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Sufferer Fighting the feeling that I don't really belong here, is that normal?

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I literally had to be reminded I was diagnosed previously…20 years ago. In the moment I got the diagnosis this time, I guess I agreed with it. I still identify with my ADHD diagnosis more. I know I went through trauma but if it’s not in my every moment of being is it really PTSD? These are the things I think of, then someone unexpectedly opens a door in a quiet space and I nearly jump from my skin, my whole body buzzing for 20 minutes…. Briefly I think okay, maybe I do have it, but really I’ve given up the internal debate and just decided to ignore the label and deal with the trauma. I’ve found this to be a great place for that.
 
As there are so many medical conditions that psych conditions mimic, and all psych conditions share symptoms.
Yup. Spent the last year before finding out it was PTSD chasing a thyroid problem which affects my Addisons too. Finally had "that" talk with my doc and said "there's no physical reason for X and Y and Z right? Could it be a mental health problem?

There are a huge list of symptoms that are common between Addisons and PTSD, and one that makes the other worse. 30 years of taking meds morning and evening and now I can forget them - morning and evening.....
 
By nature of having experienced the trauma, the parts of our brain that remember and process these things (the hippocampus, amygdala, septum, our "emotional/memory response" track linked in with the pons, medulla oblongata, and other parts of our baser brain/"survival/involuntary respiratory system") actually structurally change.

I call it the double-standard response. I'll look at someone describing a single-event trauma such as rape or a car accident and think, makes sense. PTSD makes sense. That's trauma, it's legit. I can look at multiple instances of memory in myself and think, I got treatment. I live in North America. I have some alive-family members. I'm not special. Lots of kids go through way worse than me. I've heard it, I've seen it. Why am I bitching and complaining?

Why? Cognitive distortions, it's easy enough to name.

But what really made the concept click for me was realizing why these cognitive distortions happen. Because I can look at another trafficked kid, another kid who went through armed violence, another kid who got indoctrinated into organized crime, another kid who got signed up to war, who went through the same shit as me and because those experiences didn't happen to me, I can view it rationally.

Another kid who committed atrocities, but I can have real compassion for that kid. But because my experiences happened to my brain, those structural changes mean that my ability to process it rationally is actually functionally impaired. So the compassion isn't there. The understanding isn't really there. I'm still developmentally 8 years old and as smart as I was, you can't really overcome neurology like that.

All that to say, yep. There are days I don't feel entitled to even open my mouth.
 
Not ridiculous. Just a bit risky. As there are so many medical conditions that psych conditions mimic, and all psych conditions share symptoms. So the potential to waste a lot of time &/or suffer needlessly is very high.

Which you clearly know… so consider this a nod to… Yep. It’s a realistic fear. But fear is what let’s us know that something is possible. Not guaranteed by a long shot, much less the likelihood. So, personally? I’d move forward with both an open mind AND a grain of salt. PTSD may be dead on, or part of the problem, or simply share symptoms. Knowing that? Gives you a helluva lotta strength/manoeuvrability to move forward.

Welcome to the community! 🤠


<grin> Already is! Twice, if we want to get technical. Both in the Avoidance set & Cognitive Distortions set 😎

Which is part of why it can be so difficult to manage… any time a single symptom is being fed from 2 places? Things get very tangled, very quickly.
Thank you, makes a lot of sense. That's at least partly why I was very concerned about doing cbt without any kind of assessment/diagnosis to begin with, and I'm still very glad I stuck to my guns because otherwise I'd be in a group cbt setting still not understanding what the heck is happening to me and as you quite rightly said, suffer and waste fume needlessly. Having said that, whilst I've not been given a formal diagnosis on paper, the therapist assessed me on the first meeting and my score of ptsd symptoms was flippin high, so at least for right now I'm satisfied with that. Apparently I may be able to get an official diagnosis if needed from my own Gp, but they usually use the same assessment scale along with the recommendation/comments from the therapists.........now if I could actually get an appointment with a doctor here at the moment, that in itself would be a bloody miracle 🤣🤦‍♀️

By nature of having experienced the trauma, the parts of our brain that remember and process these things (the hippocampus, amygdala, septum, our "emotional/memory response" track linked in with the pons, medulla oblongata, and other parts of our baser brain/"survival/involuntary respiratory system") actually structurally change.

I call it the double-standard response. I'll look at someone describing a single-event trauma such as rape or a car accident and think, makes sense. PTSD makes sense. That's trauma, it's legit. I can look at multiple instances of memory in myself and think, I got treatment. I live in North America. I have some alive-family members. I'm not special. Lots of kids go through way worse than me. I've heard it, I've seen it. Why am I bitching and complaining?

Why? Cognitive distortions, it's easy enough to name.

But what really made the concept click for me was realizing why these cognitive distortions happen. Because I can look at another trafficked kid, another kid who went through armed violence, another kid who got indoctrinated into organized crime, another kid who got signed up to war, who went through the same shit as me and because those experiences didn't happen to me, I can view it rationally.

Another kid who committed atrocities, but I can have real compassion for that kid. But because my experiences happened to my brain, those structural changes mean that my ability to process it rationally is actually functionally impaired. So the compassion isn't there. The understanding isn't really there. I'm still developmentally 8 years old and as smart as I was, you can't really overcome neurology like that.

All that to say, yep. There are days I don't feel entitled to even open my mouth.
Thank you, that makes total sense, and I'm so sorry you suffered that trauma you have days where you don't feel entitled to open your mouth. Seems like such a very cruel world at times doesn't it x
 
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