Mistaken Symptoms And How That Effects...

[Deleted member 35133]

I wanted to post something, sort of causally of things that were said me here, and in other places and times in life. I'm just going to come out with it for the introduction and say what is said that upsets me is "Do you have schizophrenia?" Or "You seem like you are....." And what people are saying is whatever I'm trying to say makes no sense to them, is difficult to understand, I'm difficult to communicate with, etc. Most of us are here because we have PTSD, so we all know our disorder may tend to effect our thoughts and cognitive functioning. There's no reason for people to call you out on it. Me, don't ask me. I have a persistent symptom that's an inability to talk about trauma, or at the least I absolutely will not answer a question about trauma. Also sometimes questions. Call it a trust issue. So when people call me things. like "manic" or "schizophrenic" that's something that rude to me. It adds a lot of stress to my life when people say those things and give me a reason to worry about, not just their judgement, but also being judged.

It's also a lot like what my Grandmother the candystriper (once you are you always are, or you always had that stripe at least) says to me "When you call someone something it's what you are." What my grandma is truly saying is actually very booksmart in a commonsense way. I guess I'm just glad I have these memories of time I have spent with my lovely, smart, and funny grandmother to help me cope with what I've tend to thought of as name calling.

On another note some time last night mid conversation I totally spaced out on a person I was showing a picture of my puppy to. Very much admitted I was thinking about the most awful thing and that's why I looked that way. He said that was fine and he understood and that was all. Then I showed him a picture of my puppy. He said she is really cute. So, sometimes, keep it simple. For as long as you can. And this works for me. I didn't really have to tell that person the exact memory intruding on my mind at that minute. In fact, I don't even remember which one it was already now. And that's fine. Those thoughts, those feelings, all of those things come and go.

I think also, that some people new to their PTSD diagnosis, new to psychiatric care, the world of psychology, or keeping or becoming mentally healthy should know that symptoms of PTSD can be the same as, or resemble symptoms of other disorders. Not everyone has the same symptoms within the context of PTSD.

Those are all things about the symptoms I have problems with. I did try to write this to create awareness about more than myself. but I'm a little short on sleep. Oh I have insomnia too. It's because I frequently have intrusive thoughts that keep me up causing anxiety or sometimes drink too much caffeine at night. So please, don't call me or ask me if I'm such and such this or that, I'm here because I have PTSD. Please don't ask me. Please don't tell me. Please just wait for me to say something on my own.

Patience is a virtue. So is silence.

My grandmother would still remind me of judge not lest you be judged.

 

[Silver.]

Maybe I am not reading this right, especially because I cannot read this post cohesively,
but you want to make recommendations as to what other people might have (such as you commenting someone might have PGAD in another post), but you don't want people to do the same to you, to ask questions or make recommendations?

 

[EveHarrington]

Can you explain a bit more? Did you have a bad experience in chat?

 

[Friday]

Those are all things about the symptoms I have problems with. /////// So please, don't call me or ask me if I'm such and such this or that, I'm here because I have PTSD. Please don't ask me. Please don't tell me. Please just wait for me to say something on my own.

To be blunt; I'm not your therapist. It's not my job -or anyone else's on here- to remember the personal likes & dislikes of every other member.

You don't like/need/want to be asked questions. That's fine. Other people do like/need/want to be asked questions. Different things work for different people, so what works best for you, or me, or anyone else on here isn't going to have a unifying theme. People are going to respond based on their own experiences. Some things will be helpful, phased how you want to hear them; some things will be helpful, but not phrased how you want to hear them; others will totally miss the mark. IME/IMO : Take what's useful to you, & leave the rest.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Take what's useful to you, & leave the rest.

Best phrase in the world!

 

[Deleted member 541]

I'm just totally confused as to why you even joined and posted what you did, if you don't want feedback?!?!?!? Kind of defeats the purpose.... I'm mean this is a SUPPORT community....

 

[joeylittle]

So when people call me things. like "manic" or "schizophrenic" that's something that rude to me.

OK. But, honestly, 'manic' and 'schizophrenic' are just other words for symptom groupings. PTSD being what it is, it has symptoms overlapping with many other diagnoses. I would challenge your thought that having mania or schizophrenia is an insult. It's no more or less a thing than having PTSD.

The aspect of this that you can change - and it's very simple - is to change your thought that being manic is 'worse' than PTSD. That having schizophrenia makes you sicker, or somehow less than what and who you are.

People with those diagnoses are not lesser than. They are not sicker than. They are not deserving of contempt, and they don't have the plague. They have an illness.

I know this is a common thought that people have. It's sometimes the same people who believe that PTSD shouldn't even be called a mental illness, because it's not the same as those other disorders. That PTSD is caused by some outside force, whereas 'mental illnesses' are a result of mental disease or defect.

I really disagree strongly. As far as is known, it may be possible to instigate any and all mental illnesses - whether it's through substance abuse, genetics, events, or any combination thereof. Not everyone who carries a genetic load for depression gets depression; some people present with schizophrenia only after sustained psychedelic use; not everyone who experiences one or multiple criterion A traumas in their life will ever present with or develop PTSD.

So, anytime you'd like to stop negatively judging other people's illnesses, you'll be able to stop feeling like you've been name-called when someone asks you if you have schizophrenia. You'll be able to say, 'No, but I have PTSD'.

Doing that is going to be much more effective than expecting people to intuit what is or is not acceptable, when it comes to exchanging conversation, words, ideas, questions, etc. - or assuming that we all know everyone here has PTSD. That's actually not the case. We have supporters, and we have people with PTSD, and we have people who think they might have PTSD, and we have people who sometimes have other diagnoses but specific struggles with some of the PTSD symptom sets, and they find their way here. We have people who are in remission from their PTSD, and people who don't even know exactly what's happening to them, but they know they were raped. It's a pretty wide gamut, here. PTSD is the lynchpin, sure, but not always the whole story of someone's presence on this site.

 

[brae]

maybe im wrong but i think maybe you're talking about people who dont know your experience/diagnosis calling u manic or schizophrenic in a sort of derogatory sense, not talking abt the actual symptoms/illness, more saying ur behaviour is 'weird' or something?
do u experience mania or schizophrenia?

i agree w what joeylittle said about viewing mania/schizophrenia as so undesirable that its an insult, when its very real experiences for some. theres no hierarchy of more acceptable illnesses and we cant be invalidating each other by associating certain illness as bad.

i think a lot of people do that. even just using a term like 'crazy' in a negative way. i think its super important for us to be speaking abt and deconstructing to shift the stigma

 

[Beebee]

Some peopel from trauma develop schizophrenia because they have a genetical predisposition instead of havin PTSD or they develop boths (like me, I don't have PTSD, just some symptoms, some psychosis related to it, and it is easy to notice it while I am not psychotic because of schizophrenia, I also have attachment issues, also I dissociate a lot and may have a dissociative disorder) Some PTSD symptoms can be mistaken as schizophrenia symptoms (like flashback with hallucinations or PTSD paranoia with delusional paranaoia)

Actually some people with schizophrenia with a traumatic childhood have a lot of trauma-related psychosis and some people have thought there could be a continum between psychotic PTSD subtype and a specific type of schizophrenia presentation with a lot of traumatic experiences behind.

I don't believe it's common to have a 100% biological illness, almost always there is an external stressor or trigger (smoking weed, life changes, stress, trauma, ....). Actually probably PTSD have a partial biological basis too because some people don't develop PTSD after trauma, some of them develop a dissociative disorder, BPD or nothing. PTSD only trigger is trauma, but other disorders have trauma as a trigger too even if for other disorders it's not the only trigger (mostly, more than trauma it's stress the trigger, psychological or phisiological)

I don't know if someone called you schizophrenic or manic in a bad way, but It shouldn't be an insult or less valid.

I hope you find the way of being comfortable here.

 

[Deleted member 35133]

"Take what's useful to you and leave the rest."

Actually, yeah you guys. Do that please.

Someone could not cohesively read my post? Are you expecting college essays?

You all gross me out.

So let me make it more general (I'm not just arguing, but I have a right to, every single person answered with rebuttal)

Don't try to tell people what they are.
I'm saying that. I'm saying that as completely general advice to everyone.

When you call someone something, it's what you are.
That is a statement that often turns true in life.

Don't expect something to be in a place it doesn't have to be.
I'm saying that too. That means don't expect a college essay out of me or anyone.

Don't argue, show your sympathies.
That again is a general piece of advice.

And guess what! My Grandma said them all to me while I was enduring traumatic stress in an urban area that I wasn't familiar with.

Those are general pieces of advice that you can take or leave and can be applied to anyone.
They were all also somewhere in that post that you all find to be not "cohesive."

I'm a writer, not everything I write is perfect.

I have an inability to talk about my traumatic experiences. My memory of them is severely impaired.

And what I'm saying here is that, myself, I have no schizophrenia diagnosis. For some reason, however, there's some really messed up universal thought (<--that's philosophical terminology!) that women either are not ever raped, they only have 'next day regret' or a woman who has been raped behaves only within a very arbitrary social construct that is derived from the general public's idea of what some feminists call "an ideal rape" i.e. the ones you read about in the news.

So what I was doing when I wrote any of this was not creating a cohesive essay about my symptomology, maybe I'll get that to you later. I was venting and using this forum/website as a therapeutic tool, which is like, what it's here for, uhm, basically.

And yeah, actually. People in life call me schizophrenic if I say I was raped or if I don't answer a question about it.
Why do people do this? Sometimes it's that they are genuinely mean hearted and are trying to illegitimate my story.
Sometimes these people just genuinely think that I am or I might be. These people usually are not psychologists.

If I could tell you the whole long beautiful story of how I grappled with my demons through college, fought stigma afterward, and then one day just got on a plane to crawl through a city that many would, with out argument, call hell. Well, I guess you just have to be patient. One day I'll tell you about that. But maybe I don't want to when I feel like people are too critical of me.

postscript: a moderator can feel free to delete this thread, I was very unhappy with responses. Sorry, peeps. Not that sorry.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

"Take what's useful to you and leave the rest"

That's all that needs to be re-advised.

 

[joeylittle]

So what I was doing when I wrote any of this was not creating a cohesive essay about my symptomology, maybe I'll get that to you later. I was venting and using this forum/website as a therapeutic tool, which is like, what it's here for, uhm, basically.

Sure thing. It's helpful to read that, actually. Not the snark, but the context.

Anyone's free to express their opinion. You're doing that just fine. As did the others on this thread.

I wrote what I wrote because a big part of your upset seemed to be around being labelled 'schizophrenic' - and I still stay, you can decide that you're not going to hear that as an insult. And part of peer support is being challenged, that's just how it is. Challenging is not un-therapeutic.

Now, people saying you weren't raped because you're not acting they way they think a rape victim should act? Well, those people are just assholes. People in your life trying to diagnose you - with anything - when they have not an ounce of familiarity with your life or the DSM? Also, assholes. I'm fine labeling then as such.

You telling a whole bunch of people that tried to help you that they are doing it wrong? OK. Your opinion.

You all gross me out.

Sorry. You're free to leave at any time.