Is It Possible To Have Two Different Ptsd Generators?

[LittleBear]

Let me try to explain what I mean. My Mother died of cancer when I was sixteen and looking back at my life I have not reached my full potential for my abilities because I've either tried to resolve her death or do everything I could to prevent a like devastating traumatic event. My Dad died when I was 33 but the grief seemed to 'only' last a 'normal' several month time period. My Dad and I had grown very close but it didn't seem to overwhelm me when he died of an aneurysm.

Last year my closest friend died suddenly along with his wife and I have been in an emotional train wreck ever since. He, even though we were essentially the same age, had replaced my Dad and his family of his parents and home had replaced my then no longer existent family. Forty+ plus years ago PTSD was 'shell shock' and 'get over it' was the cure.

Now that I am going through the near exact same 'response' with my Friend's death last year as I did with my Mom's death from cancer when I was 16 and the condition and treatment of my Friend's death may indeed resolve both. The most important salvation is I may finally begin to quit hating myself for Mom's death.

Thank-you,

LBear

 

[simplekindofgirl]

Littlebear- welcome to the forum.

If you were diagnosed with PTSD after the passing of your mother, then you have PTSD. It is possible for a reminder, or trigger, to bring back the symptoms. I am however not suggesting that such is the case but only that it is possible. But once you have been adequately diagnosed with PTSD (or have not yet been diagnosed but do have the condition) then you are living with PTSD from that point on, while managing symptoms.

I am so sorry for your loss. I really am.

May I ask why you hate yourself for the death of your mother? Please feel free to tell me not to ask, but I just wanted to know what your thought process is behind this description of your feelings, since you suggested such.

All the best. I hope that you find peace and comfort amongst these pages.

 

[LittleBear]

Littlebear- welcome to the forum.

Thank-you for the blessing.

I will try to explain but bear with me. My Brother and I discussed this last night. We were raised to believe, not only by our parents but our military community, that men...prepare for...prevent...protect and fix problems. Failure was neither an option nor excusable. I, according to my Brother, have always tried to "fix" Mom's death and blamed myself for her dying. In short not being able to fix her dying I have considered myself to be the ultimate failure with the resulting self-loathing.

We were raised by the WWII generation and by engineers that taught us there was no excuse for failure. Perfection was not an option; it was a requirement. We were literally spanked not only by our parents but by our teachers and coaches for failure to complete a task on time and correctly. Ridicule was supposed to be motivating and alls you had to do to overcome anything was "Be a man" and get it done. Complaining about your hurting was tantamount to blasphemy at a church on Sunday. I literally walked around my high school all day with a broken arm from a morning basketball game fall because I had felt I needed to gut it out. I've seen fellow students with broken fingers get ridiculed for not gutting it up. This is the God's truth...we had a football teammate get sent back into a game with a broken neck. The coach ignored his complaints and on the very next play he was almost crippled for life.

Please understand, I lived and grew up in a very unique community and time so while this sounds harsh it was SOP for us. We were aggressively taught that regardless of how big a problem or dangerous an event if we got caught standing around watching it could literally result in very severe punishment up to and including a definitive beating. It was not uncommon to have friends and classmates whose Dad's were WWII POWs. That and teachers, coaches and neighbors that had been decorated combat veterans. You (Third-person) sacrificed yourself for others without consideration and that was the attitude we learned from early childhood into early adulthood.

Admittedly, I have a very skewed from normal image of myself and how I think others should be. Hence...welcome to me...here.

Thank-you for your reply,

LBear

 

[angel2write]

To answer just the question on the title: yes. You can have multiple traumas, each of which would be enough to result in PTSD independently. A lot of people on this site are in the situation of having to deal with multiple traumas. (You can obviously only get PTSD once, though I understand that it can be healed, even go into a sort of remission, and then severe symptoms be brought back by being retraumatized in some way.)

Whether this is what is going on in your situation or not, I couldn't say. You might try doing some research in the articles and the Wiki pages to see if you can learn more about what's going on.

 

[Zipperhead]

Little Bear

Not knowing the exact details of your situation, I will just explain the facts as I understand them.

Any one trauma may trigger PTSD, if the criteria are met. but if you are expossed to many traumas over time you could be diagnosed with PTSD, with no one trauma being blamed as the direct cause of the condition. The cumilative effect of all the traumas combine to cause the condition, or the additional traumas agrivate the severity of a pre-existing condition. This is commonly referred to as Complex PTSD. This is not an officially recognised Diagnosis, it's just a convienient way of labelling the condition to help identify that there was no one trigger to the condition. Child abuse suvivors and Military Veterans often receive this diagnosis.

So in answer to your initial question, yes, it is possible to have two PTSD generators.

P/S, as retired Military, I truely understand the team before self mantra, and believe you are better for having learned it. This was a valuable lesson in my opinion. The coach may have been a little harsh, but that is not the intent of the team mentality. Indeed, properly applied, it is a way of life people should strive to achieve. Although, that coach should have had his head examined.

 

[angel2write]

Although, that coach should have had his head examined.

Yeah- "the team before self" is a common element of abusive family systems, too. It works great in a healthy system to encourage selflessness, courage, and hard work. In an unhealthy system, it encourages silence, complicity, and sometimes collateral abuse when people are abused by peers because their bodies or minds break and they "let down the team."

 

[Zipperhead]

It goes back to the properly applied statement I suppose.

 

[LittleBear]

Zipper and Angel...I can see the validity in both of your replies. The team before self led me to save a person's life while others stood around and watched. He and I spent two days in the hospital after that.

That said, Angel has a valid point, too. I've seen people who were raised in such perfection environments fail miserably at life because they could not accept their human condition.

At 57 I am finally learning that life is a toss up but it can suddenly become just as beautiful as it had been bad. Trying to be perfect is a perfect way to go perfectly insane. Better to try to be excellent; that is obtainable...perpetual perfection is not.

LBear