If you have PTSD? (And good news / bad news... that’s still an “if” at this point, because PTSD shares symptoms with a lot of other disorders. I mistook my ex husbands brand of crazy for the one I was most familiar with... for a long time. Even highly trained diagnosticians often have a hard time DDX’ing, and need months with their client to be sure... so whilst those of us with the disorder can & often do “spot” others who have it? We can also easily be wrong, seeing what we expect to see, instead of what we don’t even know to look for.) But back to “simply” (ha! :hilarious: Just climb Everest. Simple, right? Sure! :facepalm: Maybe from the outside. But when you’re the one looking at doing it, suddenly it’s not so “simply”) getting diagnosed.
- talking about the traumas that caused it (and avoidance is a maaaaajor symptom, that expresses in a lot of different ways, but avoiding thinking/talking about your trauma is about as straight up as it gets.)
- dealing with the fact that the person you’ve loved best, trusted most, devoted yourself and your life to to, has either tried to kill you, assaulted you, abused you, raped you, or some combo of the above (Again, IF you have PTSD. There are other disorders and conditions that follow other kinds of trauma. PTSD, for better or worse, is only associated with a fairly narrow window into all-things-bad). That’s 12 kinds of hard, especially if -like most people- you’ve held onto a belief that you would never be one of “those” women (so it challenges your very identity, in addition to the fact that life threatening trauma &/or sexual assault does a number on most people’s sense of themselves and the world), adds a level of fear that if it’s faced it means the end of the relationship, or public scorn if it doesn’t end the relationship, or, or, or, or... a clusterf*ck of painful hard choices to make, and actions to take or not take, beliefs/feelings/confusion & conflicting beliefs/feelings/confusion... that would gut any rational person facing them.
- In the midst of feeling about as presentable as a drowned rat, almost the exact opposite of the person you liked yourself best as, and about as enthusiastic about spilling your guts (metaphorically) to strangers and being asked to spill your guts (literally). :wtf: ? Having to face (and follow through on) making a series of appointments with a therapist, doctor, and possibly several specialists (to rule out physiological causes OR complications)... just to tell you somehing you don’t want to know, about somehing you don’t want to talk about, in order to have to face a series of decisions you -probably- don’t want to make (not just relationship Q’s, but treatment, etc.).
- And those 3 items are just the start of a list that looks like Santa’s.
Yeah. Can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to do this ;)It IS worth it. Not the least of which is because finding out, for sure, what’s going on gives you options. But that’s all they are. Options. No decisions have to be made, now... or for that matter, ever. You really don’t even have to talk about your trauma history, to start therapy, to get help with what you’re struggling with. Does that delay diagnosis? Sure. But it also gives real tangible help with what your biggest problems are, right here and right now. A Dx will get you your best help, but not only is any port in a storm, better than none, but a diagnosis can take some serious time to really be secure in... and that’s actually a good thing. In the meantime, real/solid/tangible help is still help
