Is Ptsd Progressive?

[Neverthesame]

I cannot say for certain whether or not the condition itself progresses in the same way as cancer for example. However, speaking strictly from my own experience. The more you try to bury and ignore the problem, the worse you get. Some of the co-morbid conditions which go along with PTSD, depression, insomnia, ect, ect. Wear you down physically and mentally. Which can lead to self medicating, or other self destructive behaviours. For example; taking sleep medication to combat insomnia. Works great for a little while, but you begin to need higher and higher doses to maintain the effectiveness. Eventually you are either taking massive doses, or mixing it with alcohol, or both... (Glad I stopped doing that, before I did permanent damage).
Dealing with the unpleasant psychological weight of trauma, while also combating exhaustion, can make it more difficult to employ grounding or other coping strategies effectively.
That has been my experience anyway. Hope you find the answers you are looking for.

 

[RussH]

COPD-er is stimulated by CO2

You are right that a normal person breathing mechanism is driven by CO2. A person with COPD breathing is driven by O2 levels, and administering too much O2 can cause them to stop breathing.

And yes my original post is exactly this; can and will PTSD progress if left untreated the same way that heart disease and copd progress.

 

[anthony]

Is PTSD progressive? In other words, if you suffer from PTSD and do not seek out therapy, can the symptoms of the disorder become progressive in terms of severity and frequency?

Russ... you ask some seriously awesome questions!

You can say yes and no to such questions, and neither is necessarily more accurate than the other, unless you include statistics, which is what we're really talking about in most instances surrounding mental health based questions.

Statisically, as a majority, the answer is no. If you pick near any PTSD treatment study where a wait group is used, you will find that in most study wait groups 60% plus no longer meet diagnostic criterion after six months, from nothing other than waiting. Time, in other words. You then have varying degrees across wait group remainders. Some no longer meet the criterion after 12 months, and then there is typically always a minority remainder, who's symptoms simply won't dissipate without intervention.

That leads us to the yes component. In some people, a minority, symptoms will hit a point of severity and stop. Behaviours may become worse, but symptoms will stop at a certain level, because you will either have sought treatment via some means OR you will be dead from suicide. So yes, a small majority will continue to get worse until a point, then symptoms will stop and simply cannot progress further than what their brain is capable of further handling via either death or treatment of some kind.

You will also have a minority, statistically, who may improve in some areas, worsen in others.

Statistically though, if using the majority figures, PTSD does not progress with time, it declines with time.

 

[Friday]

I didn't know the scientific answer until reading @anthony's post.

In my own experience / purely anecdotal... Also, no.

5 years ... How long it took my first run to sort itself out. No treatment. Developed some hardcore cycles in that pyramid. (Violence/ oblivion&distraction/ stillness, Violence/ oblivion&distraction/ stillness, V/ O&D/ S, rinse, lather, repeat). Some cycles were worse than others. Some I was totally normal-looking in. Ish. Like I'd have a place, a relationship, paying bills and taxes. (It was normal as long as you took a snapshot of that month and didn't look 3 months back, or forward). Others I was homeless & incapable of functioning normally in society. And everything in between. Sometimes I'd be cycling through very quickly (a few weeks in each place of V/O&D/S, or even a few days)... Others lasted months. In every part of the cycle I was symptomatic as f*ck, looking back on things. As more and more good days started outweighing the bad days? The cycle stretched out, then altered. I no longer needed violence & oblivion & stillness. I could move on with life.

2-3months... How long it would take most funks to work themselves out. I'd be symptomatic for a tick, just wait it out, and be fine. I called these echoes, or lingering side effects from a perky little case of PTSD I used to have from way back when.

3 years and counting ... How long this last run has been going for. No discernible patterns, as yet. Outside of the fact that unlike the 1st run, I'm all but non-functional. It's all been a downward spiral, getting worse and worse. The first 5 years, were very plateaued. Bad, for sure. But at a fairly balanced level of bad. There was an equilibrium of sorts. Now? Shrug. I'm getting closer and closer to returning to my old life just to break this damn downward spiral. I worry that the clock will restart. That It will take another 5 years of chaos to reset. Compared to my worry the first 2 years in this tailspin of not wanting to repeat those mistakes, I now wonder how much they were mistakes at all? Shrug. It's a mystery.

 

[RussH]

To everyone, thank you for your responses.
@anthony thank you for your answer; it is good to know that it is statistically not progressive over time, and will, most likely, lessen with time.

This is good news.

 

[BlackbirdSinging]

Just going on my own experiences yes it gets worse over time if it's not treated. I've had PTSD from complex traumas for most of my life. I didn't realize that's what I had. CPTSD isn't an official diagnosis but if it was that's what I'd be diagnosed with. I have however been diagnosed as having PTSD.

I knew something was wrong with me as years went by but I didn't know what. As more time passed and the symptoms progressed more I thought I was slowly going crazy. I had no idea I had PTSD. I always thought PTSD was something only combat vets got. When I learned more and got the diagnosis it all started making sense.

I should add that by the time I got into trauma therapy 2 years ago it seemed like the symptoms had progressed to a certain point and stayed there for years. But now that I'm in therapy and working hard everyday the symptoms aren't continuing to progress. I've seen little changes here and there even though I still struggle daily. But then I'm triggered frequently and even re traumatized because I live in a situation where there is chaos and verbal abuse.