Do People Fake PTSD?

[AdamAnt]

I just saw at the bottom on the forums page where someone had found this forum with "List of PTSD symptoms for my employer"....Doesn't know what it is but already counting that disability check?

 

[goingonhope]

I'm sorry, but everytime I happen upon seeing this threads title: "Do People Fake PTSD?" , I feel uncomfortably hostile.

 

[AdamAnt]

Sorry GOH!

 

[Nishkaa]

As a verfied PTSD case, well documented through the years, I get super pissed off when it comes out in the public the issue of people 'faking ptsd'. I just ripped into another person on a public forum for making that argument in the face of a positive initiative here to bring 'therapy dogs' program for Veterans.

I'm not a Veteran, but I do support Veteran's rights to proper medical care and insurance support for them and their families.

I'm not sure if they'll see it the same way towards me, being a civilian with little hope of access to therapy-- I'm just a POS, didn't serve my country (but I did in a civilian role), just tried to stay alive anyway.

But I'm ripping mad, when I hear this crap come out of people's mouths, who have no orientation whatsoever to PTSD, either with themselves or in their families (military or personal family). It makes me want to scream.

And if they were in my face spouting that nonsense. . . it's a big hold back, to not hit them.

 

[patrick]

Wow! This is an old thread with lots of strong ideas and feelings. Don't have time to read it front to back at the moment, but the question does bring some of my emotions to the surface. My PTSD, because of my denial, went undiagnosed for 38 years. In the last two years, the diagnosis has been made by two psychiatrists and a psychologist. I am receiving disability payments for it from both the Veterans Administration and Social Security.

And yet every day I feel like I am faking it. I tell myself my traumas weren't as bad as the other guys, and that I'm not nearly as messed up as people who really went through the shit. I tell myself that I'm just being weak, and that if I'd buck up I could be as normal as anybody else. I tell myself I'm using PTSD as an excuse for all of the things I don't like about myself. I tell myself all kinds of stuff in an attempt to convince myself that I'm just too tough to be affected by war trauma.

This may not be exactly what this threat is about, but it's what came to my mind when I read the title of it.

 

[cj Miller]

PTSD has affected relationships I have with people who where once close to me. I have a close friend that served a tour in Irac 4 years ago. He is a vary capable individual but sad to say all he has done sience he has been back is collect his dissability benifits and enjoy his life. Im not trying to say theres anything wrong with enjoying your life but I feel like the money he gets dosent help him he just relies on it and dosent try and do anything with his life and thats sad to me. He rides motercycles,hikes,skis,smokes pot daily, doesa whatever pleases him and its all payed for by the pention he recives for his ptsd. I dont see how throwing money at somone is suppose to help him with his problems all it does is make him lazy and count on the money every month preventing him from every doing anything with his life. I also dont get how he can do all these fun things every day and not be able to work.My cousin is also in the same boat and just collects his money and attemptsto do nothing with his life. I have had a conversation to my friend trying to motivate him but he has a real attitude about how he deserves the money because of his services, I however disagree the money comes out of taxes every individual of this country to pay a kid who just dosent feel like working. He says that im jealous of him but in reality the whole thing disgusts me and I believe the money should go to people who really need it and not people who wanna play all day and not work. Needless to say I can no longer hang around this kid his inability to grow up makes me not want to be around him. I feel like the VA needs a better system of handeling vets not just throwing them a check.

 

[patrick]

Hey cj,
You have some pretty strong feelings about this topic. I think a lot of people do, one way or the other, and it's perfectly understandable. I spent thirty-seven years making a complete shambles of my life and the lives of countless others denying that I was weak enough to have PTSD.

I'm sure there are people out there getting disability from the VA who could work if they wanted to. There are others living on the street who applied for help once, were denied, and gave up forever. And there are people like me who can clean up and find a job, only to quit of be fired a few weeks later in a huge sand storm, with bridges blazing behind them.

One thing I do know is that it's hard to get disability from the VA, especially for PTSD. You have to be able to pull the wool over the eyes of at least one third party psychiatrist, and probably at least one VA psychologist and some therapists. You have to really know your shit and be a damn good actor to get disability from the VA if you don't deserve it.

Another thing I know about PTSD from my experience, is that you can have it and do a pretty good job of pretending you don't, especially with people you don't spend a lot of time around. For me, doing so is very costly. Pretending everything is just fine is exhausting, but it is something I do every day. Maybe your friend and your cousin are scamming the system, but could it be possible they aren't having the easy life it looks like they're having to you.

I don't know you, your friend, or your cousin, but I do know something about combat PTSD and VA benefits for it. It's just possible there is more to the story than your friend and cousin let you see. Would be more than happy to discuss the subject further with you if you like.

Pat

 

[becvan]

CJ, you are no freind to these people. What each of us does and how we manage our PTSD is our business, not anyone elses. Often part of therapy is enjoying life. Learning to get involved in the things we used to love as having hobbies is a huge part of therapy. It can also be an avoidance trick. No one here could really say why your "freind" and cousin is doing what they are doing. Are they faking it? Who knows. What I do know is that your entire post is one of judgement, the whole "how dare they get disability they are just lazy" tone. It's something those of us with any type of mental illness are quite used to. It's called stigma and is a very steroptypical response to mental illness. Please get educated on mental illness and PTSD before making any further judgement calls.

bec

 

[anni]

I have to agree. The predjudice in this country towards people who seem to be 'getting something for free' is as ridiciulous as it is calculated in it's inception. Yes, that's a strong statement but it's also probably true. This will turn into a political rant and badly off topic but in this case look what we did to our vets? Sent them off to war with much flag waving and fervour and brought them home by the back door to pretty much nothing. Vet hospitals used to be the finest in the country, now government funding has dwindled to where they cannot afford to compete in quality with hospitals whose bottom line is money. If a PTSD afflicted vet does manage to get through the obstacles and claim a disability pension, thank God for that. It's not as if these benefits do afford some luxurious life-style, either, they're pretty low-mainentance across the board, for some reason the very least one of the wealthiest countries in the world could do for those who contributed so much. I wish it were much, much more.

 

[Froggie]

Before I got PTSD, there was a collegue who tried to convince us that he did have it. A good thing I had university psychology formation because I really caught him in his factitious story. He'd would do anything to have a victime statute. He's even got a web site exposing his miserable life. I really believe he's got problems, but not PTSD. He dumps his Ts everytime they confront him with his victimology symptoms. I got the right to know all this because he found out about my formation.

 

[pontifixmax]

I want to ask about what is a sore subject with me. Have any of you ever encountered someone who "faked" having PTSD? It seems to me that in the 90's PTSD sorta become the "cool" illness to have. I remember a woman who was shoplifting in Wal Mart and claimed the clerks gave her PTSD by detaining her for the cops. I just wondered what ya'll thought of this type of claim.

I personally think it is over diagnosed. Many people here are correct that depression and other anxiety disorders are too quickly labelled as PTSD without looking at the most central cause of PTSD, which is of course trauma. Now no one's life is perfect and there are going to be upsetting things in life for everyone but can such events be less than life threatening and still qualify a person for a diagnosis of PTSD? Part of the issue the way I see it is that the diagnosis has been so broadened from when it just meant combat veterans to include survivors of childhood abuse and civilians in emergency worker positions, for example. Please don't take that I am making light of non-military sufferers of PTSD since I am a survivor of emotional, physical and sexual abuse in childhood, plus I work in a high stress job where I witness violence, sickness and death on a regular basis. Given my history and the work I do there are times when I wonder if I was born for trauma. I know this is negative thinking but there are times when it creeps over me. Despite this, however, "playing the victim" is not useful to me. Rather, what I really want is a sense of power and control over my life, which I am slowly working on. Why someone would choose to fake a condition that involves not having these things in their lives is beyond me.

 

[Gamereign555]

Yes I believe that you only have to believe that it is a life threatening situation, furthermore trauma compounds over time adding to the idea that trauma doesn't have to be from one event. This is particularly noticeable in those who have have been tormented for long periods of time, you yourself are describing trauma that is compounding over your whole lifetime and not one particular event. Often times there is one particular event, that will result in the post traumatic stress and the eventual full blown PTSD, it is usually not seen by these people as their prior childhood trauma as the cause, but only the event that broke the camel's back. That is simply not true. The prior trauma just made you susceptible to not recovering from post traumatic stress later on after a further trauma.

Someone purposely faking PTSD is just seeking attention, some might be just looking to get on disability. I myself haven't tried to get disability, I lost my job in the midst of it all and now I want to get back to work to see if i can hack it somewhere, anywhere really...the job market isn't good. I was pretty severe at first but as I have gotten along things have gotten better with therapy, I believe there are different degrees of PTSD but I don't believe everyone has to suffer as 'severe' forever, I am not concerned with fakers, I just want to focus on myself and get as good as I can be. Let the the fakers suffer their fake lives forever, we are already better than them. Although I cannot deny that disability squandered on fakers does not help those who are in need, particularly those who are still having major issues after a few months, because by then they have already piled up huge bills from being in and out of the hospital, going to doctors, taking expensive tests to rule out other conditions. Disability to those who need it at this stage would be a godsend.

I still don't want to get worked up over it, I still just want to focus on staying on a healthy track, staying off drugs and alcohol and being active..I have already seen how numbing can cripple with growing symptoms.