Maybe Not As Crazy As We Thought

[Deleted member 541]

I have often wondered if the so called *normal* people have issues similar to what we experience in times of stress. So today I asked someone that I consider very grounded, no mental health issues, a few questions. I have told her before that I have PTSD, but I'm not sure if she really knows what it is or entails, as she is in her 70's. Anyway, I tried to explain disassociating, the racing mind, the obsessive thoughts, anxiety, compulsions that we have and a few other things. Then I asked her if she has ever had these things. Her answer quite frankly shocked me. She has had some of these very things. She actually stated that as far as the racing mind and the scenario building that she considers herself the *Queen of What If*....She is going through a really stressful time right now as her husband was just told that his cancer has metastasized and she said that she herself feels like she may be disassociating and not feeling anything. She said it's like she is in total denial of the possibility of him dying.

This whole thing has me wondering if, we aren't as bad off as the rest of the world. I wonder if more people have the same issue too, but they some how deal better with them than we actually do.....

Have any of you asked others who you consider *healthy* if they have ever experienced any of these feelings?? Talking to her today, made me feel less of a *Nut Job*.....

 

[ga yankee]

The more therapy I go to, the more I talk to people, the more I realize the word "normal" should never be used in context toward people. Maybe we should just use the word human. The people I'm in group therapy with are all successful adults with loving families. But they have issues just like mine...exactly like mine. Trust, fear, poor self-esteem, alcoholism, drug use, the list goes on. Grant it, I'm the only one that jumps through the ceiling when I hear a door slam but in the end...normal can't be used to describe humans for me. The more people trust me with their feelings and secrets the more I realize everyone has something.

 

[kers]

Although I'm not open with a lot of people about my PTSD, I am getting more open about my symptoms, without calling them that. For example, if I'm shopping with a friend and I get overwhelmed by all the noise and activity, I might say, "It's too busy and it's making my spacy, let's go someplace quieter." I find that people accept my descriptions of symptoms (spaciness, need for alone time, jumpiness, and exhaustion) quite compassionately.

If I framed them more accurately, I don't know if it would be true; I would never say, "I feel dead," or "I feel like I'm about to have a flashback." But I think a lot of people experience similar things on a different scale, and they can be compassionate about our experiences.

 

[midi]

I have a friend who is a professional and she said she worries about everything all the time. She has job security, travels, lots of friends--so you wouldn't know that she deals with that issue.

 

[Marlene]

I've often wondered this myself. I've spoken with some 'normals' and asked them general questions. A lot of what we deal with can be found in a number of normal people. I think the difference is that ours is at a higher or more concentrated (or whatever you want to call it) degree. And it takes a hell of a lot less to push us over our edge.

Living with a higher default stress level makes (at least for me) life more challenging to keep the stress to a minimum in order to have a somewhat normal life. Maybe it's just the amount of symptoms we get dog-piled with that makes the difference. Sometimes it's just too much.

Lisa

 

[Deaf Global Nomad]

Just Had This Conversation

Hi She Cat!

It is funny that you brought up this exact question today. Big smile! I just finished a discussion with three of my friends to this effect and we came to the conclusion that people are all different and all normal. I often call myself "certifiably crazy" or "certifiably nuts." People keep responding that I am no different from them and that they experience the same things. From my recent experiences (with a wide variety of people), I really believe that all people have similar thoughts, feelings, self-doubts, etc...

On another thought, if you consider "normal" people to be the average, boring, just-like-every-one-else, who would want to be like that? Definitely neither I nor my wonderful Super-pup have that desire and are proud of it...

Cheers!

 

[Dylan]

Hi She-Cat,

I really appreciate this thread, as it confirmed something I've been startled into looking at lately.

My counselor noted that I tend to think that any response I have is weird, dysfunctional, unreasonable....wrong. I'm finding that it's just not true!
I've begun watching other people and, while some of my responses on the continuum might be a bit stronger than a "normal" person's, they still have similar (albeit 'weaker' at times) responses.

For myself, I'm beginning to suspect that there is a hidden pay off for feeling so different from other people. Aside from the comfortability of habitual thinking, and since payoffs usually have to do with safety for me, I suspect that I have used it in place of healthy boundaries. As painful as it is to feel so freakishly different, it does help me to feel separate from other people, to keep my own outline, as it were, instead of just blending into them and getting lost.

-Dylan

 

[Nicolette]

Just briefly, nearly everyone faces some sort of trauma in their life. Therefore most people, would at some stage, have feelings that are not that different to what a PTSD sufferer experiences. The differing factor is that you who have PTSD overloaded from that stress and it permanently effected your thinking and some of the way you function. So, in a simple sense your life experiences, situations and reactions to those may not be that different to those who you consider "normal" - the difference is the end result.

Personally I have been through some traumatic events in my life but as Anthony says, I always want to talk about it (sometimes too much :rolleyes:) and don't bottle it up and internatise it. From what I understand of PTSD a large part is that the trauma was internalised or not dealt with....that's why a lot of you need to go to therapy to try and process your trauma to move forward.

 

[carapace]

Maybe its just me, but I think it is very unhealthy to label ourselves as abnormal/sick. What we have is a disorder that makes us suffer in a particular way.

I consider myself 'handicapped' in terms of dealing with stress, fear, anxiety, ect. Some people need a wheelchair for life and some just need a cane and others just walk with a limp. But we still can get by.

 

[uplate]

People do have problems and their own idiocyncricities, they are a part of the human experience. Someone who doesn't have PTSD though is unlikely to understand what it's like to have symptoms or how profoundly they can effect someone. Connecting with someone in any genuine way though is still a good thing. I spoke to one guy who had a traumatic response to a violent assult, his symptoms cleared up after a few weeks (meaning he didn't develop PTSD) but just seeing I had PTSD on my file was enough of a reminder to ruin his day, he was obviously shaken by his experience and reminded me of just how much I've become familiar with my own circumstances.

I find it helps to remember there's a difference between PTSD and non PTSD reactions, I don't feel strange when I know why a crowded train makes me want to chew my own limbs off and looking around to see the other passengers are only just a little bothered by being sardines, not knowing why I'd felt that way though did make me feel like I was losing it. It wasn't enough for me to say I don't want to catch the peak hour train because everyone else says the same thing, I had to say I can't but people didn't get it and we'd argue over it where I'd be accused of being selfish for holding people up or not wanting to go somewhere, I used to plan to avoid it or tell them I had claustrophobia, at one point I wasn't going out at all.

Having said that having PTSD doesn't exclude you from the more common ups and downs and day to day annoyances, not having it doesn't exclude someone from a traumatic experience either. It doesn't mean you're less capable of making good decissions or that someone without PTSD is better at making decissions and it doesn't mean you can't connect with people through common interests, experiences, goals or beliefs.

The "normal people" aren't exactly normal either. I consistantly meet people who still believe bad things don't happen to good people when the evidence otherwise is overwhelming you've only got to read the papers to know that, I also meet people who think they can change their life by willpower alone, who have the romantic idea if someone has tallent and dedication something will miraculously manifest as a result or even that cream rises to the top, people who think just about every physical symptom is related to the mind, people who believe in ghosts and UFO's, people who live in social isolation harbouring conspiracy theories, people who take the concept of the "popular mind" far too seriously, so I'd be wary of percieving people without PTSD as without problems or as the perfectly balanced "other". Actually looking at "normal" I'm not sure I'd want to be normal.

 

[Deleted member 541]

Nicolette,

While I understand what you are saying and agree completely, I still feel less of a *Nut Job* just knowing that the so called normal people experience these things also. Maybe not on the grand scale as we do, or with the reaction that we have, but at least I feel better knowing that WHAT I am going through is semi normal.....

 

[Cr8ingMagic]

I have thought about this a lot myself, and my conclusion is that EVERYBODY worries, everybody has the same behaviors as those of us with PTSD, but I think it's just far more intense for those of us with PTSD because the new stressful situations trigger the old stressful situations, which compounds what everybody else experiences.

And I think that even the most "normal," well-adjusted people have had negative experiences that, while maybe not classified as trauma, per se, make certain experiences more uncomfortable than they might be had they not had those experiences.

Does that even make sense?! :dontknow: