Is My Trauma 'Real' Enough to Justify a Diagnosis of PTSD?

[freya]

I went to see a therapist today and I'm considering going to work with her.

The session brought up several questions that I have. I'd like to ask them here, hoping others here know more about PTSD and how it 'works'... If there's other threads on the topics I'm mentioning please feel free to direct me there...

(Background: Almost twenty years ago I was hospitalized because of psychosis and diagnosed with Bipolar disorder.
Lately my psychiatrist is suggesting that part of my history of illness has to do with PTSD rather than Bipolar disorder. She thinks I'm a case of 'second generation' PTSD: my father has been diagnosed with it a few years ago.
I'm trying to get more information and insights into PTSD to see if this could be true. So far I found a lot of information on PTSD that I can relate to, and many ways to deal with PTSD that I read about and try to apply, work well for me.)

A One of my questions is: could it be possible that an experience I had when I was only two years old, and my parents left me in the care of my grandmother for a few weeks, is part of the cause for PTSD?
I have always had great fear of abandonment and I'm thinking
that this experience may be the, or a, cause for that.

B Another question I have is: during my treatment in psychiatric hospital I went trough certain traumatic events such as being locked up in solitary confinement, and having been injected medication againt my will. (Four people holding me down). The worst of these experiences took place 5 years ago).

I tend to think my main problems are communication (showing a calm face or 'front' when I'm triggered and feeling panic inside), and dissociation (I'm beginning to wonder that maybe in everyday life, I'm never really truly in touch with myself, my body, my feelings).

The question is: could it be that these problems have become more severe because of the later trauma, being added on to the childhood experiences?

C Then a more general question is that I keep wondering if what I went through (living with a father with PTSD, having been abandoned the way I described, and the 'treatment' in psychiatry) is 'enough' to develop PTSD from?

I keep having a feeling that this was not 'real' trauma?

Thank you for reading. I'm hoping I'm making myself clear enough in this post... English is not my mother tongue...

Any thoughts you care to share, on the questions or on my situation, are welcome.

Freya

 

[UmightKnowMe]

I dont think that any of us can answer the 'was it bad enough' question for you. I do know that many of us have said either in our introductions or in our diarys that what we went through doesnt compare to things that other people have described. But I read once that

"Your pain is Your pain....is what she told me.There will always be someone who had it worse and there will always be someone who had it better."

What we have to ask ourselves now is "what am I going to do about it"?

You are in the right place to begin answering that question!

 

[Riggs413]

I agree with Umightknowme, only you can answer if it "was bad enough".

Check out this thread though, it may help.

[DLMURL]http://www.ptsdforum.org/thread1114.html[/DLMURL]

 

[rallynut78]

The thing about PTSD is that no two people experience trauma in the same way. It really depends on the psychological and physiological response to a a traumatic event. Trauma will induce stress but some folks are better than others at processing and coping with stress than others. so potentialy two people could experince the same exact event but be effected differently. PTSD is the left over stress from a trauma. it helps me to think of it as the instinctual "fight-or-flight responce" is out of wack. Your body thinks it is in near constant danger and acts accordingly. the anxiety that hypervigalince produces takes it's toll on the body one way or another. if left untreated it can snowball into an unmanagable mess.

the amazing thing to me is that the symtoms of PTSD are nearly the same no matter what the cause of the trauma is. for instance mine stemed from being in Iraq for a year but I can identify with someone who's PTSD was a result of sexual abuce.

So to sum it up no one can say with any certianity if you have PTSD or not. That is a question best worked out with your therapist. Too many people struggle witih "was it bad enough to have it". Maybe a better question to ask is "how has that experince effected me?" Do memories of the event come up when I dont want them to? Do I feel like the next bad thing is just arround the corner? Does every day stress effect me differently after the event than before?

 

[freya]

Thank you very much for your responses...

Rallynut, that's helpful for me that you say you can identify with someone who has been through another from of trauma.
Your questions too are helpful.

I think that I'm still hesitant to let in that this might indeed be PTSD. A big part of my life had been deeply influenced by having a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. It's sort of bitter for me if I would have to accept that that diagnosis may have been wrong, or partically wrong. (For one because I've taken very heavy medications that have taken their toll on my body, that I could perhaps have done without).

Another thing is that I find that the information on PTSD I've read so far, is very useful for me. In fact it's so to-the-point for me that it's almost scary. I'm sort of hesitant to 'embrace' the idea that this could really be the right diagnosis.
I'm worried that mabye I should 'delve into it' deeper only to be told AGAIN, later on, that this is not the right diagnosis.
Of course if the information is useful it will be good to begin to put it to use, I realize this. Still, it's a very different approach from the ways of how to deal with Bipolar.

One big difference, as someone pointed out to me recently, is that with Bipolar disorder, treatment focuses on medications and 'too much therapy', 'too much focus on feelings and emotions' is very much advised against. Whereas with PTSD, as I understand it, focus is much more on 'getting back in touch with the here and now, and with feelings' and to talk about the trauma and such.
And I know that part of me always felt this great need to talk and relive memories, sensing that this would help me and be healing for me. I always felt that the talk therapy I had was the most useful part of my treatment for Bipolar. Unfortunately talk therapy was often denied.

Summing it up I feel that it might benefit me greatly to further investigate the possibility that I have PTSD and to see if this offers good perspectives for treatment, insights on how to deal with my problems... BUT I'm somehow still hesitant, afraid to put a lot of effort and energy in case it should again not be the correct diagnosis.

Thank you for listening.... any thoughts you have are welcome...

Freya

 

[uplate]

I'd been misdiagnosed, it took 18 years to get it all worked out, 12 just for the PTSD diagnosis so I can relate.

I also had the "it wasn't that bad" thing going on, "It couldn't be that surely, I survived it and have been functioning right?" Wrong, I was a high functioning mess, I spoke to someone about it almost casually and she's kind of gone "ahem, you bet that's a problem" as though it was obvious, I thought about what I would think if it happened to someone else and she was right, it was a relief to find out what had been bothering me and that I could do something about it.

I had the fear they'd got it wrong this time too but what happened to convince me they didn't was things started making sense (that "how did they know that" familiarity) and I began to improve, after the diagnosis I read up on it which helped, I was however very angry finding out this stuff as well. It wasn't easy to get rid of the previous labels, people kept trying to paint them back on, I was retraumatised in care (in my opinion some of that stuff is enough to traumatise anyone) and retraumaising in care is not uncommon. I don't know if you have PTSD, bipolar or both but working through this stuff it will become clearer to you.

 

[Cr8ingMagic]

My opinion is that if something from the past triggers undue anxiety in terms of experiencing situations that would not normally bother someone in the present, then it qualifies as trauma.

For example, I was bitten by dogs five different times in my life. If I see a dog now, I will go out of my way to avoid it, but I don't experience fear, anxiety, panic, etc. I'm just overly cautious. So I would say that being bitten wasn't traumatic.

But the last time I knew that I would be seeing my abuser, I broke out in shingles. The idea of seeing that person caused so much anxiety and fear that I had a physical reaction. If I had started to sweat or shake, or felt that I needed to go on medication to control my anxiety, then there is trauma involved with my experiences with that person.

It doesn't matter how "insignificant" the precipitating event seems to yourself or others, it is your subsequent reaction (again, just my personal belief) that would cause me to say yes, I am suffering from PTSD or no, I am not.

 

[shari]

Do you have a therapist who specializes in trauma? They are your best guide.

The medical community certainly has a model for what qualifies for PTSD. I personally was hoping for Generalized Anxiety Disorder or Panic Disorder or something more treatable than PTSD.

I think everyone goes through the thought process that we SHOULDNT have PTSD. There is always someone who had it worse. The fact is, we are who we are, what happened, happened. There are no right or wrong ways to process events. They are processed the way they are, as we are, in the moment.

Good luck to you in your search for answers.

 

[trial'n'error]

Even though my life was wrecked for many years, I get mindf*cked by this question too. I'm not sure how to deal with it. I'm VERY high functioning (sole breadwinner for my family), but have been dx'd with everything from OCD to eating and personality disorders due to my dysfunction. My traumas include physical and emotional (especially emotional) abuse at home, ten years of beatings and harrassment at school, which was ignored by teachers and other authorities, one event of sexual abuse when I was an immature teenager, three "date rapes" one in which there were several guys, and an extremely violent relationship that lasted about a year. All of these things happened before I turned 22.

It doesn't help that during my childhood and later, I was told and also assumed that 1) it was all my fault and 2) the things that happened to me were normal.

The only classic, fully recognized as causing PTSD event was when I was 29 and I was the nearest witness and first responder to a fatal car accident. All the other events can be interpreted many different ways, including that they "weren't bad enough". But, the only thing is, they were bad enough, because I was way messed up years and years and years before I encountered that poor woman who had lost her life instantly. In my view, that event was actually the least traumatic of all of them. I was very shaken up, and I felt awful for the poor crash victim who died, but gained closure relatively quickly, resolved my guilt in not being able to help her, and moved on. In contrast, the one-two punch of abuse at home and at school is a vast wasteland of wreckage for me - some years I simply don't remember, others are full of images that repeat themselves, and recurring feelings of helplessness and rage.

 

[A2theme]

Hey, I have the same quistion about my experience, except what i do know is my reaction to the experience is real and scary. So, with that said, it must be a pretty traumatic experience. I think only you can define how traumatic your experiences are. I started going to a therapist last week, and it was crazy becuase she was ready to diagnose me based on one visit. Im curious to know what things help you deal with PTSD.

 

[cragger65]

For me, it is struggling with giving myself permisson to be affected. Do I need my own permission to have the flu? Break a leg? The fact is that I have been deeply affected, and that my handling of things (denial/agonizing) exacerbates the problem. Only while I am accepting everything, just as it is/was, do I feel peace. It is fleeting for me still, but improving. I don't know if this is any help or not, but I thought there might be something recognizable here that rings a bell.