How Good Are You At Pretending You Don't Have Ptsd?

[Shan-Nav01]

I was chatting to my friend, and I said that I had PTSD, he didn't quite believe me at first, I believe his response was along the lines of 'actually diagnosed or you just decided you have it' he's studying psychology and I think he doesn't get that people that have mental health issues also learn to hide them quite well.

Sometimes I don't know if my work life is me pretending things are better than they are or my home life is me pretending things are worse than they are...

 

[bell]

I deserve an Oscar, too. The only thing that brings it out in me now is getting close to new people, which is generally humiliating, because I've worked through it on so many other levels. When I tell people they tend to not believe me, because unless I'm thinking about getting to, uh, really know them, they won't ever see it.

 

[Spiderallis]

I wore that mask so long that I forgot it wasn't my face. It's both helpful and harmful to tuck it in. The same way it protects from further hurt, it can prevent us from reaching out for help. There has to be some way to reach a middle ground of letting down the guards when it's safe to do so. Easier said than done, but that's my goal.

 

[Sally sue]

There really is normalcy in knowing that others struggle with this same thing! It seems clear by all the responses here that NONE of us are really loving having ptsd and since we are hiding it so much, WHY would people think we are trying to get attention??? {eye roll}

 

[Hope4Now]

Here's my experience with this.
1. I have an uncanny ability to present myself as a perfectly well-adjusted person, capable, smart, etc. It isn't "pretending" really--it is a powerful part of me that comes to the forefront...like it's on-call as needed. It has served me well my whole life. However, it leaves me completely exhausted.
2. I am also very good at pretending when this powerful part of me isn't coming to my aid. Had to do it yesterday. Left my therapist appointment in a sort of flashback and had to go right to parent conferences at my child's school. It was hideous for me, but I don't think anyone noticed how intensely I was working to stay in control.
3. As soon as I stop being "on," I fall apart.

The same way it protects from further hurt, it can prevent us from reaching out for help.

Yes. I am trying to figure this out...how to find the balance. I have a lot of social friends who have no clue about who I am in addition to the person I "present" to the world. I do not make myself vulnerable. I have just begun to try to do this with my husband and one other friend--one who is a psychologist and has had a tremendous amount of trauma in his own life.

 

[tillybee]

@Hope4Now I have to agree with you. It's like you can switch on and off most of the time. It's like answering the phone at work, when you pick the phone up you are an entirely different person.

It wasn't until I switched off due to being happy and content with life that the PTSD came out and I deteriorated from there.

In some situations I can still summon up that strong capable person but it has got less and less of late as I have become more ill.

In a way I've had to stop summoning that strong capable person and be ill so I can start to get better. The strong capable one has the ability to mask and ignore alot. :)

 

[greenleaf]

It sounds like we need to get a bunch of nice Oscar statues made for everyone on the list - mine would also have several cats at the base...

 

[Jane.l]

Omg I so relate to this thread !! We have a constant battle in therapy for we to drop the defensive, strong capable ' me' so I can bring the guards down and let my T in but then I need to get that 'me' back when I walk out of his door otherwise I find everything too overwhelming and can't cope .

It feels like an impossible balancing act at the moment and most of the time I can 't get it quite right - but we are working on it - sometimes I feel slightly crazy having two such different opposing 'me's' - I feel fragmented

 

[Spiderallis]

@Hope4Now It's like answering the phone at work, when you pick the phone up you are an entirely different person.

Glad I wasn't having a sip of coffee when I read that- it's brilliant.

That made realize I have at least two costumes I put on to hide what's really going on- the 'customer service' face is overly polite out of habit, or the 'toughie' face to deter anyone from coming too close. Neither one is me, not sure who that is sometimes but it's probably somewhere in between.

 

[Jane.l]

That's true I have more than 2 - maybe 4 or 5 'faces' - do you think that's true of most people ? or more so in ptsd ? Keep finding that things I think are 'normal' and everyone does aren't and most people don't ,
Except for us - you are my 'normal' !

 

[Hope4Now]

I am smiling at all these latest posts because I have all sorts of "costumes" and "faces" etc. that I put on for the world that shift and change according to my interpretation of circumstances. I think even people without PTSD do this as well--it is part of navigating the social world, figuring out how to behave appropriately in line with your values.

Let's see; among many others, I have the formal polite me, the helpful me, the "I can do it all superwoman me," the justifiably outraged/save the underdog me, the intellectual expert me, etc.

I think the difference for me (and maybe others too?) is that I am very conscious of selecting which "me" I show, and I never allowed the scared, vulnerable, hurt me to emerge (I never even acknowledged it) until it crashed through, knocking the metaphorical legs out from beneath all the other mes. That's when the PTSD diagnosis was given.

All my adult functional mes are working very hard to get back up and running, but the rejected me(s) keep knocking them down. It's like World War III in my psyche.

 

[Jane.l]

@Hope yep me too