Do People Fake PTSD?

[anni]

Hi T.B.,

I think we have the press to thank for a lot of this. PTSD has been getting some attention ( finally) because of so many military people having it. With public awareness, everyone who previously had some other fake illness seems to have decided to pursue a PTSD diagnosis or at least claim it by way of getting attention. Of course, we see these fakers in the media on a regular basis but not much coverage on genuine sufferers. Between PTSD being over-diagnosed as Anthony said and having fakers highlighted in the media it seems like now there's yet another stigma getting attached to 'us'.

It's tough enough having this dam thing without feeling like one has to justify oneself FOR having it. Because of the faux claims on the part of a bunch of schmucks, it sometimes seems as if this is where it's headed. I wish someone in the media would do a story on THAT!

Take care,

Anni

 

[Gloria]

I participated in a trauma survivor group therapy for six weeks and I quit after a few weeks. There was a woman in the group who genuinely thought that she had been traumatized and had PTSD. She said her childhood and family was absolutely perfect but her father came to her Bat Mitvah 15 minutes late and she hogged most of the sessions discussing her abandonment issues and how she never felt felt good enough. I got fed up and made a sarcastic comment to her. I mockingly asked if she broke a nail on that terrible day and she replied quite distressed that yes,indeed she had also broken a nail on that day. I would have laughed if it wasn't so pathetic.

Then I tried to get my money back for the group but the therapist said that this woman was traumatized and that I just had to listen to her feelings more. Maybe I'm cold, heartless and insensitive but I didn't think the woman was traumatized (but she definitely needed help of some kind.)

So my take on it is that therapists are the ones who are telling people they have PTSD and the people aren't faking. In their view, they have suffered a horrible trauma. They really do think they have PTSD. All I can say is that I wish I could trade my trauma for theirs.

 

[onebravegirl]

Dear Junebug,
I guess at the time I felt that I had no solutions to my thought and feelings. They all felt so out of control, and literally painful. I used to wonder how other people managed. There had to be another way of "being" that I didn't know. So I would look at others hope for "rescue". I think so muh of it had to do with the little girl in me who wanted a savior/parent figure to make all the owwies go away. So it wasn't really about hoping someone would change my feelings but FIX me.
After several failed attemps, I finally realized that the Hero I really was looking for was ME. My pain, my job. I had to choose to commit to finding solutions rather than hoping to be scooped up into someone arms and carried off into fairy land.
Embarassed or not I had to get professional help. And I did.
O
Ps-I like your post too!

 

[eyebiter]

It has become so in-vogue...I am sure Oprah and her band of day time TV friends will soon admit to suffereing from PTSD!!

 

[cragger65]

I still struggle with the idea of whether I have PTSD myself, or whether I could have prevented it, done better, made smarter, healthier choices that would have changed this outcome. But I did definately come very close to dying in the car crash, and did feel I wanted to die in the post-trauma mental crash, and was diagnosed with PTSD (among other things) as a result. I guess for me, it doesn't really matter what you call it - I struggle, and that's all I need to know.

As for people faking it, I think the 2 biggest reasons are to A) make sense of, and give a name to, their unhappiness, and B) to get attention and sympathy from others. Not exactly "bad", just human, and people have been doing this in one form or another since the beginning of time, I'm sure. Just my 2 cents.

 

[onebravegirl]

I remember a time in my life when I was aching for a diagnosis. I knew something was really wrong, but had No idea what it would be called. I just wanted a Professional to tell me ANYTHING so that I could begin to learn how to deal with what was eating me up inside.
First I thought it was "Crazy"
Then Border line personality
Then Bi-polar
My worst fear was that i had some sort of un-identified, mystery illness that doctors hadn't figured out yet.
I really felt relieved when I didn't have these, and was told it was CPTSD.
Now I had a name for what I had and it made me safer knowing that people could help me recover.
The NOT knowing was way more terrifying than the Knowing.
I feel for the fakers, they must be very afraid.
O

 

[Hollow]

I know this girl, who originally was diagnosed with Emotional Unstable Personality Disorder, but sha found out that the diagnosis was so "stigmatised" (her words) and that she was not taken seriously (does not want to take responsibility for herself, and likes to be admeitted to hospital), so she tried to fake a psychosis, and the whole thing ended with her getting her will, sort of. I have not seen her papers, so I can't know for sure, but she says that PTSD is her new diagnosis.

Well....she is a classic EUPD, so I don't pay her victory any attention....

 

[Manic11]

Mmmm. Yes. Its not fair.
Try, I definitely agree with you! Hehe.

I work a retail job and a regular customer claims that he is a vet and is suffering from PTSD so he should get certain things for free, special deals, etc. Another customer heard this man demanding these things and claiming he was a vet and told me that chances are he is not a real vet because if he was a real vet, he would not be announcing it to the world and using it to get free things. He continued to tell me that he believes this because he is a vet himself and wouldn't dare use that to get free things, special deals, pity/sympathy, etc.
Now I don't know that this person was not actually a vet but I feel that it relates.

Manic

 

[gdf]

Yeah, it's the flavor of the month so to speak. Hard to imagine waking up in the middle of the night with your heart pounding in your chest, soaked in sweat and being terrified as "in" or feeling terrorized in broad daylight by your thoughts and memories when some trigger occurs as being "fashionable."

I remember being diagnosised with fibromyalgia in the early 90's when it was nicknamed the "wastebasket" disease. In the late 90's it started to become the "in" thing to have and now everybody has fibromyalgia. Go figure.

Gina

 

[useless]

he was a vet and told me that chances are he is not a real vet because if he was a real vet, he would not be announcing it to the world and using it to get free things. He continued to tell me that he believes this because he is a vet himself and wouldn't dare use that to get free things, special deals, pity/sympathy, etc.

Manic

I believe that is true for many people. I was offered the chance to be interviewed for a book about my ordeal. I said no thanks on several occasions. Immediately after my incident I found myself telling perfect strangers that I was a hostage. I believe I did it to explain away any odd behavior I might be exhibiting. Kind of like, " If you think I am weird, here is my reason". I may have done this for about a year. Since then I don't tell people anymore. In the last 20 years I have told 4 people and they were very close friends/girlfriends.

 

[growingpains]

I told a few people recently when I was under a great deal of stress and was being triggered a lot. I was trying to work on trusting others and I wanted to explain why I was triggered and what that means for me. I am incredibly embarrassed now since I am very introverted when not under extreme stress. But perhaps this is just a normal part of the healing process--needing to get it out when it comes up. I am more cautious again with sharing my past. For me it was the same--"The reason I feel I came off as a potential wierdo was A, B, C," as if logically ticking off traumatic events verbally like a pizza order is really going to make me come off as a totally normal girl. :think:

 

[BioHazard]

I am a veteran with PTSD, and would never use my disorder to get free things/handouts, etc. It is absolutely horrendous to imagine ANY veteran doing that.

As far as meeting someone with "pseudo-PTSD", I have met a few. There were two guys in my therapy group who claimed to have PTSD. Neither had ever been deployed, and one had only been out of Basic training a couple of months. The basic training guy tried to make it sound like a big kid pushed him down on the playground and made him cry. He belittled guys who had seen combat from Viet Nam, Desert Storm, and the current military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan. But if anyone tried to ask him a question while he was talking, it was the worst thing in the world. It took a group of us going to the therapist and telling him that if he couldn't put the guy in another group to please place us in our own group, before he was removed from the group. His behavior was unacceptable, to say the least.