Poll How Do You Classify Your PTSD?

[BloomInWinter]

IDK but (whatever.I.was.born.as) + dysfunctional coping mechanisms - mitigating/protective factors x traumas = PTSD'd out me

So, anything after what I was born with....causal factors in the daily labile emotions calculus that is my PTSD?

 

[scott_1971_h]

I voted syndrome; PTSD is not 'just' one thing it's a syndrome...

 

[jo may]

I guess I've been told that I'm ill so much now that I believe it. My husband always say's to me your not a bad person babe your a sad person.

 

[Linda Lee Bogard - King]

My vote was disorder that I believe is an illness.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

ILLNESS. As in "I have a mental illness."

It's much easier to tell people you have an illness and leave it at that.

IMHO the "syndrome" qualification is pure bunk. With some syndromes you can have as little as ONE symptom and be diagnosed with a syndrome. PCOS anyone?

 

[Anna]

I classify it personally as an injury. Damaged. Broken, whatever. I like to think what is broken can someday be fixed. Positive all the way. I also like my fast reactions and being able to not trust people can also be quite handy, especially when dealing with bankers :P

 

[CaringMomma]

I chose "disorder" because it's in the title and because I feel that it best encompasses the spectrum of causes, reactions, and long term affects of PTSD.

 

[Deaf Global Nomad]

I voted PTSD to be a disorder because that is what the name encompasses.

At the same time, injury is the crucial factor, as without the trauma or injury we would not have PTSD.

You can easily use both terms: The injury caused the disorder. The many symptoms that go along with PTSD can be many and extremely diverse, making it a complex disorder.

My doctors and therapist, as well as other workers subdivide PTSD into different categories, which then leads to a number of different treatments being more or less helpful for any given subtype.

Some people the subtype I have as Developmental PTSD or complex PTSD because it began when I was born and continued for many years thereafter. As my coping skills (e.g. dissociation) are so well developed, they appear to this day when they are more harmful than helpful. As I dissociate so often, I end up in very awkward and even dangerous situations.

 

[Meadowsweet]

This is an interesting question and I like to find meaning in words, or what they mean to me.

I think PTSD can be described as a disorder, because I recognise that my thoughts are disordered. For example, what happened 5 years ago or fifteen years ago should be in chronological order and no longer bother me. But those experiences reccur in the present, and I want to put them back in the year that they happened - in their proper order.

But, the acceptance that it's not that simple - however much I try and however much I understand, I can't simply take a feeling I'm experiencing now, and put it back in 2006 or whenever. I have tried, and I havn't succeeded. So part of accepting that I can't control part of me (my mind), without medical intervention, it helps to view it as an illness.

I don't understand the word syndrome in any useful way. And injury, for me, is overly related to physical injury. I think PTSD is only really recognised after the initial injury has healed.

 

[UnKnown-Self]

Is your PTSD an Illness, a Disorder, a Syndrome, an Injury, or something else?

The first answer that popped into my head was "my life" and that prompted me to choose "Other. Then I realized the question was not how I define but classify my PTSD. I would say I classify it as a hmmmm.... opening a new tab to quickly check the meaning of two words.

Disorder: a disruption of normal physical or mental functions; a disease or abnormal condition "eating disorders"

Syndrome: a group of symptoms that consistently occur together or a condition characterized by a set of associated symptoms.

;) I think I might have Disorder Syndrome...

 

[Ed Norton]

Hmmm, good question. It's, to me, really a syndrome because multiple symptoms manifest and it leaves you susceptible to other illnesses like depression, psychosis and physical illness. They, obviously, classify it as a disorder because it's in the name. Injury, in some ways makes sense, as it causes brain changes and in light of @Lionheart777 definition I can see a cogent argument for injury. Illness is valid. In this case, I chose disorder but quite simply because it's in the name.

 

[Ronin]

Survival against the odds & staying with ghosts.

(Sorry, while I see argument for all the other definitions, it's not how I see my PTSD.)