Help Me Understand The Difference Between PTS And PTSD

[Natalia]

Hello,
I have read today a great part of this forum and intend to finish what I started. Still, there is a difference I can't quite catch... I understand that PTSD is a disorder that affects you for the rest of your life and it lies in the imbalance between your left and right side of the brain. What I couldn't understand is: doesn't this imbalance occur during PTS too? Is it a chemical or physical one?
Also, does PTS have a time span for appearing, or it can manifest even years later?

I know this is not a place where I can find the answers 'tailored' to my case, but I would very much like to understand at least some of the processes before taking action. I have suffered trauma in my childhood and adolescence. I didn't go to therapy. I handled it myself, and I thought I had handled it well, but I didn't. I just blocked it because I didn't know any other way to cope. My life has gone its course and now, years later, I find myself fighting myself and others for no obvious reasons. My boyfriend, who has been nothing but patient and caring with me, has told me I have to do something, because I'm getting worse. So I have started with research. I don't feel ready for therapy yet. I would just like to know and understand before anything else.

So if you could enlighten me concerning this, it would be of great help.

Thank you, Anthony, for the courage and hard work you put into this forum! I'm sure it helps a great deal of people every day!

Natalia

 

[TLight]

Sounds to me like obtaining a diagnosis is essential here. I'd recommend seeing someone. Plus, I don't think anyone with trauma is ever 'ready' for therapy. After five years of it, I still avoid and hate it like the freakin plague. It's hard, it sucks, it makes you really unstable at times, but it's essential to getting better I guess.

I'm not an expert, but I believe PTS happens shortly after a traumatic experience, it doesn't linger in the background for decades and then come with full force. I had a breakdown at 29. I have C PTSD. My traumas are from when I was very young, then a bunch of other re-victimizations. But before 29, I was pretty 'normal.' Not like I am now. Now I have to put my stability first and order my life as such. Or else........and I don't like the or else part.

Also, not sure if PTS is considered an 'injury' to the brain. But, intuitively it seems likely its a chemical imbalance since all the stress chemicals are causing intense amounts of anxiety. But it's my understanding that with help, it is curable and likely won't trouble you later in life. PTSD is not curable and is actually damage to parts of the brain. That being said, it shouldn't take away one's hope of becoming 'whole', just 'whole' in a different sense of the word.

I will never be the same person I was before my breakdown. I will always struggle with PTSD symptoms when stress if high. My understanding with PTS, you can likely find the person you were before, calm the stress response and get a handle on it.

Hope it helps, but I'd definately see someone in either case.

 

[Natalia]

TLight,

Thank you for the response. It helped clear some of the ideas.
I have read some of your 'nightmare fragments'. It turned my stomach inside out to know that an innocent person could go through such horrifying events. Not trying to stir anything, but... does it ever get better?

Hope you feel well and live the full and happy life you deserve. Take care,
Natalia

 

[anthony]

What I couldn't understand is: doesn't this imbalance occur during PTS too?

Hi,

No, that is the difference between the two. Mental health is just that, mental health. The problem with some mental health is that it also encompasses a physical component, ie. schizophrenia, PTSD and others. You don't need a chemical imbalance between the right and left brain hemispheres to suffer depression, anxiety, etc. Other aspects of diagnosis stem from depression and then what becomes comfortable, ie. isolation. For many who endure PTS, which is nearly every person on the planet at some time in their life, will push past things and get back into life, whether they want to or not, others around them will force it. The problem with PTSD is that no amount of force will help... because the problem is that there is this abnormally traumatic event/s underlying which is the cause of the problem and caused serious dysfunction within the brain itself... basically, so much stress that the brain physically breaks. PTS doesn't cause that... that is what is caused over time normally. It is rare that one event will immediately do this, hence often misdiagnosis with the disorder. The majority of PTSD occurs 12+ months after an event, not just after the event life physicians like to believe or diagnose.

 

[Natalia]

Thank you, Anthony, for such a detailed response. So what I understand from what you said is that it's practically impossible to suffer PTS years after trauma occurs...
Now I'm really scared. And what scares me the most is that I live in a country where doctors have forgotten that their practice is about patients and not money or glory..
Anyway, thank you for you answers, it gives me a starting point.