Other Do you worry it might be more than CPTSD?

[Teddie]

What if it could be classed as something worse?

I am professionally diagnosed with BPD and autism as well as CPTSD but I don’t agree with the BPD diagnosis. I have my reasons for why I don’t agree.

I wonder if CPTSD alone really can cause such a melting pot of extreme symptoms… Maybe I do have BPD. ^^”

 

[No More]

I am diagnosed with PTSD, that causes some fairly extreme symptoms. I don’t think there’s anything more to it that’s been missed for me personally.

Without further detail as to the nature of the symptoms I’d say cptsd can definitely cause a range of very difficult symptoms.

I don’t really know enough about the other disorders but I do know there’s a lot of crossover between them. Perhaps something to take to a very good psychiatrist with a lot of experience if you are worried there is something more at play?

 

[Teddie]

I am diagnosed with PTSD, that causes some fairly extreme symptoms. I don’t think there’s anything more to it that’s been missed for me personally.

Without further detail as to the nature of the symptoms I’d say cptsd can definitely cause a range of very difficult symptoms.

I don’t really know enough about the other disorders but I do know there’s a lot of crossover between them. Perhaps something to take to a very good psychiatrist with a lot of experience if you are worried there is something more at play?

Thank you for your perspective.

Haha, I know I’m being vague. I trust your judgement that CPTSD probably can cause some pretty extreme symptoms. I often wonder about it.

I tried private therapy but it wasn’t working out for me.
I felt like I was just talking to a brick wall. She was always cutting sessions short and would often just compliment me or back up my experiences rather than challenge me or provide some perspective.

You’re right, though. I should try giving it another go.

 

[No More]

I tried private therapy but it wasn’t working out for me.
I felt like I was just talking to a brick wall. She was always cutting sessions short and would often just compliment me or back up my experiences rather than challenge me or provide some perspective.

Took me a long time and a lot of therapists before I found a really good one that can square up to me & managed to get inside my head. Mine definitely challenged me in a good way, wasn’t into any of the ‘validation’ talk and was quite rational/cbt based. Sounds like yours wasn’t helpful and not a good fit.

I would say though, psychiatrists are better at sorting diagnosis than therapists, who tend to treat the symptoms and not worry about labelling the disorder (in the uk anyway, where therapists can’t diagnose)

 

[Friday]

I have PTSD & ADHD. That combo, right there, creates some very outta the box reactions for both disorders… really a whole 3rd kind of symptom set… that is more than just ADHD going on, and more than just PTSD going on. But? Is smack dab in the middle of normal for people with ADHD who also have PTSD.

It’s a big part of why comorbid diagnoses are so durn hard… with trauma in particular, in this instance, although also overall.. and so often misdiagnosed if there isn’t both a pre-existing disorder that’s well known/understood to be present AND a diagnostician who understands the myriad effects of trauma on that condition.

Because someone with ADHD? Is going to “present” differently than someone who is neurotypical.

If someone isn’t seeing how trauma &/or new disorders are affecting and being effected by that pre-existing condition? They’re going to come up with a wildly different answer, or different series of answers.

***

I very often run into that problem both when I’m shopping for therapists, and when I’m outside of my element / I’m not smack dab in the middle of what people expect to see.

For example? During my divorce I had to appeal all the way up to the state’s highest authority on psych, who took one look at my file and asked if I was prior service military? Yep. USMC. She rolled her eyes, snorted, made a verbal note to send a memo / call a meeting wih everyone in the chain leading up to my meeting with her, then apologized. That it was ridiculous in this day and age that no one thought to check / I wasn’t being “believed” about the abuse (even with X-rays, doctor, police, neighbor statements all corroborating me, evidence out that wazoo) because I wasn’t presenting as a battered wife. I was presenting more like a man, and more specifically exactly as one would expect a service member or police officer present, in the middle of an abuse case. So even with stacks of evidence proving I wasn’t lying, I still wasn’t being believed. Until she recognized where the cognitive dissonance was coming from in the people who were interviewing me. She was really infuriated, on my behalf, because the evidence alone should have been enough, but my being female and unconcerned with my own safety whilst trying to protect my children? “Should not” have made everyone leading up to her discount what I was telling them. But it did. Because people see what they expect to see.

 

[Sideways]

I wonder if CPTSD alone really can cause such a melting pot of extreme symptoms

Yep. All on its own, PTSD cam cause someone to become completely dysfunctional - completely unable to function.

It isn’t always that dramatic. A lot of folks who get ptsd will continue to work, have relationships, do life reasonably well, and go on to recover without a whole lot of effort.

There’s a huge variation in how much ptsd impacts a person. But for most of the folks here on the forum, the impact of ptsd has been very close to catastrophic. All on its own.

The same is true for a range of mental illnesses. They can, but don’t always, be very catastrophic on a person’s life.

The amount of impact the disorder has on your life doesn’t mean that there must be something else going on. Much like getting the flu - it just knocks some people round more than others, even though it’s exactly the same virus.

 

[Teddie]

Yep. All on its own, PTSD cam cause someone to become completely dysfunctional - completely unable to function.

It isn’t always that dramatic. A lot of folks who get ptsd will continue to work, have relationships, do life reasonably well, and go on to recover without a whole lot of effort.

There’s a huge variation in how much ptsd impacts a person. But for most of the folks here on the forum, the impact of ptsd has been very close to catastrophic. All on its own.

The same is true for a range of mental illnesses. They can, but don’t always, be very catastrophic on a person’s life.

The amount of impact the disorder has on your life doesn’t mean that there must be something else going on. Much like getting the flu - it just knocks some people round more than others, even though it’s exactly the same virus.

I needed to hear this - thank you.

 

[Weemie]

I have PTSD w/ Secondary Psychosis, ADHD, TBI and SZPD. As a kid I was dxed with inhibited RAD (now just RAD in the DSM V). So I have a ton of severe, extreme, dramatic, etc symptoms as a result of all of this. PTSD alone is not capable of causing my symptoms, so I was diagnosed with other things. But PTSD, TBI, SZPD and RAD all have a causative agent rooted in environment - specifically, trauma. (This doesn't need to be interpersonal trauma, but RAD and SZPD in particular are linked to this.)

BPD as well has a pretty solid swathe of evidence indicating it has origins in environment, as well as genetics. My SZPD is both environmentally and genetically based. My whole family is rife with schizophrenia, autism, and personality disorders all. So it makes sense that with my environment being as extreme was it was growing up, I ended up with a diagnosis that is essentially a mixture of all of the above.

For me, SZPD/ADHD symptoms are the most disabling. Because my attention doesn't focus correctly, and because my brain lacks dopamine, it causes me to enter long periods of pseudo-catatonia where I'm unable to even move or speak. And because I have no motivation or goal-seeking behavior, I don't put any effort into overcoming that, since lacking the ability to extend effort for long periods of time is a defining feature of SZPD related to the negative symptomology of schizophrenia.

(And I was dxed with SZPD and not schizophrenia or schizotypal because my psychotic features are relative to stressors/trauma, and I lack paranoia or "magical thinking" or verbal incoherency/word salad etc, otherwise. It happens during psychosis, but those are time-limited events that tend to crop up in response to being stressed, lacking sleep, or having a PTSD trigger - and usually it is related to trauma and things I have actually experienced, I just lose touch with reality.)

My motivation, goal-seeking behavior, etc is almost nonexistent. I go months without speaking to other people aside from my mom. If I had my way, I'd sit in a room by myself and do nothing for the next 20 years. But on the flip side, ADHD can be a boon, because sometimes my attention will randomly and miraculously latch onto something that enables me to overcome the SZPD anhedonia - such as my pursuit of developing a videogame all of a sudden. That'll last for as long as it lasts, until my brain wrings out every last bit of dopamine from it, then I will probably be inert once more.

It's a challenge to treat the ADHD because stimulant medications are extremely triggering for me. So I use things like kratom and DXM and Wellbutrin to try and manage it. It's about a 'meh' on the 'eh' scale, but it's not nothing. It does seem to make things in my environment interesting enough for me to pay attention to them, even though my attentional orientation is still c'est tragique.

And, regrettably, I've been misdiagnosed several times. Autistic, BPD, bipolar, DDNOS, etc. Because ADHD and PTSD cause my SZPD symptoms to diverge from the normal presentation. I've been on this forum for a long time, so people may even remember when I just assumed I was autistic (it's actually in my introduction) as well as DDNOS. I even have experiences where I mistook my own symptoms as those of autism and would say "well I have autism, and I'm not like XYZ, so it can't be related to autism."

Or DDNOS, or whatever.

 

[EveHarrington]

I have said for awhile that PTSD and OCD got together and gave birth to my brain. I am in the process of getting treatment for my OCD like symptoms but don’t have a formal diagnosis yet (just PTSD & MDD, and I doubt the MDD for…..reasons.)

It’s hard finding treatment. I FINALLY got a good therapist but only saw her for 2 months because she ended up leaving the practice. She recommended a transfer to a therapist who specializes in addictions as she felt that she’d be able to help me as addicts supposedly deal with similar thought patterns? (Whatever that means.) I don’t care, I just don’t want someone who will coddle and affirm me, and I don’t want someone who digs into my trauma (been there, done that, it does NOT help the obsessions).

I’ll keep trying, but this is hell, the thoughts don’t stop, they are the reason I am isolated and have nothing to show for in my life. This is no way to live.

 

[CooCoo4CocoaPuffs]

Not exactly but night terrors and depersonalization in the past made me think for certain I was losing my mind. Like straitjacket territory. I haven’t had an “out of body” experience in a long time. I have emotional dysregulation all the time, though, and hypervigilance AF! I’m also kinda in derealization mode a lot, maybe. Not the “everything is fake” like when I was younger. More head-in-the-clouds/out to lunch. Idk.