Explaining My Ptsd To My Friends

[Kassidy]

I was diagnosed with PTSD a few months ago and since then have told only very few and select people about it. I got PTSD from some traumatic experiences involving my parents and family members. I have never been in combat or any branch of the military. Since it is not combat related it is very difficult to tell people about and I am often worried that they will not understand. Even the few people I have told do not seem to understand what having an anxiety disorder means. I have a very hard time with relationships and anxiety has taken control over my life. I don't know how to get ahold of myself and it is severely affecting my health and relationships. I want to explain to my closest friends what having a mental disorder like this means so they know how to support/help me and they know what to expect from me and not take it personally if I am bad with making or keeping plans or if I seem rude or distant or selfish in the way of not being able to think about anything but my own problems or seeming to overreact about minor things or being overly dramatic. This is not how I want to come off at all and I want them to understand what is really going on. How can I explain to them what I need from them but not take away from who they perceive me to be? I don't want to become someone they see as disabled or who they need to make all these accommodations for but I want them to understand. How do I do this??

 

[Seasounds]

I can tell you how I do it.

Initially, I felt the need to inform everyone, so they would hopefully understand. Like you could foresee, in your written thoughts, this was not the best thing to do.

Instead, I've learned to let friends know 'my peculiarities', by mentioning things I like and don't like to do, without using PTSD, or anxiety. This has been a wiser choice, for the reason you mentioned; it is more respectful of others, and actually for myself. My very closest 2 friends know my diagnosis.

 

[Neverthesame]

Generally speaking, if the person you are talking with about it doesn't have it themselves, then they can't understand it. It's like trying to describe a colour to someone who was born blind.

Peoples reactions to this range from a desire to understand and assist, all the way to fear and hatred.

I don't think it's possible for the people you tell, to not see you differently. The change isn't always a negative one though. Not everyone will end up resentful of your needs, or look at you as some sort of pity object. I wish I could give some proper advice but you're in a difficult place with no concrete answers.

I think one of the best things you can do for your relationship with these people is to be aware that they can't really understand what you're going through. Try to be patient with them in the same way you want them to be patient with you. You are going to be doing major renovations to your friendships. While not a total rebuild, there is alot of hard disruptive work to be done.

 

[Glara]

My sufferer told me his diagnosis when I broke it off with him. I did this because he started withdrawing and I thought he was playing games. He just briefly told me what caused it, with very little detail. I didnt ask for any details and to this day I never have. I researched PTSD. In his case CPTSD, and found this forum. That's how I've come to learn about it.

Of course I react differently now to some things than I would in another relationship. I try to be supportive and when he comes to me telling me he hasn't slept in days, or even weeks I try to offer suggestions. When he's sucidal I ask him to tell his therapist what he's telling me. At work I would call a hotline, but I have an intimate relationship with him which makes it harder to know how to respond.

If he hadn't told me I'd be gone because his behavior had changed so much. Now I have an understanding of why he does the things he does. I won't turn my back on him, but I also know it can't be what we originally talked about either.

I guess at some point you may need to tell some people. The good ones will want to understand. You'll know who your real friends are. There's lots of people in my life that have issues and behaviors that I don't understand. I just try to decide if I think they mean well and care about me and accept them as they are, quirks and all. I know PTSD isn't a quirk, but I also know there's a person inside that's more than PTSD.

 

[selfcompassion]

I have CPTSD, and I'm a nurse. Even the other nurses I work with struggle with understanding it. If you have never experienced it personally, or aren't a shrink, you just don't get it. I've learned to be selective with who I tell, and just focus on my recovery.

 

[Chava]

How can I explain to them what I need from them but not take away from who they perceive me to be? I don't want to become someone they see as disabled or who they need to make all these accommodations for but I want them to understand.

These are great questions. I'm generally really avoidant of relationships so I don't have good solutions! :meh: BUT part of my recovery is working on connecting with others, or staying connected, and I've found this has meant being willing to share a little more about what is going on with me, with just a select very few people. So, this is what has helped me (so far, and again, no perfect solution):

I did talk to a couple closer friends, like one close colleagues, one close friend from the group of friends I barely ever hang out with, and one closer friend from AA. These are the people I've called when I end up in ER. It has helped me not feel further unreal to myself because nobody in the world knows I have these kinds of crisis moments. The trick now would be to reach out to one of them before ending up in ER (that's oddly super f*cking hard for me!).

Anyway, they don't really understand, but it's important to decide who you think you can clue in a bit, and take it from there. For example, one friend wants to understand, so that makes her easy to talk to. Yet she really doesn't get it...she tries to relate it to her experience of generalized anxiety. I appreciate that she does try to make connections, so I try to go from there and explain that I really don't have generalized anxiety (if I'm in my own space and routine, no triggers, I'm actually super mellow...really not an anxious person, I don't think). But I do have panic attacks around triggers and what I call "meltdowns" which can last for hours or a day or two.

Another friend feels easier to talk to because she listens and actually doesn't try to relate (somehow I appreciate that even more)...she just tries to learn. I've told all of these people that it's really hard for me to reach out and that I isolate because of my stuff. So they don't take me missing-in-action as any insult. Other friends who I am not very close to have seemingly lost interest in me. I don't blame them or hold it against them. I actually can't manage many friendships anyway, so am trying to do a better job staying connected with just a few people.

It feels really important to NOT just contact these people when I'm in crisis but try to maintain a more two-way and enjoyable friendship. That's hard too, and takes conscious effort. But it's super important. So if I'm having a good day I message or call one of them to just meet up for coffee or a walk, or I pick up a treat for them and stop by their house. So I work at being a friend, and also accepting friendship. Again, it's really hard and feels like "work" but I respect that this is just how it is for me and will get easier with "practice."

People who have no connection to PTSD often have a really hard time understanding it. So helpful if you can just explain it in terms of your symptoms and like you said, hope they understand it's nothing personal if you aren't doing well or wanting to hang out. And then notice which friends feel like better supports and respect that. I try to maintain good friendships and mostly leave my trauma stuff out because I'm really in the phase of developing better connections. But to a point I know that also means letting a few people in.

 

[Catlynn]

I agree with the way many of you deal with friends and family on what I have heard it called "that PTSD thing you have". Really folks? Its not a 'thing' I have. I have lost friends that didn't know what to say,how to react or could no longer deal with my excuses for backing out of plans we had made or calling in sick to events we had scheduled. I have run out of excuses, telling the truth has not worked out so well so I have found what works best for them and in the long run myself is the most painful of all....isolation. It helps the situations but not my own healing and the longer I am isolated the harder it is to get out. Been the hardest thing of all as I remember always being the social butterfly, the one to organize the weekend bbq's, the spa days with girlfriends, the Sunday brunch and shopping afterwards, the Saturday am hikes, etc etc. Now I have no desire to even pick up the phone. Perhaps the more I resist, the less I embrace the painful roads this takes to recovery the harder it is to actually take the next step.

 

[halflifeguy]

"I get anxiety, sometimes" is as far as I'd ever go telling anyone... if I ever did. I think there's ignorance and fear surrounding 'mental health' and opening up about the struggles faced would cause prejudice and derail career, friendships. In relationships it's been met with blank stares/denial/it's over. Fortunately my lifelong friends have a good idea of what I endured as a child and just know me as me and my symptoms.

 

[Glara]

@halflifeguy I can't tell you to take a chance and tell someone, but I can tell you my experience. My sufferer told me and I didn't run. The only reason we aren't together is because he ran from me. He still does, he comes back and then disappears again. I don't know if I can ever make him feel safe enough to stay and I don't know how long I can wait if he keeps running, but I am still trying.

I don't know what made him take the chance and tell, maybe because we have a long history. We dated on and off in our 20s and reconnected about 8 years ago (we are in our 50s now). I most definitely saw his dark side. He became very suicidal and was hospitalized. I still didn't leave. He finally pushed me away. Then months later he came back. I'm just taking it day by day.

 

[halflifeguy]

Thanks for the inspirational post. I think many applaud your dedication towards the suffererer in your life. But please, in the spirit of the topic, tell us why. You don't mention love, settling, convenience, or why you are sticking by your sufferer through the years. Having lost relationships over far less symptoms than your sufferer, I'm interested to know what makes it work for you.

 

[Anarchy]

From limited personal experience of telling a few people, it hasn't been a great success for me.

family tend to minimise and invalidate - either they don't understand, or else they really can't handle it, and the only way that they can almost come to terms with it is to minimise it down to a size that they can handle.

The popular view of PTSD, and also the one that all of the research money goes on, is military.

If you take a look around here and use the number of threads as a rough proxy for sufferers, the vast majority of people with PTSD are female, and even given the size of military and ammount of war mongering in the English speaking world, people with ptsd from sexual abuse and assault still outnumbers military PTSD by fifty to one hundred times

that is how far from reality the mainstream info sources available to your friends and family are.

Ive touched on invalidation, minimization and denial

you don't want the other end of the spectrum either!

you don't want to be wrapped up in cotton wool, treated as some sort of cripple, or a raving fruit and nutcase, by friends who are treading on co-dependant eggshells as they enable and reward increasingly dysfunctional behaviours.
Avoiding triggers was described perfectly by one of the member s here as "bubble-izing
you just end up living in a bubble, with triggers getting more and more and worse and worse

The aim is to function as normally as we possibly can in society and our lives, and we do that by taking ownership and responsibility for our own triggers

coming here helps us to realize that we're not alone, and helps us to face our triggers and to reduce them by exposure.

There's also a side to coming here that our ordinary friends and family would be totally freaked out by - we get to know a dark side to the world that traumatized us, and it would traumatize them if we shared it with them.

 

[halflifeguy]

The aim is to function as normally as we possibly can in society and our lives, and we do that by taking ownership and responsibility for our own triggers

Well put Anarchy!

That's my main goal, and getting a fair chance at that means working on my own issues and not being seen differently.