Does PTSD Really Mean Injustice

[cragger65]

It's funny, I was nearly killed in a car crash, and I felt NO resentment or animosity toward the guy that caused it.

BUT, the injustice of treatment I recieved by insurance put me over the high side. For me, it is the injustice that upset the apple cart, not the trauma itself. I suppose it's different for everyone. Perhaps I was already post-traumatic after the accident, but it didn't "ripen" into full-blown misery until being stabbed in the back?

Insightful question.

 

[fin]

Jesta, HI

From what I have read it is trauma rather than our perception of it. Trauma that does the damage, and then lack of any adequate social support than would if we had the 'good stuff', then help us to work through it.

The commonality of some peoples answers here is how we were treated after our traumas, or even in some cases how they were impacted in on and also not even ackowledged in some cases that there was or could be a problem

It is not a conscious decision that we make but one that is 'forced' upon us by the disorder itself.

I have over simplified that here, but this explanation that I have found recurring does make much to help make sense of it for me.

Because I spent a lot of time diminishing what had happeened to me, and believeing I would just keep going and that I had no problem with what had happened, but the truth in actual fact is much different, and while I had lived unknowingly with PTSD; through flashbacks, triggers and intrusive thoughts, (which I did think everyone got), it was not until one particular incident where I was listening to an account that was very similar to something that had happened to me, that I actually completely fell down. And that was when, for me, the PTSD took on a whole new 'bigger and better', 'glorious' life of its own.

I am not saying this is carved in stone, but the diminishment of self and positive self perception during and after trauma does seem to play a factor in whether or even how we get it. And then lack of good supportive social support seems to impact and lessen self worth further and weaken or destroy any good internal self belief that we may or may not have had. If we have never had anything fed into us that we are anything of worth then that is a good foundation for PTSD to grow from. As many abused children seem to have been brought up to believe that we are worth nothing, before anything else comes in on top. The problem is not so much this is not good, I dont like it, I want it to stop, but it is; I have no other use than to be abused, I have no rights, etc and these are not necessarily thought outloud beliefs, these are internal core constructs and not until we start trying to fight against them, can they really be heard as the negative voices within us.

This is very simple how I have put it, I know; there is a lot more to it than this, but I do believe this for me has been a place where I can start to understand from. And this is something I, and I guess I am not alone in this, but I know that understanding for me is where I have needed to start. Because until I could let go some of what happened as being my fault or even anything to do wth me accept that it was me it happened to, well until then; I could not begin to start moving away from my past life of abuse and begin to see that there was and is something we can do to help ourselves in trying to move past it.

I have not let go of self blame completely, and it is a daily and repeatative thing I have to keep trying to do, but I have started and this for me is better than I ever thought possible.

I hope that this has helped in some way Jest. I would try to look at it not as pre because it wasn't before, except in our beliefs of who we are,and also our perception of the world. But it is post; it is everything that happened during and since, and how we have been able to deal with it or not. And how we have been made or we just mis-instinctively know that we are not deserving or worth better an how these negative thoughts feed the pTSD.

This is one of the reasons that I read so often the personal bill of rights and also the chart of human rights as laid down. Because I am still not able to believe I am worth more, I know I should be, but it is not my own central core belief of who I am. The only way I am able to take it on is through logic. I know I am a human being and so by very definition I know that the same rights I believe to be important for all people must therefore be important to and of me.

I hope this helps some Jest, it is not perceived and then thought through injustice, it is injustice and very real in that too. It is our internal perception also of injustice and that is very real and very valid, and it does stink. We have to keep working on it in the bast way we can, please don't give up trying on this Jest. I am sorry you are wrestling with it again, know please you aren't alone. But this can be won, we can make it somehow better than it is. It is unfair and it is crap that we are having to go through this time and again, but we can do this, YOU can do this- believe that please, try to; because it will help to let go of the anger or even the if you can.

your friend
~fin

 

[Jestadud]

Claire, that seems to be along the lines I was thinking.

Hope, I seem to have stirred something up for you and I regret that. Thank you for standing up for me in one of my early forays on this site.

I don't mean to belittle anybody's traumatic experience or say PTSD doesn't exist, what I'm wondering about is probably more of a concern to those of us who have the condition but don't feel the event that caused it was that much different to other things experienced which didn't cause such problem's.
Is there more than one way to get PTSD.

If I can risk another example by using a recent event where a plane crashes into an icy river.
Do you get someone suffering PTSD because they nearly died in a plane crash.

Then do you find someone else suffers PTSD because they survived a plane crash then survived drowning but their little brother had been killed crossing a road and it's not fair!

A traumatic event but two ways to PTSD.
One triggered by the event.
The other triggered by the (perceived) injustice.
There could also be real injustice if someone was treated badly after having gone through this. (Cragger?)

 

[politic]

Jesta,

When I first read your post, the immediate thing that I thought is that you are dissociated. The trauma for me started when I saw a neighbor stabbed when I was 9 and then saw another horrific bloody event when I was 12. I could recall pictures of these events but had no emotions about them. So I thought the PTSD diagnosis was ridiculous. I could recognize that something bad had happened, but it took me until this past year to recognize it as childhood trauma (I'm almost 50). And while I always had an easy time being angry about every little thing, it was only recently that I reconnected to my other emotions.

Like you, I have always had an easy time recognizing when there has been injustice. I have done a lot of work in community politics so this has helped me because I can empathize with people who have been hurt by injustice.

Recently, I started to wonder if this is something in nature. I have been psychologically damaged because I went through a traumatic event and that event required someone to step in and take action so that justice could be done to the person creating the trauma. Then I grow up and, because of this event, I want to make sure that justice is done for other people. Maybe PTSD is actually nature rewiring my brain so that I feel compelled to make things right when people do unjust things. So you may want to consider that your newly found sense of setting things right could be used as a positive force in this world.

 

[Claire]

I think that the examples you use could both develop PTSD by being scared to death. Its that that causes the PTSD. Its that moment that makes the switch regardless of the outcome.

What goes on after I think can help add to it but the switch happens when the person is under that extreme stress of possibly dying.

I've had lots of injustice afterwards including the insurance company and the thoughts of the guy being reckless with MY life but those thoughts were all after the trauma itself obviously.

As I understand it PTSD makes you view those things differently too so you start getting a distorted view on life. That's when these things feed the PTSD but they dont actually cause it.

 

[Irton Pike]

i think if your little brother dies it is traumatic. It isn't "not fair"

 

[Claire]

Isn't it both though? it is traumatic first but isn't it also unfair eg. its unreasonable, unjust etc?

 

[fin]

I think I have reacted to death of loved ones very differently Jesta. It has depended on so much, and all of us are different. The circumstances themselves do play a part also, I believe.

I know often times I thought it very "unfair", but the unfairness of it didn't alter my reaction or how I felt,- I dont think it did anyway, maybe it did? I still have more to work on, too much more. And death features in my "stuff" considerably. But I know the unfairness of it for me was just my selfishness, and by that I mean I felt it unfair that I lost the people I lost because I missed them and they were no longer in my life. So that is how unfairness rates in there for me.

Because I can see that life itself is unfair, I can see that bad stuff happens to good people. My issues, amongst the many others, and amongst the PTSD symptons also, have led me to the point (one of many) where I have wondered where the fcK did all the good people go? And were there ever any good people to start with?

With regard to PTSD and why? and what? and how? from what I have read, there is still no hard and fast rule. And apart from what I have written here in your thread in my earlier post I am not able to help with this I'm sorry. Although and because; having a good talk on it does seem like it might be fun, and something that would be good and interesting to work on (that wasn't meant to sound as bad as it did sorry). But I know I can't do that right now; I know I am way to far away from even thinking I might be better than I am at the moment, and so because of that I have found that this question is mute at the moment for me. I do know it is a hard one to let go of though. Believe me I really wrestled with some of what you are at the moment, so you are not alone in that, and we arent alone in that either, it is not such a strange question really; others here have done just this. But is it helpful to you? or will it catch you in a holding pattern that will slow down you progressing?

I hope you are able to find some answers and perhaps someone will be able to show and explain better. I hope so, but please try not to do this in the hope that you will be able to get better from this alone, because while it may help you to understand, I am afraid it may only distress you further. Because at the end of the day, if you have PTSD you have it, regardless of how you got it...you have it now, and need to be working on it.

Im sorry if that sounds brutal and I am not wishing to rain on your thread, I am sure that there are many that will wish to work through this.

But don't loose sight of yourself. Working through your trauma and the issues surrounding it will help you to move forward, this is what has been shown to be what is helpful to recovery and healing.

PLease dont loose sight of yourself Jesta, You are important. YOU first please Jest, first and foremost.

I hope this helps and if not I hope you find your answers. Because it is interesting but really for me than for no other reason than that. I just don't think at the moment, it will help me or you to know why or rather how the pTSD gets some and not all. And it may stall your healing ot dwell on it for too long.

I hope this helps Jesta
your friend

~fin

 

[fin]

Oh and just in case I wasnt clear I was traumatised by death as well as the unfairness playing a part in that. But it wasnt the unfairness that traumatised me, although it was and is unfair.


yeah!! clear as mud!! sorry

 

[Tinyflame]

I think it's ok to acknowledge something is "unjust" (after all, that's accepting your feelings, too). And many people can treat others unjustly- I think it's critical to recognize and acknowledge how wrong others' actions can be, it's a violation and to me the thought that it could be "prevented" or that it involves someone defenseless is very unjust.

It took me a very, very long time before in my head I could say, "You know, that was just the sh*ts, and it makes me feel (angry, sad, defeated, - whatever). That was actually big progress after denying that anything was ever traumatic, or that any deaths were not just a "fact of life", etc. Especially I can honestly say there was a feeling of "injustice" or more specifically, "Woah...", when I would hear someone go through something similar and think, "Hope it doesn't turn into a 'noose around their neck' " like it's been for me for 25+ years.

As I try to accept PTSD for what it is and learn more about it and the reality that it is going to be a fact of life very likely my whole life (because there is no "cure" at the present), I've let the "injustice" part go. But that's just where I'm at in my journey, it's not wrong to feel otherwise.

I try to think, I've no more deserved the "good" things anymore than the bad, and bad things happen to everybody.

But dear Jesta, - I am very, very sorry about your little brother.

 

[sky dancer]

You need to stop comparing trauma/s of others, to yourself. Trauma is trauma! What is traumatic to one, may or may not create PTSD in another.

Whatever it was that you experienced, was enough to give you PTSD. So you are NOT a fraud. Except it, and work through your trauma and find relief.. It's better to do this, than waste your time and energy on feelings that are not of benefit to you.....

I agree. Research is showing that our brains are all individual. That means that literally, how one individual reacts to an experience will be differerent for another.

Unfortunately, I've heard my entire life that my life story is 'overly dramatic' which caused me to judge myself.

What you're reporting now, in considering yourself a 'fraud' is self-judgment. My T focuses alot on 'reality testing' to help cut through shame based hurtful thoughts.

I have a number of real life friends with PTSD, and we are all different in how we came to be traumatized and how it affects our lives in the present.

You're in good company. You would not have gotten the diagnosis without meeting the criteria.

 

[Jestadud]

Junebug, it was an example I used, it was probably a bad one. Sorry to have caused concern.

politic, you are a little diamond!
I love the way you just put that in there as a throwaway remark. Dissociated!
Had to go look it up on wikipedia (feared it was an insult)

That is exactly what I do when there is serious trouble. I have always thought of it like an "off button" or let "loose the beast within" when threatened I wait for that to kick in.
For me it is normal, it has always been there when needed. That is why I struggled to see what was so traumatic about this experience.
Still got some things to straighten out, like why did I get PTSD this time or does this mean I,ve had PTSD for years?
But it's a massive step forward in my understanding.
Only 3 post's as well how lucky am I?

Thank you load's
Jesta