Indirect Trauma Exposure, Criterion A Item 3?

[TonyG]

I'm Not upset at all I just can't see how someone else could be a indirect suffer of PTSD, my wife could be stressed by what I am going through but she has no idea what I see in my head, I was there I was the one covered in blood holding something dying from horrific injuries, how could she see or feel what I do.

 

[Nam]

I'm unsure of criterion A. All of it. We are all a little bit different. Whether or not something was traumatic enough is hard to judge for anyone. How severe someone reacts is also on a sliding scale. PTSD can be just horrible, horrible. It can also be mild. Just a little jumpy with some intrusive thoughts...and maybe some avoidance of certain people, which also can be used to say he's "detached". And he fits the diagnosis. Many illnesses work this way. Stomach virus that just went through this house had all kinds of symptoms. One of us just got a headache and couldn't eat a meal. The worst one was puking/diarrhea every 15 minutes for 6 hours. Wide range of suffering.

I'm one of those people that have really fuzzy criterion A. Like I don't remember much of it. And yet, I went through hell for a year. Not working, barely eating, drugged up, sleeping, crying, hysterical, paranoid self. So, to me, criterion A is not much of an indicator. It's the suffering. It's the symptoms.

There are people out there that have had much worse than us, and yet they don't have PTSD. So, it's hard to judge according to criterion A.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

@FridayJones,
So do you want a trophy for not telling anyone about your trauma? I guess you're a bit more sophisticated than the rest of us in that you knew you'd give your "contagious" PTSD to everyone else!

 

[Ronin]

I don't think she was passing judgment or belittling anyone, @Solara.

And I don't really get this forum's tendency to think those of us talking about certain experiences are automatically looking for pats on the back or trying to prove anything. Life is what is. Let's start being more respectful to each other, shall we.

 

[joeylittle]

@Simply Simon, the way my psychiatrist walked me through it was this:

The "close friend or relation" must be very, very close. So, a parent being affected by their child's exposure. Personally, I'm not close to anyone who would affect me in this way - and not everyone is. This is the very first part of this criterion that folks generally don't even qualify for.

"Exposed to trauma" implies that the trauma has to qualify as clinical via one of the other stressors - 1,2, or 4.

The "actual or threatened death must be violent or accidental" clause is in order to clearly eliminate anything that is inside the range of anticipatable events.

So, if my spouse who I love more than anything is a soldier on active duty in a constant life-or-death battle situation and is killed in action, I am generally EXCLUDED from a diagnosis under stressor 3 because my soldier is engaged in their known line of work.

The thing that isn't spelled out that she said is the diagnostic intent for the "violence" referenced above: so, even though my spouse IS exposed to major violence, it is not necessarily violent ENOUGH to trigger a sympathetic PTSD reaction in me. Big diagnostic judgement call to be made.

But, to follow through with a real world example: I could qualify if my spouse had a child who was a war zone journalist caught, imprisoned, and then beheaded and that footage is all over the news media for a long time. In this case my spouse is experiencing the direct trauma (violent unexpected death) and I am experiencing the .3 stressor in relationship to my SPOUSE - not my step kid. If my spouse was truly as close to me as my own heart, and my SPOUSE was traumatized through .4, the constant exposure stressor, or through 2, if he was actually present for the beheading - I really could be traumatized.

Whether or not the relationship is close enough to create a sympathetic trauma response STRONG enough to cause PTSD is very open to interpretation by the qualified diagnostician, no-one else. And even with the strong trauma, the likelihood of PTSD is far lesser than PTS, situational depression, extreme grief...

So - it's rare. But there is enough research on sympathetic trauma response to warrant having a criterion.

That's how it was explained to me.

 

[Friday]

@FridayJones,
So do you want a trophy for not telling anyone about your trauma? I guess you're a bit more sophisticated than the rest of us in that you knew you'd give your "contagious" PTSD to everyone else!

1) Not everyone else.

3. Indirectly, by learning that a close relative or close friend was exposed to trauma. If the event involved actual or threatened death, it must have been violent or accidental..

Most of the world doesn't give a fig about me. Most of my friends and relatives may love me, but it's not that level of closeness to what a parent would feel in their child being taken from them. There has to be that degree of connection/closeness, which is hardly always defined by blood or marriage, so I particularly like the qualifier.

2) Not contagious. But it's possible for not only Secondary-PTSD (not true PTSD) to happen, as well as to become someone else's primary trauma.

3) Sophisticated? Pfft. Hardly. But there are reasons why most soldiers, cops, firefighters, aid workers, etc. tend to not talk about what they've seen and done... And they're not all the same reasons why most rape victims/ sexual abuse survivors tend to not to talk their trauma. Part of which is seeing what 3rd hand stuff does or can do to loved ones (as well as the general public). Devastation & Salivation are both gross. Just in different ways. Learning by hard experience might be sophistication (jaded, is a closer word), but the fear attached to it at the hip? Nah. Kicks it right off the map. Fear of hurting others isn't sophistication. It's fear. LOL. Do we give trophies for phobias now?

4) "The rest of us"? Just sharing my own experience & observation. This made me think of that, hence the ETA. Clarified some things for me. No idea how much any of my own exp&ob translates or relates to others. Some, not at all. Some, for sure. I don't write things thinking of how other people are going to take it, or how useful (or not) it may be for them. And I certainly don't grade things or people as better/worse. What's the point? There's always someone better or worse. I can, my stuff is flat out nowhere near as bad as most people's. Doesn't bother me, none. Still got a problem I'm trying to sort. We're all different, & we've all got the same problem. Many paths to the same result. Why I do what I do, and what the results are? (Good, indifferent, bad, really f*cking bad don't do that!), my own experiences & observations? Are just that. Mine. I don't place them in relation to other people's.

This is what I did, and why, & here are the results... Doesn't mean I think they're better or worse than anyone else's, just cause they're different. Hell, half the time if not more, they're a cautionary tale, and most of the time they're not different! Different or similar, though, success or failure... I'll toss them up here. Take what you want, discard the rest.

 

[Kas_Can_Fly]

It has a set time window, of 6 months

PTSD can also be delayed onset by years, even decades, lying dormant until triggered by a later event or finding the mental capability to start processing the earlier trauma. (This is just a statement, I'm not upset or picking a bone with you- hopefully inoffensively)

 

[Kintsugi]

Wow, stepped away from this thread for a minute, came back to a wealth of responses. I understand much better now.

@FridayJones, you provide an excellent example for how this happens. That makes lots of sense to me. Honestly, I forgot to even consider situations wherein children are suffering and their parents are unable to stop it. That is horrendous.

@joeylittle Your explanation makes lots of sense.

Really, @Nam, I'm not trying to put trauma on a scale. Moreso, I am worried about over diagnosis. I hadn't looked up PTSD in the DSM recently, so I looked at it, and I couldn't understand that criterion. PTSD has been edging the line of trendy in my opinion in much the same way bipolar has done. Many people were misdiagnosed bipolar as a result of it becoming a hot topic within mental health (at least in the US, not sure about other countries) as I understand it. I worry about PTSD being diagnosed to those who do not need someone telling them they have a chronic, incurable condition.

I am very thankful for the forum's assitance in clarifying this item for me. I feel much better... as Little Red would say from Into the Woods, "Isn't it nice to know a lot? And a little bit, not."

 

[Seagreen]

Can someone explain what's going on with this criterion?

3. Indirectly, by learning that a close relative or close friend was exposed to trauma. If the event involved actual or threatened death, it must have been violent or accidental.

A parent learns that their child has been horribly murdered. They read or witness the killers confession and are never the same again.

A man learns his wife was trapped and burnt to death in a car accident.

Those are traumas. Unless I am missing something here, I can see how these examples could lead to PTSD.

 

[RussH]

I could see where a man could develop secondary PTSD if his wife were raped. I know that I would feel guilt that I wasn't there to protect her, rage at what happened and unbelievable hurt at what happened to her, so yes I could very easily see how this scenario would give me PTSD. (if I didn't already have it.)