Does Anyone Else See Ptsd Everywhere?

[maryiscontrary]

Wow, I am going through this as well. I am really trying to live a life with some structural and moral integrity, really, really trying to be healthy and strive to be my best, and all I see are walking disasters around me. And I really, really see it with dating.

Maybe this is a psychological milestone with healing with all of us experiencing this. I know I get triggered by others voluntary dysfunction, so I know personally I need to be around people who really, really have their sh!t together. Had to drop a lot of harmful relationships this year.

 

[gone]

These are great responses and help me put what I'm feeling into a larger spectrum of experience.

there are lots of people out there who have yet to acknowledge the fact that their attitudes outlooks and reactions have been affected by traumatic incidents in their pasts. We remain blind as long as we're able, all too often.

I like the plaster analogy, was sort of imagining that might be what was going on, without being able to articulate it. Plus I think the more reasonable explanation is, as you say, that there are many with traumatic experiences who have not developed PTSD but are nevertheless shaped by addressing—or not addressing—them in their lives.

And, yes, @Solara, it could be about feeling less alone... and/or feeling kind of pissed off that I'm dealing with all this painful frass and others are clearly busyily engaged in ignoring them.

As @anonymous says, cultural PTSD/disengagement. Someone else told me about that (maybe about that book?) a while back and it resonated. I'll look into that book.

@Abstract, "radar" is a good way of putting it. What am I picking up? Hmm. Now that you ask I'm starting to dissociate. Wow, complete fog bank just rolled in. I'll think about it again when I can get through the miasma. Might be worth knowing, maybe these "signs" I'm seeing would be helpful in my own therapy.

But I do believe there are at least two members of my own family with undiagnosed PTSD, one I believe to be a victim (without remembering, as I had not remembered) of the same non-familial perp, the other family member a perp (not the same perp), who I believe is the child of another perp in my grandparent generation. Then again, maybe I'm just trying to feel less alone.

 

[WillyKat]

@Amne:

Well, I'm not really newly diagnosed. The two good therapists I've had are / were not into diagnoses so much. I'm pretty sure the therapist I had 15 years ago put the code for PTSD on the insurance form, but we didn't talk about the diagnosis.

About a year ago, *I* told my therapist that perhaps it would be better for me and her to call it what it is: PTSD. She agreed, but I don't think the label is all that important to her. It just struck me as wrong somehow to pretend it was just "depression."

 

[gone]

@WillyKat

That's interesting, so you self diagnosed, at least out loud. I find that impressive. How long between you saying to yourself, "PTSD," and saying it aloud to T (or anyone)—if you don't mind my asking.

For me, the complete opposite. I had an abundance of evidence (now that I see it), I even had my first recovered memory, yet did not imagine the Dx would be PTSD. I was completely shocked. Sort of still am, even though I consider myself reasonably well informed and have a couple of close friends with PTSD diagnoses, I still couldn't put it together for myself. Go figure.

@Abstract Been thinking more about "signs" I see in others. Still foggy but this is what's coming up for people I know reasonably well, or well:

• rage
• phobias / fears
• consistently poor relationship choices
• hypervigilance / or "excessive" securing of his/her environment
• nightmares / sleepwalking / out of body experiences

No one person that I'm thinking of has all the symptoms...

I'm probably just confused. I'm remembering now that when a person very close to me died years ago and I suffered a long and complicated grief I thought I saw complicated, unaddressed grief everywhere. Now I realize that's not true, but couldn't see it that way then. So I guess this says more about me then about the prevalence of PTSD in the world.

 

[maryiscontrary]

There are some very insightful ideas here. I don't see PTSD or grief, etc. specifically everywhere. I just see dysfunction so extreme that I have to put up boundaries almost immediately. Like I said before, I really, really see this with dating.

I know that I would dissociate when exposed to jerry springer like behavior, but now I do not dissociate, I just want to throw up and leave.

To me, relationships of any sort need to be strengthening, not damaging, to the participants. What I am seeing is that most people have very, very poor skills in this area. This is really scary.

 

[WillyKat]

@Amne, Well, my first good therapist put PTSD on the insurance form aobut 15 years ago. Last year about this time I mentioned to my current T that it's best to call it what it is. She misunderstood me to mean that PTSD should go on the insurance form; what I really meant was that the treatment I get should be for PTSD and not just depression.

I don't tell too many people I have PTSD, maybe four or five so far and these are close friends and family. I don't say it that much because I believe most people will instantly conjure up and image of combat vet and lots of other media-based half truths.

 

[gone]

@WillyKat — are you getting/doing EMDR? The Bay Area is a hotbed of really good practioners (I have a bunch of friends who are therapists and can kind of get an inside view).

I'm also in limbo about who to tell about my PTSD. Only a few so far, with mixed results.

But in one way I'm thinking of broadcasting it further. Unfortunately, I get majorly startled while hiking all the time, e.g., leaping, accompanied by blood-curdling screams, when people come up behind me on foot, bike, horse or anything. Even when I see them coming from in front of me I still can't always control myself and yelp or squeal when they come alongside. It sucks. Scares the shit out of everyone, as well as me. I'm aspiring to be able to recover fast enough to wave at everyone and lightly say, "Sorry, PTSD."

 

[WillyKat]

I told a couple of friends that I have PTSD. Two are my best buddies from college, one of which is very knowledgeable of this stuff. Those two were terrific.

But I think there's so much stigma about the term PTSD. It gets thrown around in the media quite a bit, is usually summarized in simplistic, sensational, and frightening terms. So I have some doubts about using the term anymore. I have told several people close to me what happened (many years ago) and I feel more comfortable doing that than just giving them a clinical term.

Just my two cents.