Hello All...Silly But Real For Me

[who2q]

:wall:Hello my name is Susan Needy and I have been suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder since I was a child and just recently found that out. I just thought I was strange.

When I was 14 I started having panic attacks at school, stores, anywhere where there was a lot of people. My parents tried to help by sending me to a therapist who did nothing. In 2007 tired of being scared I went to a Hypnotist and made my husband go along. It didn't help but I did find the root cause. Six people crammed into a car going on a family vacation with my best friend sitting next to me. She chewed, cracked, popped and spit her saliva onto my face and I freaked out. Ever since that vacation I'm very claustrophobic and hate people who chew gum. Sounds silly but very very real to me.

Between school and 2007 have seen many doctors and took many meds that don't help. The only thing that I found to help was a radio with an earphone hide under my hair and into my ear. Without that I would have quit school. I suffer from nightmares and I don't want to be like this anymore. I would love to attend church, go to the movies, go out for dinner or see my kids concerts at school. I still see a psychiatrist and go to therapist. I recently had to go on medical leave because my employer took away all radios and mp3 players and I freaked. I mean I completely lost my mind and thought I was having a heart attack (worse panic attack ever).

Now all I do is cry most days I don't even get dressed. Depression is here and this seroquel does nothing. I just want to be normal. Guess it's only a dream. Thank you for reading my story.

 

[Clydiechick]

Welcome to the forum. Sounds like you need to keep seeking help. I love yoga and meditation, but it's not a cure, just helps me chill a bit.

Good luck
clydie

 

[Onefineday]

Heya, I'm sorry but I didn't quite understand what you are saying, are you saying you have PTSD because you were in a car with too many people with a person chewing gum next you and you are now cluastrophobic? Maybe I just read that totally wrong or I'm not understanding. Mind you, I can understand why that would freak you out.

 

[amethist]

Hi Susan

I would not say this is ptsd, more serious anxiety and claustrophobia, as nothing actually life threatening or traumatic was involved.

I would seek advice from a different doctor before you continue further on this path.

Which ever course you take good luck.

Amethist

 

[Deleted member 541]

I am not a Dr or shrink, but I seriously doubt that you have PTSD at all. Sorry, but you don't fit the criteria at all......I agree with onefineday, in that you most likely have anxiety, claustrophobia, but not PTSD.....

Sorry, but being in a crowed car, with someone chewing gum loudly is not enough to be considered trauma......

 

[tryintobreathe]

I'm not a doctor either and I am not disputing you suffer from anxiety and other issues, but I would seek a second opinion if you have been diagnosed with PTSD from that incident.

Or...Maybe I missed something? Is there more that you just didn't put in your post?


309.81 DSM-IV Criteria for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
A. The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following have been present:
(1) the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others (2) the person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror. Note: In children, this may be expressed instead by disorganized or agitated behavior.
B. The traumatic event is persistently reexperienced in one (or more) of the following ways:
(1) recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event, including images, thoughts, or perceptions. Note: In young children, repetitive play may occur in which themes or aspects of the trauma are expressed.
(2) recurrent distressing dreams of the event. Note: In children, there may be frightening dreams without recognizable content.

(3) acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (includes a sense of reliving the experience, illusions, hallucinations, and dissociative flashback episodes, including those that occur upon awakening or when intoxicated). Note: In young children, trauma-specific reenactment may occur.
(4) intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.
(5) physiological reactivity on exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.
C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by three (or more) of the following:
(1) efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma
(2) efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma
(3) inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma
(4) markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities
(5) feeling of detachment or estrangement from others
(6) restricted range of affect (e.g., unable to have loving feelings)
(7) sense of a foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage, children, or a normal life span)
D. Persistent symptoms of increased arousal (not present before the trauma), as indicated by two (or more) of the following:
(1) difficulty falling or staying asleep
(2) irritability or outbursts of anger
(3) difficulty concentrating
(4) hypervigilance
(5) exaggerated startle response
E. Duration of the disturbance (symptoms in Criteria B, C, and D) is more than one month.
F. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
Specify if:
Acute: if duration of symptoms is less than 3 months
Chronic: if duration of symptoms is 3 months or more
Specify if:
With Delayed Onset: if onset of symptoms is at least 6 months after the stressor

 

[Onefineday]

If you were in a car with too many people and it caused you to have claustraphobia that in inself is no doubt a difficult thing, having anxiety and claustraphobia is an issue you definetly need help with. But unless something really traumatic happened (i.e. the car you were in with all those people crashed and someone died), then it could not be PTSD. as tryintobreath said, maybe there is something you did not tell us?
Don't stress too much, it is not uncommon to be wrongly diagnosed with something, or see something and think that perhaps that is your answer based on a similarity of symptoms. I myself have been wrongly diagnosed, for 10 years in fact- bipolar, OCD, nothing of which was actually true.
I hope everything works out for you and that if this is not the answer that you find the answer you need.

 

[ghost]

What constitutes trauma?

This raises a good question - If someone has the symptoms of PTSD (not that Susan necessarily has the predominant symptoms), yet does not report suffering an abnormal trauma, can they still be considered to have PTSD?

According to the DSM-IV criteria, a person has to have ‘experienced, witnessed, or...[have been] confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others' (I think this criteria is being reviewed for DSM-V). This suggests that Susan could not have PTSD, because her experience does not meet this criteria.

With that said, within the psychiatric community, there is increasing awareness of other circumstances (some of which fall outside the boundaries of what is considered ‘abnormal trauma’), which trigger the cluster of symptoms associated with PTSD. One of these is drug-induced psychoses. i.e. a person under the influence of LSD may have a psychotic experience in which they believe that they are going to die; while all the while they may be sitting safely in their lounge room. Basically, the brain does not know the difference between a real, and a drug-induced threat - the same chemical reactions are triggered; memories are stored in the same way, etc...

In the above example, there is no occurrence of 'abnormal trauma', yet there is the development of PTSD symptoms. I think this suggests that the perception of threatened death also has the capacity to trigger the same physiological, psychological and behavioural changes that can be caused by 'abnormal trauma'.

In Susan's case, I do not think that PTSD is an inappropriate diagnosis, simply because her experience does not fall into the category of actual or threatened death. Firstly, children, particularly infants, have a very different way of perceiving the world to adults. Her experience, of being virtually sandwiched in the back of a (possibly hot; oxygen depleted) car, for a period of perhaps ten or more hours and being continually spat on, could be highly traumatic for a young child. Especially if she perceived no possible escape or end to her experience.

Who are we to determine what constitutes a trauma to another person? Isn't that simply repeating what governments, medical institutions, and society in general have been doing to people who have suffered sexual abuse; war trauma... for years - implying that what they have experienced really isn't that bad?

Secondly, there is the issue of repressed memory. Under hypnosis, Susan recalled the event that occurred in the car. However, there could well be other repressed events, which she is not consciously aware of, that have also contributed to her present symptoms.

I have heard that some people, who suffer sexual abuse as children, distort their experience into an alien abduction scenario. They replace the unmanageable memory of being sexually abused with the imagined memory of being abducted and probed by aliens.This demonstrates the capacity of the mind to distort and reframe traumatic memories.

People do not develop the (very severe) symptoms associated with PTSD for no reason. Whether it is deemed 'abnormal trauma' or not, it takes a significant blow to a person’s psyche to effect that kind of damage.

 

[tryintobreathe]

Excellent post Ghost!

Jen