He seems like a completely different person. I have done a lot of research on PTSD but nothing I have read has mentioned this. Can PTSD cause someone to act completely different without therapy?
With or without therapy.
Ever seen a good friend in the wake of something terrible happening? A rape, a death... or even just something upsetting like being cheated on? Or watching the towers fall on TV?
Are they behaving the way they usually behave? Or did something exreeme happen, and they’re responding in a perfectly natural way
to that moment? Whether in shock, or furious, or a crying mess, or glued to the TV skipping work and cooking?
PTSD causes people to
relive shit. As if it just happened. They’d
just been raped, or just been in a firefight. Switching back and forth between different timestreams / realities. Then & Now. Except then? Ain’t a memory. It’s also right now. It’s not like a flashback sequence in a movie. It’s a lot more similar to a nightmare. It’s REAL for you, in that moment, even if you know you’re dreaming. You aren’t remembering running down a flight of stairs, you’re
actually running down the flight of stairs, in your nightmare. Or in a flashback. Actually smelling smoke. Actually hearing screams. Crossed wires.
That can look like different people. It’s not. It’s the same person having 2 very different experiences. With one very key difference... how they’re reacting now? May be worlds away different from how they reacted then. Or not. Or some mixture of the two. Someone may be shaking and crying now, but laughing and whooping it up back then. Which creates another layer of WTF. I do
not hide under tables. That’s NOT me. Except in this nightmare sequence? That’s exactly what you’re doing. Crying like a bitch. When that ain’t what happened. It’s f*cked up. And messes with the sense of who you are. And how much you can trust yourself.
So that’s more actively symptomatic above, which can happen win or without therapy. Ditto with or without therapy, but a lot less symptomatic? People with PTSD are
notorious for the push/pull. Being super intense, then distant as f*ck. Hot & cold. There are a lot of different reasons why, but the important piece is that it’s both common as f*ck, and likely to stay that way. No matter how much therapy they’ve had. Not always. But in general? Expect what’s going on with the hot& cold to be how it’s going to be. Some people dig that. It drives other people crazy.
