Denial? Avoidance? Or Not Ptsd?

[katiekat]

I'm semi-new to my diagnosis and am finally seeing a trauma therapist. I don't feel like my traumas are legitimate reasons to have this diagnosis and I'm not making many connections in my life to trauma and symptoms. I am still in the intake phase of therapy and my therapist hasn't asked many trauma related questions yet, but she did ask a question last time that made me freeze with fear and panic. I'm not sure she noticed and I tried to hide it.

The next several days I was in a fog and experiencing lots of emotional pain. But now I'm fine again. I'm afraid to address my panic about her question in my next session because I'm not sure what she asked about actually traumatised me or if I'm just over reacting and will look stupid. I'm also wondering if I'm trying to deny or avoid that I WAS traumatised.

What lead to my diagnosis was a period of derealization during a guided visualization of my childhood that my last therapist facilitated. I'm terrified of feeling that amount of fear and panic again and I started to feel it when my therapist asked me that question last time. Is it possible to have the most intense symptoms only in therapy or am I not making the connections in my daily life that brought about this diagnosis? Or is it possible I was misdiagnosed?

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I think that a misdiagnosis is possible. Were you diagnosed by a therapist or a psychiatrist? Usually in the US a psychiatrist does the diagnosing, I believe. I am a bit confused....are you saying that you only experience these symptoms in the context of therapy? I don't think that is enough for a PTSD diagnosis in and of itself as last I checked, there was a component of a PTSD diagnosis that required a significant impact on your life. I think that anyone would become symptomatic if they were forced to talk about the worst moment in their life, but that doesn't equate with PTSD if the symptoms aren't felt outside of that experience. Are you experiencing symptoms in general?

 

[katiekat]

I go through periods of chaos, high anxiety and stress. I detach from loved ones and spend a lot of time in my head or in a fog. sensitive to noise, unable to handle even the slightest amount of stress and have a hard time controlling my anxiety and moods. But then I will be fine for the most part for long stretches of time. I'm just confused about this diagnosis.I was diagnosed by a psychologist.

 

[joeylittle]

Are you comfortable sharing what your trauma was? If not, it's OK.

 

[katiekat]

Years of childhood sibling abuse, emotional neglect from parents, a lot of fending for myself.

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

I have a lot of denial about my traumas and how they affect me. I often think, 'I am just fine' and then reality hits and I remember 'oh, yeah, I am not fine'. I think that the fact that you got scared by this question that reminded you of the incident with your former therapist means that there is probably some trauma related to whatever that topic is. I am not a qualified professional, it just seems similar to some things that I have experienced.

 

[joeylittle]

You might find this link really informative: [DLMURL]https://www.myptsd.com/c/thevault/posttraumatic-stress-disorder.17/[/DLMURL]
Self-diagnosing isn't ever a good idea, but I think if you look over the criterion A section especially and consider the ways you experienced the sibling abuse and fending for yourself.

The next several days I was in a fog and experiencing lots of emotional pain. But now I'm fine again. I'm afraid to address my panic about her question in my next session because I'm not sure what she asked about actually traumatised me or if I'm just over reacting and will look stupid. I'm also wondering if I'm trying to deny or avoid that I WAS traumatised.

You should absolutely 100% share this with your therapist. There's no such thing as over-reacting; your reaction is your reaction. If you aren't comfortable talking about this stuff, print out the post and give it to her.

You can have experienced trauma without having PTSD specifically. It does sound like you have trauma. Maybe see how therapy shapes up, do a few more sessions to see if you like her style. Try and be patient with yourself. But the more information you give her, even though it's scary, the more she can help you.

 

[katiekat]

Is something like sibling abuse traumatizing if it's a common occurrence and not acknowledged as a big deal by parents?

I know I need to take it slow but I'm just unsettled about not having a session this week to address my questions.

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

Is something like sibling abuse traumatizing if it's a common occurrence and not acknowledged as a big deal by parents?

I think that trauma is anything that puts you in fear for your life or someone else's. I think it depends on the situation.

I would definitely write down your thoughts and questions so you can address them with your therapist the next time you do have a session. Write down your concerns about whether PTSD is the right diagnosis and your wonderings about the sibling abuse being traumatizing.

 

[greenleaf]

I think minimization is really likely with sibling abuse that caused ptsd, but then that is what happened to me.

Sibling abuse can definitely be a criterion "A" type of event; there are some really twisted, violent, and/or sadistic kids and teenagers out there, and some kids murder people. Lots of people who later abuse or commit some other types of crimes were also abusive as kids, to animals or smaller children.

I think that parents can have motivation to minimize sibling abuse for all sorts of reasons (so a child gets that treatment added to being abused), and many other people can minimize it too as "all kids fight" or whatever. The parents might have been abused themselves; might not have the skills to stop the abuse; they might have denial about abuse in general; have other mental illnesses... might have abused the kids... if a sibling was abusive, that child was probably abused themselves somehow, statistically, so who did that...

It is quite possible to have developed the ability to wall off those events so they seem to only affect you sometimes. However this has serious consequences too. It was a survival compromise. You might look into 'overmodulating' vs 'undermodulating' in ptsd.

Essentially, some of us squash emotions and other trauma stuff in varyingly specific ways (dissociation); others of us have intrusive symptoms; others have both. Recent research actually shows different and opposite effects in specific brain areas for these different types of ptsd. On average, anyhow; I bet individuals vary more than those results mention, but don't know for sure.

 

[katiekat]

Greenleaf-was it difficult for you to believe that you have PTSD due to sibling abuse since your parents minimized it? This is what I am struggling with because it was "normal" in my family yet I may have had a feeling that none of my friends were abused as often or seriously as me. My parents didn't intervene and were often not home during the attacks and if I tried calling them they wouldn't do anything about it and often blamed ME for causing the fighting.

 

[greenleaf]

Hi @katiekat -- I didn't define it as abuse of me as a kid, mentally. That is hard to explain. I defined what my brother was doing to my mother and grandmother as abuse, but just somehow not myself, although I did work very hard to leave there because I mentally thought my life was at risk. It is hard to explain this, it feels now like sort of a discontinuity, I just avoided looking at any inconsistency in my thinking, even though I was able to define him as a danger to our lives and graduate, then move away, thank goodness.

My mother in particular would cycle through admitting that he was dangerous for a period after each incident, then she would revert to 'none of it was very bad', 'he is getting better'. She pretty much continued that pattern until she passed away a few years ago; she even tried to trick me into spending time with him, maybe because she wanted reality to be just fine? not sure -- but I felt I had to limit contact with her, then, for my own safety, and that has been very painful, sort of having to cut that off. I think now that she had some sort of personality disorder, maybe dependent. My grandmother was a huge minimizer in spite of getting knocked over by him, at age 80 or so. She was very smart, accomplished... but minimized a ton of stuff.

I think partly they didn't want to give up hope for him somehow, but nothing they or many 1970s professionals tried worked, and they didn't want to kick him out... so therefore, nothing he was doing to me or them could be bad enough to warrant that...? Also, he hadn't take an axe to anyone, I hadn't lost any limbs, but our brains don't calculate risks to our lives based on TV show violence... Also I think children can be more vulnerable to some things than adults who had benefit of a supportive childhood realize.

This stuff is all my perspective... the universe has not seen fit to let me know differently, and they died years ago, so no asking them now based upon my newer perspectives. However one cannot count on such family members ever changing, and life is short. We can look for better situations and healthy people in our lives now; things can be much better with lots of work...