's personality, a symptom of PTSD, not what would be diagnosed as a personality disorder. Correct? Berore PTSD, I was diagnosed with gender dysphoria, which is classified as a medical disorder, but is also classified by some as a mental disorder.

 

[anthony]

Yes, a lot of personality disorders are "due" to early childhood trauma. Saying that, trauma is not how a personality disorder forms, it is only related to a cause... they can form all by themselves, without trauma, hence why they stand alone and are not related to trauma.