People Faking Ptsd

[Fovad]

As far as the "earning it" thing is concerned. Having earned something, doesn't always refer to a good or positive thing.

A drug dealer can certainly "earn" a felony conviction, as well as a stint in prison. He didn't want it, but it's a consequence he knew might happen. While a drug dealer is committing a criminal act, he is doing it for money. It's a job.
Just like any other employed person in a legitimate line of work. He is making the conscious decision of going out every day, doing something he'd probably rather not be doing, in order to "earn" money.

Should he choose to stop dealing without ever being caught. He's earned his rewards.
Should he one day be caught and incarcerated, welp... I guess he earned it, didn't he?

EMS, isn't that different. The motivation for doing it is different, the possible outcomes, not so much. I made the deliberate choice to put myself into a field that would expose me to horrible things. Knowing full well there is a risk of going off the rails and becoming an addict or killing myself.
It's an occupational hazard of doing this kind of job. I didn't want ptsd, but it happened. My own miserable mental incarceration. Guess I "earned it" didn't I?
Why God decided to give me this f*cking "badge of honour", when all I wanted to do was help people? I don't know.
But he can have the f*cking thing back.

 

[Ezet]

Getting back to your original point: The idea that people are lying or making things up can be a part of PTSD. Suspicion is fired up for many of us.

Then you add in the idea of identity as someone who is a victim of PTSD, and it gets all haywire.

As for "earning" it's an old form use-so some more modern folk may not be as familiar with the statement or idea that "you earned your punishment".

I watched a pet die-saw the light go out of it's eyes as it yowled in pain and fear. I was quite young and I didn't sleep for three days afterwards. It was traumatic-perhaps it would have been less so if it hadn't been pretty much the only true good thing in my life at the time-but watching them die in fear-year that can leave you pretty shellshocked. For life? Probably not, but PTSD for single incidence can be managed much more easily than PTSD from repeated incidence of trauma from things like: seeing horrific injuries and accidents regularly (like someone in EMS). Doesn't mean it isn't PTSD-it's just a more treatable version.

Spanking? I was pretty badly abused as a kid, including being kicked down the stairs pretty regularly and at one point, dragged down a hallway by my collar violently enough to get a welt burned into my neck that didn't heal for a good while. I can't comment on spanking other than to say striking a child is wrong. I won't argue with anyone, it's simply what it is.

On the other side, someone who watches a terrible tragedy on the news? Someone who was in the remote vicinity of something but didn't even see anything? Someone who watched a scary movie that turned out scarier than they thought? Someone who says mean things to them? I don't see that as trauma, but from what I hear, being violently traumatized can desensitize you, so...?

Are we-as victims of PTSD-really the right people to be making these kinds of calls? I mean, we're hardly aware of what a good healthy, productive and loving environment should be. Some of us are just bloody happy if we can go a day unbloodied, so our perspectives may not exactly be the best suited to judge what is and isn't traumatic for the average-typically non traumatized-person.

 

[Jogu]

Are we-as victims of PTSD-really the right people to be making these kinds of calls? I mean, we're hardly aware of what a good healthy, productive and loving environment should be. Some of us are just bloody happy if we can go a day unbloodied, so our perspectives may not exactly be the best suited to judge what is and isn't traumatic for the average-typically non traumatized-person.

There is a dignosic critetion for what trauma can cause PTSD and what cannot. You also have PTS and that is different from PTSD.

Take your pet dying. If that was your only trauma them it doesn't fit critetia a therefore cannot cause PTSD. PTS maybe and a whole host of other anxiety disorders in the DSM/ICD and grief for sure. But not PTSD. That is fact, not opinion. It just does not fit the diagnosic criteria for the trauma set that can cause PTSD.

It wasn't your only trauma and so it is much more lilely that the pet dying caused PTSD to surface from the earlier trauma.

It is important to have a diagnostic criteria and to stick to that very strict because then it stops people from saying "someone called me a bitch, it traimatized me, I am having some anxiety....I have PTSD" because, if thats the only "trauma" then no they dont and to go on letting them think they could have PTSD would be irresponsiable. And most on here advise we aren't therapists and can't diagnose over the internet but then educate to avoid someone to have the wrong idea and remain ignornant of PTSD and what can cause it.

So we aren't making judgements of trauma but the DSM/ICD/APA and the Doctors that wrote the DSM/ICD are. All I personally do is educate.

Then you do have people without any trauma thay are truely faking it on purpose for benefits. The "earned it" comment I take as "I had to go through all of this trauma to get PTSD and you get to have benefits without any trauma". Or "I had to go through all of this trauma but you just had an upset". It is trauma comparing but warrented, in my opinion, since there is a manual for dignosing.

And thay fall right in line with people calling everything that upset them a trigger. Trigger is a specific something and not just an upset. But that's another convo.

 

[Opuk]

Fair enough and yes, the use of "triggered" is really starting to tick me off.

I am clinically diagnosed, and yeah the pet dying was probably a set off for other events (like I said, one of the few good things in my life at the time, if not the *only*-aside from being born in a first world country and all that that brings-like water, shelter and medicine).

I suppose I refer to "single incidence PTSD" when referring to PTS, but I'm also assuming that people don't get help when something traumatic occurs and/or don't have healthy coping mechanisms, which is an assumption based on my own experiences and likely not true.

 

[Ocav]

As far as the "earning it" thing is concerned. Having earned something, doesn't always refer to a good or positive thing...

Fair.

An EMS person might well make a choice to accept the risk of PTSD, because they think that work is important. So they could 'earn it' in the way that someone 'earns' a punishment.

While I accept the legitimacy of the phrasing, I don't like the thought pattern it suggests to me. It suggests that accepting the risk is something that deserves to be punished.

It suggests to me that you (an EMS person to whom I am grateful for your service and bravery) feel a need to dissociate from the person who took those risks, from the person who got hurt. Perhaps I'm projecting: Maybe it's years I spent blaming a five year old for being less articulate than a forty year old that is my real motivation. I suspect that we do have dissociation and avoidance (that we share more than criterion A).

A child who makes an honest mistake doesn't earn a spanking, even if their parent says they did. An EMS worker who gets PTSD didn't earn it - the fault lies with the one dealing out the punishment, not the one getting punished.

Teresa of Calcutta said that she hated god, and that this made it easier to love people. If he is wise and compassionate, then he's OK with being hated.

You deserve better. You deserve better than to be afflicted with PTSD, and you deserve better than to be blamed for it. You didn't earn it. Nobody 'earns' injustice.

 

[Ubih]

Are we-as victims of PTSD-really the right people to be making these kinds of calls? I mean, we're hardly aware of what a good healthy, productive and loving environment should be. Some of us are just bloody happy if we can go a day unbloodied, so our perspectives may not exactly be the best suited to judge what is and isn't traumatic for the average-typically non traumatized-person

What Jogu said!

So we aren't making judgements of trauma but the DSM/ICD/APA and the Doctors that wrote the DSM/ICD are. All I personally do is educate.

That. X1000.

Also it's important to remember that not all PTSD is caused by abuse. There are people with PTSD from natural disasters, vehicle accidents, terrorist attacks, rape, war, kidnapping, etc. that have spent their whole lives in good, healthy, & loving environments. As well as people who did come out of childhood trauma or DV, who have very deliberately built their present lives to be healthy, productive, & loving environments. So there are a wide variety of perspectives, with many people exquisitely aware from first hand experience (innate, or hard won), of what versions of healthy-normal looks like.

Does that mean everyone is objective? Pfft. Of course not. But PTSD in and of itself doesn't mean that a person cannot be objective, or learn to be.

 

[Oduwu]

I'm glad that we don't need Criterion A to be on here. I am dealing with mild verbal emotional and occasional physical punishment. those things have been horribly traumatic for me and just becaus ei ahve never been raped or knifed doesn't mean i don't have CPTSD. the doctors who treat me still think i have it. you can get CPTSD as an abnormal response to common child hood events

 

[Hibad]

I think you know pretty well if you have PTSD! Or at least you know something is wrong.
I only got diagnosed because k heard a radio program about PTSD and realised I had all the symptoms. I asked to be tested. No one offered. And yes I got an official diagnosis. Yay ):
Combat PTSD is different. It's pretty readily recognised in the community, and the reasons why are blatantly obvious.
That doesn't mean it doesn't happen within civilian life too because it does. But it's not as readily recognised.
It's still PTSD or cptsd.
I went for many years without a diagnosis. Does that mean I didn't have it? No, it doesn't.
I think you know when you have it. I think it's pretty easy to tell when another has it too - or I find that easy anyway.
There will akwSys be thise who attach themselves to something to get sympathy, compensation, attention - who knows?
I tend to think those people have a problem too, it just hasn't been diagnosed.
And diagnosis just hangs on what you tell a psych - it's very far from an exact science.
In short, yes, I get annoyed too when people over dramatise their lives and problems - PTSD of no PTSD.
But my dislike of if is never going to stop if happening!
Acceptance of me, you and everyone. And looking for my own healing and letting others look for theirs too
That is the key.

 

[Utivis]

you can get CPTSD as an abnormal response to common child hood events

Who knew? Instead of being brutally raped and tortured I could have just dropped my ice cream cone! :shifty: Silly me.

I won't argue that's definitely mental illness.

 

[Icen]

I was totally shocked when I was diagnosed. Yes, I knew something was very wrong, but I never imagined it would be this. Being diagnosed, though, did help, even though it was awful, because at least then I had something to go on, something to solve. Eleven years later, it's not solved, though I have worked my ass off and tried everything I can. It's not as bad as it was when I was first diagnosed, but it's still disabling. I think I have a chronic case. It's horrible to admit that, but I'm just being realistic. It was never in my mental universe to even imagine I would have ever something like this that would prevent me from doing the work I always loved doing, that would cause all these problems in my life, and keep me from being a self-actualizing person. It's been devastating.

 

[Esen]

I still struggle to accept mine is valid CPTSD. but i have had years of people telling me my trauma either didn't happen or didn't matter. I have OCD and severe self doubt and low self esteem so my mind is always questioning whether I'm faking it or not. And there are those who say I am faking it for attention?

 

[Etica]

is it normal to feel this way? is it normal to have these doubts???