newbie with confusion - don't feel my trauma was enough to cause PTSD

[Phoenix(not)]

I remember when I was first diagnosed with PTSD. I had never heard of it and researched it via Google searches and also very active in a forum. I think forum's are fantastic for understanding the characteristics and symptoms and sharing our thoughts and experiences with our empathetic peers. We are all different and some are less troubled with one symptom and perhaps more troubled by another. For me, 29 years after the "event" it is the exaggerated startle response that I expect, will never go away. Flashbacks were few and disappeared shortly after the trauma event. PTSD proper "got me" 7 years later ... just long enough for statute of limitations to kick in and deny me any justice. If there is one thing I want to shout from the "tallest building" about managing PTSD it would be Mindfulness meditation is equal to if not more effective than any meds

 

[Justmehere]

Welcome to the forums! I spent 10 years thinking the initial PTSD diagnosis I was given was wrong and that my trauma wasn’t “that bad.” I had symptoms sometimes and not other times. I didn’t have every PTSD symptom. I still had PTSD.... but I could have written a post much like yours.

PTSD is not really given as a way to say trauma was “that bad” in the first place. Trauma is trauma. There are people who post from time to time declaring this or that event in life gave them PTSD when neither the event nor the symptoms match up with the diagnosis. But they cling to the diagnosis thinking it’s THE way to validate they are in pain. People can go through tremendous pain and suffering and not have PTSD. Then there are many, like you, who do the opposite, with the same idea. They figure PTSD means it was really bad, and it doesn’t seem all that bad, so therefore, one must not have PTSD. That’s not really how it all works...

So let’s back way up for a second.

PTSD is a mental health condition. Going through a criterion A event is just one of several categories of diagnostic criteria. You can have PTSD even without any nightmares or flashbacks.

Enduring one single event of sexual abuse, or even 1 event of witnessing someone else go through childhood sexual abuse, meets Criterion A. Children being sexually abused isn’t at all like a paper cut. It’s wrong. It should not have happened to you. Developing children’s brains can be deeply affected by “minimal” sexual abuse. Most of all, you should have been protected and never ever harmed or even exposed to any risk of such harm as child. Period. I’m sorry for what you have gone through.

anyway, my main issue in disagreeing is because the CSA (of which I have few fragmented cognitive memories) wasnt bad enough to warrant such and it would be minimizing to put it in the same category as real sufferers (like putting a paper cut and compound fracture in the same group); it sounds like this is denial, but just being realistic and rational about it. and while the nightmares I have had been thematically abuse related...

Try to not idolize “real sufferers” as a way to put yourself and your suffering down, PTSD or not. Your pain and your trauma is more than enough to get help and support.

Flashbacks are somewhat uncommon dissociative events for most PTSD sufferers. Many sufferers don’t have them at all. Most people confuse intrusive memories (where someone recalls the past, uncontrollably, but is able to identify in the moment it is the past) with flashbacks (a dissociative phenomenon where one relives the past as if it is happening right now, here and now, and acts accordingly. Ex: the shooting survivor who hears a car backfire and dives for cover because they have a flashback to the gun shots of the past and reacts as if it is happening right here and now.)

Nightmares do not have to be about abuse or the event to be hard to endure. In fact, I would be careful to not ever see nightmares of abuse as an actual reflection of real events, but rather ways the brain is simply trying to process fear. Example: when I was working through the trauma of an abusive relationship, I had nightmares and they were all about wild animals chasing me. Not even humans. Did that mean the abuse or the symptoms or the suffering was less bad? No. It doesn’t.?

Try to put away all the comparisions. Your suffering and pain is real. You deserve support.

 

[Invisible Fire]

again apologies bothering anyone with such trivial things. and thank yall in advance.

Welcome. And thank you for your post. I have found your post and the answers very informative. I am saddened at the pain in the world but this forum has proven to me there are good people in the world. For me accepting the PTSD diagnosis was difficult because it meant accepting and acknowledging that I experienced trauma. I have lived in a world of avoidance and denial and it almost destroyed me. You can only hold that in for so long then you start to break at the seams... or I did. But, I am moving forward

If there is one thing I want to shout from the "tallest building" about managing PTSD it would be Mindfulness meditation is equal to if not more effective than any meds

I am working with my trauma T with mindfulness meditation and it is helping. I am glad to hear you say this

 

[zarae]

my words fall short in expressing gratitude to all yall on there for taking time to write out responses and provide me with such information.