Study Dear Researcher... Please Study This!

[Girl3]

Exactly the study I was going to link - thanks Anthony!

I told my psychiatrist once that if he could find the "cure" for PTSD he'd probably also cure most of the irritable bowel patients simultaneously.

 

[Cobra94]

I'd like to see studies on Third culture kids and PTSD. We usually get left out though. More than likely I'll have to conduct the study myself although I'm sure that would raise all sorts of flags on ethical research and biased results *sigh*

 

[Girl3]

There is research being done - but I fear that it is so fragmented and the results so "not PC, Not NEWS" - you see no one in the media wants a 'story' about alternative lifestyle children who've been badly affected by the alternative lifestyle. It's like the kids of hoarding - the hoarders themselves make great copy - great TV ratings because it's so bizarre. But the ruined lives of the hoarder children - or heaven forbid, the non-hoarding children of hoarders - yeah, that's not so super for ratings. Because it's so 'duh.'

But anytime you put a child into a home where way abnormal is the norm and then something or many things bad happen, PTSD is a reasonably common outcome. It isn't the sort of thing that gets a lot of headlines. Really - the child of two lesbians or two gay men and something hinky happened with the kid - well that just trhows off what the media wants to portray - that everything IS a family. (At least in pop-culture, everything is a family and it is ALL good.) Except it isn't.

Things also have to fit into Hollywood's idea of how things fit. Incest between a father and a daughter in the Appalachians or the South is how it IS. But it happens in NYC, in LA, in San Fran, in the nicest of places. Men beat up women under a certain income and it's normal, but it doesn't happen in Hollywood. Lesbians and gays are always enlightened people, whereas everyone else is just a little 'less so. So if two gay men adopt a child and then the adopted child gets sexually molested by Uncle Gary who isn't really an uncle - that isn't going to get the light of day. But you take a WASP household with a bread-winner guy who also molests his daughter - that will be TV movie of the week.

Do your own research - many great research projects are founded upon personal experience - you just need to do the research in an official capacity, under standard rules. I wish you much luck.

 

[Loveneverfails]

I just wanted to say after reading this thread I felt comforted to know I'm not the only one with many of these issues and that they're directly linked to my PTSD and anxiety issues. Makes me believe in my body a little bit more, and that I'm not falling apart!

 

[Red Feather]

Maybe this has been done before, and if so, would really like to read the source material.

I would like someone to research how expensive abuse really is... i.e. abuse including all types, physical, emotional, and sexual. This would entail figuring out the percentage of abuse victims that end up getting PTSD and other abuse related illnesses, and the medical costs, disability payments, medication, therapy, health-care practioner's costs etc. Must be an enormous amount huh??

 

[Girl3]

23 billion a year in the US is the current payout in PTSD based on a combination of Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurance. That doesn't count a lot of people. Current estimates are 7-8k per year per person with a diagnosis. But there are lots of people walking around without a diagnosis.

 

[SweetPeaandSunBird]

Is there any research about spatial disorientation when moving from one local to the next in daily routine of errands, etc.?

I find that if I have to change geographical locations more than 2 or 3 times a day -- workplace to bank to grocery store -- my brain is fried. I "numb out" for hours until I seem to fit again into whatever place I finally land for the rest of the day.

 

[Britt.f7]

sometimes if you type in what you are looking for and clinical trials you may find legitimate places that are conducting studies.

I did that for one of my medical diagnoses because they were having a hard time treating me. It was totally worth it. Good luck!

 

[BloomInWinter]

I hope someone will study patients with obesity to determine, at the start of their treatment, whether or not they have markers for psychological trauma. Rather than just treating PTSD patients who are obese, I believe that some obese patients who are tested will turn out to have some level of PTS or PTSD, or other disorders of extreme stress.

I've never been skinny, but used to be active and 20 pounds from my target weight. Then, one of my big traumas hit.

From my diary...

"I learned then that it's not EXERCISE that I can't stand. It's not sweat that freaks me out. It's my pounding heart, combined with the sound of my own breathing heavy that, 15 years ago, turned into a trigger to my big trauma...and parts of these others.

Then, I went from being someone who was swimming, running, rollerblading, hiking, biking regularly...and gained 60 lb. in one year. I ate away my anxiety. I became an exercise/elevated heart rate/elevated breathing rate avoider. Because it triggered me back to the feelings of terror.

My system was so flooded with cortisol this summer from the internal system stress that I went into irregular heartbeats. I went to the E.R. - and learned that my heart is FAR from defective. In fact, internally I'm in rather good shape, considering the fact I'm so obese now.

...and that was when I began biking again for the first time since before my big trauma with my ex.

I was so agoraphobic that I had anxiety attacks just going around the block. I had to put on an ipod with new music that had NO relationship to any of my traumas...and put it on LOUD...so I wouldn't be able to hear my heavy breathing. I ignored my pounding chest.

I kept riding, every day. I went in ever increasing areas around my home. Soon, around my city. Then, I started going past areas of the city I have avoided because of some of my awful paramedic memories. Finally, I started riding out in the country...and found myself again."