Have you ever questioned the diagnosis?

[Gamereign555]

Yes I have some anger issues and really it’s not that bad it’s more about expressing anger and holding it in and just being an inner turmoil about that. Really the person I live with has a much much more serious anger problem and doesn’t even have PTSD. It’s just another example of anybody can have these problems. Those problems are not limited to those of PTSD and not everyone with PTSD is violent, very angry person, or manipulative or whatever you’re trying to say.

 

[Never_falter2]

Yeah, I thought that there might be a selection bias because nobody ever would start a thread „My husband did not yell at me, did not hit me, did not walk out on me and does not gaslight“. It would not be thread-worthy, would it? I thought about that before.

You know, my husband struggles with anxiety, with crowds and noises and other things and have to say it confuses me how few threads I ever see on this.

 

[Gamereign555]

I recommend that you read the criteria for diagnosis on the front page carefully. This should alleviate any doubt. Even if you have to read it over and over to understand it. There is a lot of content there. It is also possible to already have a tendency to other disorder In addition to PTSD but not to be confused with comorbid or disorders that are already or likely to be a part of PTSD.

Some of the behavior you have stated actually reminds me of when I first was diagnosed or a few months before. I was having a lot of anxiety and panic attacks and I was rather subdued. I was in a depression and wasn’t really engaged in anything. I wasn’t angry rather my whole nervous system felt raw. I felt fragile and vulnerable and just wanted to retreat where it was safe I wanted my girlfriend around but I also felt very dissociated and sort of staring off trying not to feel all of the unpleasant feelings.

 

[Chitoshi]

I want to pipe up and say that I don't have "post-worthy" anger management issues, but I did post about it once because I was afraid of how much I was getting angry.

I found out that I just have to keep it in check as I was learning how to be angry again because I had never allowed myself to be angry after my trauma. I still frequently don't act angry where anger would be the "right" reaction to what happens in situations sometimes. It is something I am working on.

I, too, will retreat to my room when things are too much, but I would never walk out on my supporter.

I do not guilt trip or gaslight my supporter.

I am able to form close bonds with many people. I am a very caring individual and would do anything and everything I can for my loved ones.

I wanted to pipe up in this thread because I have been diagnosed with PTSD and don't fall into the stereotype that seemed to be put here.

I agree with @gamereign555, there's a lot of good information on the front page.

I sometimes have the thought that "my symptoms are not as bad as others, so maybe I don't have PTSD?" When that happens I generally have talked to my T and we walk through it again. My T believes that, for me, the diagnosis isn't as important as the healing. I agree with him.

I hope this helps.

 

[Tornadic Thoughts]

I question every damn thing, especially after my less than pleasant and overly harmful experiences in the various professional arenas I've visited and been directed to in my pursuit of help. Also, as a result of how I lived my life in such a heavy chemically induced fog for so many decades, remaining convinced it was all okay and perfectly safe because someone else with an expensive formal education said so. One of my greatest and most painful hard-learned lessons, thus far.

I also often feel unworthy of asking for any help from anyone because I feel I've already have enough tools afforded to me in the healing arena, so why the hell am I not able to work with what I've already got each time I struggle with something without needing additional support? Damn good question. It takes a village, and my village is ever evolving/changing as my needs do, when I'm lucky. It can become stagnant, too, based on my actions and thoughts, often times. I can still be my own worst enemy no matter how much help I have available.

I have anger issues, too. I'm angry at the choices others made that altered my life in the worst of ways. I'm angry at the systems that work hard at keeping folks down/dependent/desperate rather than actually helping to lift them up and healthily empower them. I'm angry at how so many violent/harmful/wasteful things are considered normal and necessary in every day life and how many folks happily participate. My anger is often my fuel for meaningful change, finally, but can still cripple me when it overwhelms.

A support forum is where folks sometimes end up after years of trying everything else, so much of what we'll read may be from an extreme end of things, be it the suffering end, the supporting end, or even the healing end. There's no one experience that encapsulates everyone else's, too. If you don't feel like you're seeing subjects that are beneficial to your circumstances, be the thread you wish to see in order to open up a line of communication. It might serve as a prompt to others to speak up and may help folks get more clarity in seeing the bigger picture of yet another unique experience and viewpoint that hadn't yet crossed their minds. Each thread has great value, in my opinion. It may not relate to me personally, or be something I can even read, but I bet it will relate to someone, somewhere.

Spend less time aimlessly armchair diagnosing and more time purposefully loving and nurturing, both yourself and your loved one(s). That's the only way I was able to get out of my own "what-ifness" head long enough to remember what really matters the most, as it relates to my world and those I love. There's never been one "right" answer to take care of everything, that I've found, but there's been some very accurate insights and helpful applications in some of the damnedest places. Eye couldn't find them until eye was ready to see them, and no one else in my life was able to find them for me, as much as they desperately wanted to.

 

[joeylittle]

This is why comparing individuals is fruitless.

I noticed that nearly all sufferers on this boards seem to have anger management issues. My guy does not. Not at all. The opposite is the case. He does not even act angry where anger would be the right reaction.

It's not that nearly all sufferers have anger management issues. That's simply not true. It's that all sufferers have a minimum of two forms of trauma-related arousal or reactivity, from a list including: irritability or aggression, risky or destructive behavior, hypervigilance, heightened startle reaction, difficulty concentrating, difficulty sleeping.

As far as I know of your spouse, he has hypervigilance, difficulty sleeping, and perhaps a heightened startle reaction. Only two of those are needed to complete this portion of the diagnosis.

My guy does not isolate as much as others. He retreats to his room, but would never walk out on me.

Good for you, and good for him. He is comfortable with you and secure in the marriage. But he retreats to his room. So, he isolates. How much is too much? Again: Generalizations. Don't. Apply.

He does not guilt trip or gaslight me.

As has been pointed out, those aren't criteria for PTSD. And, as I'm sure you know from reading the sufferer boards, how many times does the subject of "that's not PTSD, that's just bad partnering" come up? Lots.

My guy able to form close bonds with other people. In fact far closer bonds than most other people I know, would do everything for his loved ones.

Inability to form bonds isn't at all part of the PTSD profile. Both this, and the emotional manipulation in guilt-tripping and gaslighting, are symptoms of disordered personalities, attachment disorders, and some other diagnoses. Now, some of the people here who have PTSD diagnoses also have other mental illnesses with those symptom sets. But that's crossover, which is not the same as criteria.

My husband did not yell at me, did not hit me, did not walk out on me and does not gaslight“. It would not be thread-worthy, would it?

Why not? I really can't think of a reason why it wouldn't be, and it would certainly be more forthright than this conversation.

I can promise you, you're not the only supporter who reads these boards and thinks..."My loved one is not as bad as many of these stories. What does that mean? Am I just lucky, or do they not have PTSD?" What you read on an internet forum is often the extremes. And easily 50% of the supporters who come here, they only suspect that their partner might have PTSD. They are looking for a way to make sense of behavior that they are observing.

You know, my husband struggles with anxiety, with crowds and noises and other things and have to say it confuses me how few threads I ever see on this.

On the sufferer side, you'll find lots and lots of these threads. On the supporter side...I'm not really surprised there aren't more. It's not always the most visible or most problematic symptom set, in terms of what the supporter experiences.

But it's great that you are attuned to it. Does it have a negative impact on you, that he experiences these things? Or are you wondering how to help him more? Or...?

I just want to come back to this:

He does not even act angry where anger would be the right reaction.

I've read a few threads of yours, where your husband has not reacted to a circumstance as you thought he should. And if I could give you one clear piece of advice, it would be: stop having expectations for his behavior. Not because he has PTSD - but because he's a person, and he is demonstrating his own personality and his own behavior. You are trying to pathologize his personality. I think that you are the one who wants to react with anger, sometimes. But you don't allow yourself to. Maybe because you think it's not a woman's role, or not a wife's role. Or, you want to see him react with anger because you associate showing anger with strength, with masculinity - and you want your husband to be a strong man. But your beliefs about where and when anger would be appropriate are your beliefs. They don't have to be his. They might not be his.

So. There have been a number of posts on this thread. What are you thinking, now, about his PTSD?

 

[unstableAngel]

This is a question for the sufferers but feel free to move to the supporters board. I thought I ju...

Also, you should know that not everyone’s PTSD looks the same. Not sure if I am using the proper terminology but take personality disorders for ex. they lie on a spectrum, meaning one person with (for ex.) Bi Polar may be conpletely disabled & another fully functioning (with treatment). What ever mental illness/ dissorder a person has, they also have a personality & life history which made them who they are, formed their beliefs etc. One persons suffering should never be compared to anothers. EVER!

 

[Never_falter2]

Thanks everybody for your thoughts. You know @joeylittle... maybe I really will start a thread about „My husband never yelled...“ like you suggested to see how common this is.

How do I think about his diagnosis now after reading this thread? Still not sure. Like in many cases it takes time for me to think to come to an conclusion having nothing to do with this thread but it is how I am.

Basically still not sure how often it happens that both the sufferer and the spouse question the diagnosis... and a bit spooked because he has a twitch and it can point to so many bad things like neurological problems and other health problems which start with twitching and look a bit like mental health stuff. This neurological problems might be badly in need of help... or might be mortal... depending on what it is.

Does his anxiety with crowds, with noises have negative effects on me? Yes, of course it has. I do understand that he is not doing this on purpose but of course it does have negative effects on me. It makes me sad when he is sad, it makes me sad when we cannot act like other young couples. It makes me sad our children are missing out on things other people do with their dads... and of course I am also looking for ways to help.

 

[Gamereign555]

Just start off by being interested in treating symptoms themselves then. Both of you may not be willing to except the entire diagnosis but I think we can agree that you should at least recognize symptoms that are there and go about treating those.

Try not to worry too much about the entire diagnosis right now and all that may not apply to him currently. Focus on the present for clarity.

 

[Justmehere]

Have you or your husband discussed your doubts with the professional(s) who diagnosed him?

 

[Cyberluddite]

I didn't question my diagnosis of PTSD. After what I went through for almost three decades, it was a given.

Your husband sounds like one of the better-adjusted people that my T mentioned, early in treatment. Not everyone turns into a raging hair-trigger, despite the Hollywood stereotype.

Some of us have seen too much, but for whatever luck of the draw reason we're aware (even afraid) of how destructive our anger could be. Some bring joy to others, as a means to make the world a little better than we found it. There's no way to foretell who will end up which way, it is what it is.

Your partner may have anger, but he keeps his Black Wolf on a leash. Just because the behaviors don't show, doesn't mean they're not there.

"What is obvious is often invisible to the naked eye." (The Little Prince)

 

[Freida]

I agree it's about helping him get better - not nitpicking the name of what is wrong with him.

When I was first diagnosed with PTSD I actually yelled at my therapist and said "Why in the world would you say I have ptsd? I have never hidden under a table in my life!" That was the extent of my knowledge about ptsd. I told my hubby and he just looked at me and said - well that's weird. It took T#1, T#2 and my doctor to convince me that I met almost every criteria for ptsd and I still argued because I never got physically violent with anyone, never threw screaming temper tantrums and never threatened people. So I couldn't possibly have it. Sure, crowds bothered me and I didn't like people close to me and I was known for running away from home, but that was just me. I was hyperactive and dramatic. I also had never been in life or death situations so I had no reason to have it...(yea - that's called denial!)

Because I functioned extremely well for a long, long time just fine - until I didn't - it was hard to fit the diagnosis into my life. They stopped trying to convince me and we just worked on symptoms that I had and what I could do to make life easier. The rest came along eventually.