People Faking Ptsd

[Dalika]

I'm not posting this to hurt any feelers but does anybody else get the feeling that people lie or think they have ptsd whe...

I think this comes off as really narcissistic when somebody says this. Especially when you say you "earned" your diagnosis by working in emergency services. You have that diagnosis because you fit the criterion. Some people have that diagnosis now and did not before because they (APA/new DSM) more recently changed the criterion. You did not earn a diagnosis. People in general do not fake a diagnosis. If you have PTSD all that means is that YOU experienced a traumatic event that your brain chemistry was not equipped to handle, you became mentally ill you fit the description and fulfilled certain criterion. I'm also a little upset about this "fakes OCD" thing too because, oh so obviously, OCD is only like the very obvious or critically severe/terminal (yes OCD can be terminal) cases. I do have the experience of having a friend in college who was accused of "faking OCD" While her kitchen (shared with room-mates) was dirty and she was considered in general a slob, some of her friends knew that she had a bic pen that had to lay in a certain spot on her window sill, had to pinch herself a certain amount of times if something was out of place, etc. Just because you hear part of a story does not mean you know it all. Just because you are diagnosed with a mental illness, does not mean you know everything about that diagnosis. The only feelings you're hurting by letting another person's health bother you is your own. And those people you think or maybe even say are lying are likely also very hurt. Diagnostics change, people change, diagnoses change.

 

[Ula]

People in general do not fake a diagnosis.

My dad did, trying to get more VA benefits. He failed but still faked it.

Yes, he went to Vietnam, but stayed on base and never developed PTSD.

I'm also a little upset about this "fakes OCD" thing too because, oh so obviously, OCD is only like the very obvious or critically severe/terminal (yes OCD can be terminal) cases.

MANY people say "Im a little OCD today" OFTEN. OCD has become a "catch phrase".

Am I arguing that you should make judgement on someone by what you know of them? Nope! You very well likely don't know everything as we all have "world masks" we show to the world. But please do not make general statements such as you have. We may know a person very well (my dad) to know that they had a very great upbringing and are now faking something for benefits. In my dad's case, he TOLD ME he was faking PTSD for benefits. He is in no way traumatized. He exhibits zero symptoms. And he lives with me so i know what he is like. He has NO mental disorder symptom at all.

People fake all sorts of shit for benefits. Many on disabilty shouldn't be there.

My previous posts advise people fake shit but that doesn't have to effect you. And it doesn't. And that's where I still stand.

 

[Hewi]

Getting diagnosed with ptsd when you've been suffering from a trauma can be extremely validating.

But "I earned my ptsd" goes beyond validation, and enters into Entitlement mindset. Unfortunately, one of the nasty byproducts of trauma is the development of schemas - maladaptive, dysfunctional bias in the way that we perceive ourselves, others, and the world around us. They cause us extraordinary amounts of pain, they disrupt our ability to have healthy relationships... but with work, we can unlearn them.

It's okay to feel 'entitled' to things occasionally. But when you're starting to feel 'entitled' to something like a very serious mental illness, and you are beginning to make assessments about whether others are 'entitled' to be diagnosed with a serious mental illness, that's becoming really unhealthy. Apart from likely interfering with your subconscious fight to recover (and get rid of the illness that you've 'earned'), it's potentially having a really destructive impact on your relationships with others. People pick up these mindsets that we have, often long before we realise that they're out of control.

So if you feel that getting diagnosed with ptsd was a validating experience? Normal, healthy respoonse. But if you are feeling a sense of 'entitlement' to a serious illness, and judging whether others are equally as entitled as yourself? Time to take a breath, and maybe talk with your T about whether there may be an underlying issue for you here that you could work on yourself.

Fact is, our judgment of whether someone else is 'entitled' to a diagnosis of ptsd, or any serious illness, says far more about our own character than theirs.

Just some thoughts...

 

[Uhep]

But "I earned my ptsd" goes beyond validation, and enters into Entitlement mindset.

But if you are feeling a sense of 'entitlement' to a serious illness, and judging whether others are equally as entitled as yourself? Time to take a breath, and maybe talk with your T about whether there may be an underlying issue for you here that you could work on yourself.

I agree 100%.

 

[Uzali]

Meant with deep kindness.

And yet? That, right there, is grief. The kind of grief that can drive men mad. Unending, unendurable pain, and loss, and despair.

If it were "just" PTSD? What you would be treating was what you were there for. When it wasn't finding out that your son was dead that gutted you. It was losing your son.


COMPLICATED GRIEF AND RELATED BEREAVEMENT ISSUES FOR DSM-5

Some of you here have such misguided faith in the dsm!!
Trauma is trauma.
The dsm separates out "mental illnesses" as part of the whole big Pharma scam.
What is the point of trying to define and redefine anothers traumas? Complicated grief has very similar symptoms to PTSD and is also often lifelong. I know two people that died of it, just couldn't recover.
Was it PTSD? Was it complicated grief? Are they actually one and the same thing??? Does it matter what you call it?
Trauma. Too much trauma for the person to be able to hold.
If losing a child is not listed as a criterion A trauma, it should be. There is not much worse than that - and I've experienced quite a range..
losing a child when I was very young is what started it all off, and I believe that, more than anything else before or after, is what led to my PTSD.
And yes, I did get an "official" diagnosis.
Good grief. This stuff makes me angry!!!

 

[Dahesa]

This stuff makes me angry!!!

Diagnosis under the DSM is just one of the ways of understanding different mental illnesses so that they can be treated in the best way we currently know how.

In the same way that cancer is cancer, and any cancer is awful, distinguishing between stomach cancer and bowel cancer can be useful in terms of determining the best way to treat it.

There are multiple different mental illnesses that can stem from grief and trauma. Diagnosing which mental illness a person is suffering from under the DSM does not determine whether a person is genuinely suffering, all it does is help us differentiate the different kinds of mental illness so that they can be treated the best way we know how. And even though the cause, or trauma, may be the same for 2 different people, their resulting mental illness and best treatment can be vastly different.

Although there are posts on this thread to the tune of "unless you have ptsd, you haven't earned my compassion", the DSM is nothing more than a diagnostic tool. If you are suffering, then you have earned my compassion, and the DSM does not interfere with my compassion in the least.

 

[Orut]

I don't think you can equate physical illnesses with mental/ emotional illnesses. The DSM is fatally flawed in this way. If the same person went to 10 different doctors or psychiatrists they could get 10 different diagnoses.
PsyciAtry is not a science in the true sense of thd word. They can't take a blood sample and say, yes, it looks like you have PTSD.
Strip it all back and you will find, whatever label they choose to put upon you, there is trauma at the root of it.
We are not all that different from each other. There is no great mystery in human suffering - only in that we all react differently, and some get too much and all at once, and it goes beyond their ability up cope with it all.
If they develop s blood test that can separate out PTSD from complicated grief, complicated grief from borderline disorder, borderline disorder from bipolar etc etc etc - then I will believe it.
I just don't believe it as it stands

 

[Lofegub]

Some of you here have such misguided faith in the dsm!!
Trauma is trauma.
The dsm separates out "mental illnesses" as...

Losing a child to a violent death IS criterion A. Sorry to burst some bubbles on here.

 

[Wujic]

I was told to f*ck off. That I must a troll, or some lazy piece of shit looking for a payday, or free pity. Then promptly banned.

That's because the FB groups have exactly those who we don't want here, and is why people do get questioned here, and should be questioned in some cases, when such people claim they have PTSD, are cured, and now everyone should fit that mould. To me... those are the trolls, because they have no reality of what PTSD actually is. They more than likely had some anxiety and depression, was misdiagnosed by some twit telling them they have PTSD who wouldn't know PTSD if they tripped over it, and now claim to know everything about it.

Unfortunately, there are fakers. There was one on the combat forum who faked being military for quite a time. They suspected, and the guy was good, and they eventually caught him out in a lie, reported, and sure enough, with a little electronic digging it was a college student talking the talk, trying to pass themselves off as a combat veteran whilst still in college.

There have been a few here too which have been caught out in their own lies... faking PTSD. I think that 95% of people who say they have PTSD from researching it, lining up the data to their behaviour and emotion, and have experienced true criterion A trauma, likely have it. I think the fakers are the minority...

The problem with the fakers though, is that some are more unbeknownst that is really their fault, and the issue lay at the therapists feet square and fair. A therapist mentions to a person that they're displaying symptoms of PTSD like a reference -- that person is quite fair to be confused and take that as meaning they could have PTSD based on that therapists loose wording, when the trauma is a cheating partner or separation or such non-catastrophic event, but it horrific for them nonetheless.

You have a problem right now, being the world we live within that isn't surrounded by war time as some of the past decades have WW1, WW2, Korea then Vietnam -- Afghanistan and such wars now are nothing for civilian society as what previous wars affected entire countries. As such, we are becoming more prone to calling far less traumatic events, traumatic, with some relevance to our own emotional state, and as such... therapists go looking for work and subsequently narrow downward the definitions to keep up business.

No, that is not theory, but cited words by the psychiatric community itself based around societal growth of less catastrophic traumatic exposure.

 

[Ujew]

That's because the FB groups have exactly those who we don't want here, and is why people do get questioned here, and sh...

I think that's called "trolling"

 

[Ireriz]

That's because the FB groups have exactly those who we don't want here, and is why people do get questioned here, and should be questioned in some cases, when such people claim they have PTSD, are cured, and now everyone should fit that mould. To me... those are the trolls, because they have no reality of what PTSD actually is.

Edasi again.
Exactly my point. I don't see the harm in asking a simple question.
That's all it is, a question. Not a demand, nor is it required.

If someone doesn't want to answer for whatever reason. They won't be banned, or shunned. Nor should they be.

Using better judgement, is a good safety practice. It's not being judgemental.

 

[Agew]

I lived two decades with PTSD before having the label.

How many of us have born on date as ptsd is concerned.