Outing Myself On Fb And Letting People Know I Have Ptsd

[kdblossom]

Twice in the last month I have almost admitted on FB that I have PTSD. I have only ever told 5 people that I have it (before I came here) and did not even mention it when I introduced myself here. My Mom knew of my trauma but not it's long term effects. I have almost outed myself at church too. It is weird but I am more at peace then ever about what happened! So, would you do it?

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

Short answer: I would share, but this is just my opinion.

Long answer: I am open about my mental health and mental illnesses. I regularly post things about mental health on my fb page, mostly about Bipolar disorder, which has a huge amount of stigma behind it. I see it as, if someone has a problem, then they should not even be my friend to being with. I have a lot of people who like my posts. And I have found people seem to respect me for my openness.

I know I probably lost some respect from people once I "outted" myself. But that is fine with me. I am more worried about me and not them.

You may have reasons for not wanting to share though. Your choice, and take your time to think about it before you do it.

Take care.

 

[^^FlyingSolo^^]

There's so much stigma attached to having PTSD that it can be intimidating telling people.

They either think your violent, crazy or from the military. And it seems like when you do tell people, you better be prepared to give a good explanation to back it up.

"I have PTSD" - "oh really :eek:, we're you in the Military?" "NO I WASN'T". etc., etc. *Thinks to self, oh brother now I have to explain". :oops:

It really disgusts me the lack of knowledge on PTSD and other mental illness in the world, especially US.
And that is really interesting because I'm hearing things like 1 out of 10 people in America have a mental illness. I have no idea if that's correct.

I don't go around telling people unless it's somebody that needs to know. If its a new personal relationship, I let it be known quite early on so they can know what they're getting into.

Solo

 

[Wordgirl]

Welcome to the forum. You will find no stigma here. Don't "out" yourself on FB until you learn here that you have nothing to feel funny about. PTSD is not your fault, anymore than if you caught the flu in a busy airport. It's a medical condition caused by trauma - that you were not the cause of... I don't introduce myself at business meetings or social gatherings saying "I have ptsd" - so no need for you to announce. Here, we are all paddling the same damn canoe. :rolleyes: Welcome... take your cement shoes off and rest awhile.

 

[BloomInWinter]

I live openly with it. It's a hidden epidemic and if my sharing can help any other sufferers, it's worth it. Plus, I don't have to struggle with a 'false self' anymore.

Though, I don't Introduce the topic.

The people who don't like me never did...and the ones I should never have wasted my time on have fallen away. I have no regrets.

 

[heidi]

Well, I think it's a cool in a way you can be a trail blazer by being open about it.
I guess I just wouldn't expect people to ever understand.

 

[Ted Moen]

I learned to share. I usually explained that ment I always intend to act appropriately and usually do act appropriately but every now and then the intense feelings will catch me by surprise and some angry or otherwise inappropriate behavior will sneak through. I don't dwell on it or discuss actual trauma details outside of safe, therapudic settings. I don't expect non-traumatized people to understand PTSD, I share so they have a reasonable explanation for inappropriate behavior, especially things I do to get people to decide to go away and leave me alone when certain moods hit. Then when the mood passes, I am usually able to return to participating in the relationship or activity rather than having to start over.

Ted

 

[VDWngr1355]

I have shared it with a few friends and family. On Facebook, I share information about PTSD posts I like and I know people see it because I found out another one of my friends from high school has it and from a similar situation as well and we began messaging about it. But, I haven't stated it directly that I have PTSD either.

 

[Hashi]

I've told a few people the minimum I could get away with, because I had to for things like time off work or asking for support. I've also had two friends who were very open about things that happened to them. This wouldn't lead me to make a general announcement, like on facebook.

This is from my personal experience in the UK and it might be completely different for other people or elsewhere. I think in all cases, though, you'd need to manage your own expectations of the outcome of telling people - their reaction might be understanding and validating, but it might not.

Here in the UK "post-traumatic stress" means absolutely nothing to most people. You have to say instead that you experienced a trauma. Saying that here, people will expect there to be serious after-effects, although they may not be familiar with what exactly.

If you choose not to be specific and only say "trauma" (or, I suppose, "PTSD" if that's generally understood) it's likely that people will guess - rightly or wrongly - that it was rape. This assumption will sit there unspoken for ever more, unless you choose to tell them something different, and heaven only knows what they're imagining.

Some people may gossip about you. You may become an anecdote for them to tell people and your experiences be treated as the subject of idle, or even malicious, speculation.

Once they know, people may be sympathetic in some ways, but in other ways they may be unthinking, callous or even intolerant and impatient. At best, they'll be supportive and wonderful although inevitably they just won't get it some of the time. in the middle, they'll feel bad for you but they'll often forget or can't be bothered to modify their behaviour or conversation. Or they might make all sorts of assumptions which they won't budge from about what you can and can't cope with, how you feel, what you want, what you think. At worst, they won't want to have to deal with any of it and they'll wish you'd kept quiet - if it's an option they'll probably start avoiding you.

It depends what you want to get out of telling people, and how attached (or not) you are to wanting a particular reaction. For me, I see a lot of pitfalls to the information being "out there" and not much benefit. I have to say, though, that this might be because I don't think PTSD is a life sentence. I know not everyone feels this way, but I don't want to identify it as a characteristic I now have forever, like being female or British. I'm healing, and that's too personal a journey to update people about on facebook.

 

[BloomInWinter]

Well, I think it's a cool in a way you can be a trail blazer by being open about it.
I guess I just wouldn't expect people to ever understand.

I set as few expectations as possible on their response. I'm had some pull away, but better to know that now.

As one of my traumas ended up as a 'made for tv movie', I guess I'm pretty well over caring what people think or say or speculate.

I'm been far more pleasantly surprised and saddened to learn how many people know someone suffering privately with it.

 

[Tinyflame]

I think in all cases, though, you'd need to manage your own expectations of the outcome of telling people - their reaction might be understanding and validating, but it might not.

If you choose not to be specific and only say "trauma" (or, I suppose, "PTSD" if that's generally understood) it's likely that people will guess - rightly or wrongly - that it was rape. This assumption will sit there unspoken for ever more, unless you choose to tell them something different, and heaven only knows what they're imagining.

Some people may gossip about you. You may become an anecdote for them to tell people and your experiences be treated as the subject of idle, or even malicious, speculation.

Once they know, people may be sympathetic in some ways, but in other ways they may be unthinking, callous or even intolerant and impatient. At best, they'll be supportive and wonderful although inevitably they just won't get it some of the time. in the middle, they'll feel bad for you but they'll often forget or can't be bothered to modify their behaviour or conversation. Or they might make all sorts of assumptions which they won't budge from about what you can and can't cope with, how you feel, what you want, what you think. At worst, they won't want to have to deal with any of it and they'll wish you'd kept quiet - if it's an option they'll probably start avoiding you.

If I could 'like' that a 1000 times I would.

That's on a one-to-one, personal level. Add in FB, and then there's the potential for discrimination from a current or future employer, selection committees, medical insurers.

 

[Jen93]

Well for me, this isn't necessarily a question of just "outing yourself" on Facebook, I think it's a question of "outing yourself" in general. I think that when you think of letting people know, you need to look at it from an angle of

(a) Will they need to know? (meaning will they most likely see you having a flashback or dissociated and would it make sense for them to know?) because if so, then they should be told. If you have panic attacks repeatedly in front of these people, they need to know what can help to reduce your stress. For example, mine was a school event, so starting from when I was in grade 11 and diagnosed, I had to let all my teachers know and my friends so I wouldn't shock or worry them if I had a flashback- and they help to ground me and support me. It wasn't a choice- I needed the support at school- there was no "keeping it secret" there was no choice of whether to "out myself" or keep everybody on a different level- I did what I had to, because I needed it.

(b) Will they be supportive? (meaning will they help you later, and not stigmatize you for it?) If you think they will treat you differently, stop hanging out with you, or if they will continually badger you about your trauma, trying to get you to open up constantly and risk re-traumatizing you, don't tell them. It is up to you how much you tell people. People who push you to tell the whole story risk re-traumatizing you, people who don't let you speak when you want to make it frustrating too. Make sure that they understand that it's you going to them.

Sometimes people on Facebook, casual acquaintances and whatnot, they don't REALLY need to know all the personal stuff- I know with me, I just got out of high school in 2011- people added me like crazy in grade 9, people that were in my classes that just wanted like 500+ friends, my extended family, they didn't really need to know. I just wanted my friends to know- the ones that actually mattered. If you want to "out yourself" on Facebook, it'd be best to clear out your Facebook friends first- go through each of your contacts- keep your friends, delete the ones who use Facebook friends as a measure of popularity.