Undiagnosed Is My Truama Bad Enough?

[intothelight]

@DZebra Welcome and I am glad to read you are reaching out for help. I hope you find some peace shortly.

 

[Changing4Best]

Hi, Welcome to the Forum! I would say, in answer to your questions, first your person there who says you are trying to be manipulative is way off base! No one should ever say that to a person who is suffering. That is something for a therapist to decide and I am sure that no therapist would say that your trauma wasn't bad enough or that you are being manipulative. I cannot imagine anyone saying that. How awful!

I think a lot of this will be sorted out for you when you get into therapy, which I hope that you do. You might want to see a psychiatrist too, if you think that some medicines might help.

 

[DZebra]

Hi,
Thanks @SheliaKathy, I am having CBT therapy within the next week or so and I am on medicine while waiting for an appointment. Yesterday my GP diagnosed me with anxiety and depression with possible PTSD. I am on a waiting list for psychiatry and really hoping that is will be ok.

 

[Ivan the Elder]

I have problems with the DSM and so do many other people including psychiatrists.

For instance:
Learning that the traumatic event(s) occurred to a close family member or close friend. In cases of actual or threatened death of a family member or friend, the event(s) must have been violent and accidental.

So, watching your close friend die while you hold her in your hands trying to get her breathing again because she wolfed down a bottle of sleeping pills will not qualify as trauma that can cause PTSD? I don't think so.

Yet, I have been first on the scene of a young man busy dying with the side of his head rully ripped off and brains hanging out. I couldn't save him so I covered side of his head with a towel so others wouldn't have to see it. It didn't give me PTSD and neither have the other people I have watched die. I was a combat medic. I have also "died" myself with full flat line for a period of time. That also didn't trigger PTSD nor does it bother me a lot for the other many very close calls I have had. However, being physically and sexually abused from age 2 to about age 12 has caused problems. Being abandoned at age 16 when my parents engaged in a truly nasty divorce and used me as a tool to hurt the other also gave me problems. Being repeatedly refused for years when I tried to express my love for my former wife has also caused problems. Being incarcerated by mistake in a facility that tried to give me drugs that would probably kill me and did other things that had a very high chance of killing me five different ways caused major problems. So what was the difference? In that facility I was absolutely powerless. All I had as a "weapon" was my mind, they were backed up by sub-machine guns (police).

This put me on the very edge. I still would most likely have escaped PTSD but for one single event that would normally never be considered enough to cause PTSD, yet it has and has been diagnosed by a highly qualified Forensic Psychiatrist.

That final event was a telephone call from the woman I loved telling me that when I came back to our house she would not be there. Never mind the reasons for that except to say that such an event had never been considered by either of us until it actually happened.

So, is being told by your wife she is abandoning you enough to cause PTSD? It certainly did in me.

 

[DharmaGirl]

watching your close friend die while you hold her in your hands trying to get her breathing again because she wolfed down a bottle of sleeping pills will not qualify as trauma that can cause PTSD

That would actually fall under:
1. Directly experiencing the traumatic event

The one you are quoting is about finding out from another person about the traumatic event.