• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Stigma and recognition of trauma and resulting challenges

Status
Not open for further replies.

KathK

Learning
Hey…I got a bit triggered by someone with lived experience of MH challenges saying anxiety and ptsd are ‘less severe’ than psychosis. Perception in government and society might claim that but I’m sure I’m not the only one who found ptsd/cptsd to be so debilitating it stopped me leaving my home, working, studying, resulting in countless hospital admissions and nearly taking my life before clinicians recognised and started treating me for the trauma related impacts. I know apart from raising awareness with those we individually interact with (if we are in a state/position to and feel ok to do so), it takes groups and foundations/movements to actually raise awareness more broadly, but it’s so frustrating, and feels insulting and even invalidating when it’s presented that way by people (clinicians or those with lived experience of challenges with mental health). I don’t expect any advice, just needed to vent. I tried to take a breath then diplomatically mention to be aware of fact VS perception and social and personal ignorance and biases, but it’s really pissed me off more than anything, and I guess my tolerance is less given recent trauma and the fact it’s triggered a flare that’s preventing me access to some of my clinicians that won’t/can’t do Telehealth and are based at the hospital where my recent trauma occurred, plus it was that attitude 20yrs ago that nearly lost me my life so how is that less severe than psychosis when someone has to have CPR followed by ICU stay followed by months in a psych ward because of unacknowledged cptsd? (The key shrink knew I was having what I now know are classic ptsd/cptsd symptoms, amongst others, but refused to acknowledge it because of his bias and societal stigma). Ggrrr
Thanks for safe rant space, it’s so misunderstood how debilitating trauma triggered conditions can be but everyone here lives with it to some extent regardless where on recovery/healing journey
 
I’m sure I’m not the only one who found ptsd/cptsd to be so debilitating it stopped me leaving my home, working, studying, resulting in countless hospital admissions and nearly taking my life before clinicians recognised and started treating me for the trauma related impacts.
You're definitely not alone in this. And yeah, it's really f*cking frustrating when the more mentally well try and tell us that we are on a spectrum and there is a 'worse than this'. To the person in a mental health crisis, there is no worse than what is happening right then and there. It's extremely invalidating, and often just deepens the despair that's going on, inside.

My question for myself always is - when it's NOT a really, really bad day, symptom-wise - can I remember that when someone says anxiety and PTSD are less severe than psychosis...that's all they're saying. They're not saying that anxiety and PTSD aren't severe.

Now - like I said, that only works on days when it's possible for one's mind to try and go there. And that's definitely not every day.
I don’t expect any advice, just needed to vent. I tried to take a breath then diplomatically mention to be aware of fact VS perception and social and personal ignorance and biases, but it’s really pissed me off more than anything, and I guess my tolerance is less given recent trauma and the fact it’s triggered a flare that’s preventing me access to some of my clinicians that won’t/can’t do Telehealth and are based at the hospital where my recent trauma occurred, plus it was that attitude 20yrs ago that nearly lost me my life
Totally - and I hope this doesn't come off as advice. I'm just sharing thoughts, really - I struggle with these situations as well.

Anger isn't inherently bad. There are situations where anger is the most understandable response. Denial of services / obstacles when trying to access care - these are some of the toughest challenges people living with mental illness face. And of course, it's always when we are really at low points that we desperately need to access those support systems and services....and those are the times we are least able to elegantly remove ourselves from situations where we aren't being heard.

It's something that I'll never understand - why it has to be so hard, when we're already so compromised.
 
Thanks joeylittle…once I calmed down a bit I was able to step back more and recognise it as ignorance from the person in question, especially given so many clinicians, even if some level of trauma awareness training, are clueless about so much. Between homework I debriefed with my son’s GP (he’s still my GP but no longer my primary GP, long story but he’s specialised in MH within general practice and has known me longer than most of my clinicians, decade or so), and he’s said I’m doing great advocacy stuff eg putting in a complaint regarding the recent medical trauma and with the manager of that clinician articulating aspects to include in training and ensure are translating to practice which hadn’t been factored in. He also said most psychiatrists think of many meds/treatments for cptsd/ptsd as belonging to physical specialities so are scared to touch them, aside from our system needing an overhaul.
You’re right about on good days being able to step back, and not expecting advice isn’t the same as not wanting or rejecting it 😉
I definitely had a journey with learning that anger wasn’t something to fear and didn’t have to equate to aggression/violence. In different language, even as a toddler I taught my son that anger is normal and fine, it’s what one chooses to do with the anger that can be problem (especially during tantrum cool-down)…it can definitely motivate to action and change, or pass or alert us, or be misused to cause hurt. Sometimes I still need the reminder though that anger is ok and so is taking action, the form of that action needs to be considered and guided though, such as clarifying issues and targeting wording and approach.
Thank you…still frustrating though, bloody comparisons and clinicians supposedly trained to support people when vulnerable to some extent being clueless and biased to the point of blindness
 
Hey…I got a bit triggered by someone with lived experience of MH challenges saying anxiety and ptsd are ‘less severe’ than psychosis. Perception in government and society might claim that but I’m sure I’m not the only one who found ptsd/cptsd to be so debilitating it stopped me leaving my home, working, studying, resulting in countless hospital admissions and nearly taking my life before clinicians recognised and started treating me for the trauma related impacts.
Sounds like you’ve never lost your mind.

Nor been around someone who has lost theirs.

That’s lucky, as it’s very possible to hit psychosis when PTSD symptoms -or related conditions, like sleep dep, starvation, panic, etc- get severe enough, or outside stressors (like if your son was killed in front of you)- tip the scales and you do actually go f*cking insane.

Sometimes psychosis creeps in. More often, there’s a snap. Something breaks inside of you, and you lose ALL touch with reality. What makes you, you; what makes others themselves; what makes the world what it is -right up to and including PHYSICS, like whether or not you, or the baby in your arms can fly.

There are other kinds of breaks, where you don’t actually lose your mind, “just” pieces of yourself. I’m going to skip over those kinds of breaks for right now.

Imagine your WORST nightmare.

Truly. For just a moment. Now? Imagine instead of waking up in bed, slick with sweat, screaming, shaking, sick for hours following… you wake up in a jail cell. Because your nightmare? Actually happened. Except? You were the one committing all the acts in it, against others. You tortured, raped, and murdered your own child. You “bravely” fought off all the monsters (loved ones, EMT, police) trying to help you. You drove your car through a school playground. You set on fire a building where hundreds die.

^^^THIS^^^ is the shit people in psychosis do.

Is that worse, than the absolute worst moments of PTSD?

Hell, f*cking, yes.

Both objectively, and subjectively.

Full stop.

In psych, there is a truism, that ALL roads lead to psychosis.

It’s not actually 100% true. Dyslexia doesn’t. ADHD doesn’t. A handful of other disorders and conditions NEVER lead to psychosis. But most? Really do. Push a person far enough along the spectrum & BANG! They’re in a psychotic break, and are out of their motherf*cking minds, and there is nooooo warning that they will do that (no PCL-4, or triad of evil, or anything else). They’re “just” pregnant, or exhausted, or grieving, or lost their job, or any of 1,000 other things that are non-issues for most people, and 1,000 things that break others, that push some people …BANG!… over the edge. Psychosis.

No matter how BAD something is? It can always get worse.

So what’s worse than psychosis?

Psychopathy. Where a psychotic break isn’t a deviance from your normal, and “easily” explainable by XYZ factors, but is who you are. Because you’re a psychopath.

What’s worse than Psychopathy?

A psychopath with a delusional disorder, or a taste for torture, or in a position of power able to convince or coerce others to act out their desires (like genocide, amongst other atrocities).

What’s worse… I can really go on all day. There is ALWAYS something worse. There’s no ultimate evil. There are a thousand different shades of evil and insane.

And you’re INSULTED you’re not the “worst” thing out there?!? Really?!?

Because taking offence at that? Makes me concerned for you, and the people in your life.

^^^ I DO hope you’re offended at the fact that I’m concerned for both you and the people in your life. Because that means you ARENT f*cking insane. Or, at least? That it could be worse.

But, mostly? I hope my concern is unwarranted. That you’re simply ignorant of how bad things can really be, and how much worse things can get.
 
Last edited:
The key shrink knew I was having what I now know are classic ptsd/cptsd symptoms, amongst others, but refused to acknowledge it because of his bias and societal stigma
What I have found where I am is a general lack of knowledge by GP's of how mental health care works. It used to be that you went to the psychiatrist for help but that role has changed with the change in the role of the psychologist.

My GP fails to understand that the Psychiatrist diagnoses and medicates and the Psychologist treats.

At this point it no longer matters to me with the exception that my GP only wants to hear from my psychiatrist who in reality only knows whats going on from my psychologist at this point.

To me? It's a complete joke. In any medical treatment the treatment by a technician in any discipline would be respected by my GP, but when it comes to my mental health - total and utter failure to even consider that may be a problem led to years of not being diagnosed AND now the "technician" who has added YEARS of further education to specialize in trauma - is universally ignored by my GP.

So I see my GP for general health, hoping against hope to find a trauma informed GP and in the meantime see my GP and woefully uninformed Psychiatrist/guy who offers me more meds every time I see him, while being treated by my psychologist........

As for the Psychosis part? To separate it - someone with PTSD may be a threat to themselves. A psychotic is a threat to everyone around them. They are the ones who cause PTSD because they can not feel for or understand others and can in anger kill, maim, and destroy without feeling or remorse. In my books - that's way, way more of a problem than anyone with PTSD could present.
 
Last edited:
I can see both sides of this. One one hand, Kath is right that it isn't productive to sit around competing over who has it worse, or to tell other people their struggle is not so bad. And yes the public is broadly uninformed about PTSD. The average person really doesn't know what kind of toll it takes on the body.

And I do see in "healthy" people with a bit of anxiety, that their symptoms are scary to them. No one going through a scary episode wants to hear it's not that bad. As a general policy, I never tell anyone their pain/trauma/anxiety is a joke.

On the other hand, Friday has a point. I've seen the emotional pain and embarrassment in a psychotic person who "woke up" with his hand around my throat. I've seen them struggle to remember where they spent the night, who they may have slept with, and why their kids flinch when they get close. I've heard them insist they really did go to London on a secret CIA mission.

There's something to be said for having your right mind, PTSD and all.
 
Sounds like you’ve never lost your mind.

Nor been around someone who has lost theirs.


And you’re INSULTED you’re not the “worst” thing out there?!? Really?!?
I have been around people in acute psychotic episodes and yes sometimes it’s scary to watch (my first female catheter was on a newly admitted and restrained drug induced psychosis episode/patient), and yes some never recover, some end up committing serious crimes in that state, and some a trauma triggers the psychosis. I’ve found out I’ve done things in fugues that are technically criminal, but the majority of the time if any harm occurred it was to myself, and that was an enough of a shock to deal with.
I’m not insulted I’m not the worst, never was and never will be the best and who cares on that, I’m upset at staff failing to recognise trauma triggered issues and that many DSM conditions are on a spectrum of severity, actually mostly it’s that they compared ptsd to anxiety, but in the moment of triggering I can’t think rationally, even I can start to step back (once I would’ve ended up hours or sometimes days later in an ambulance or hospital not knowing how I got there or what happened, and maybe snippets would come back like I was watching from the ceiling but other times they’re just blanks a couple of decades on, and I understand that’s nothing like what it can be like in a psychosis, I lived next door to a woman in and out of episodes of a decade and saw the changes in her and had to call services for her, and when well she was so sweet, but when she was becoming unwell I wouldn’t let my son open the door without checking if she’d left things outside her and my immediately perpendicular doors as she’d discard or throw things including glass that wasn’t visible and I was lucky I had steelcap boots on when trying to get around the plastic bags of things to my door carrying my preschooler as I felt and heard the glass crack but it only damaged my boot, and when her condition was managed she was sweet and engaged with the community, but also was in that bracket that stopped her meds despite legal orders; gang rape triggered her first episode according to church friends who were her primary support and I was acquainted with given locals.)…I’m rambling, probably didn’t make things clear in vent as it’s really only after a sleep I calmed enough to see what had triggered me about it, even when I can start to step back it takes time for me to refocus and get rational and grounded enough I can look at the trigger/situation in context. Yes psychotic condition are the severe spectrum of MH conditions, and and in context the comment played down anxiety and ptsd (anxiety is on a spectrum, but compared to average ptsd experiences when alone it’s not as debilitating and far less suicides with anxiety than ptsd) and with the psychosis they included DSH as more severe than anx/ptsd when typically self-harm is a symptom of something and isn’t a diagnosis in itself, and in hindsight it’s more that aspect, the misunderstanding around many MH clinicians in how they group things haphazardly and don’t put training into practice, though that really isn’t helped by structural and funding constraints with workload because funding governments or businesses don’t see beyond stigma and overwork their staff, but staff don’t help themselves.
 
Kath it sounds like you’re upset that PTSD is assigned to the anxiety spectrum with no consideration for mental handicaps that can arise. Is that what you’re really saying?
 
Kath it sounds like you’re upset that PTSD is assigned to the anxiety spectrum with no consideration for mental handicaps that can arise. Is that what you’re really saying?
I think so, anxiety can be debilitating though alone is less likely to be than things like ptsd, and that a symptom (self harm) was given a status and the status higher than something like ptsd.
 
Dyslexia doesn’t
Hey 👋🏻 dyslexic here…
🧐Although I think it might’ve been the sleep deprivation. And the other time was definitely the “substances”
I’m sorry I couldn’t resist an internet spoof “actually” moment.

I have nothing further or anything productive to add to this thread. Just couldn’t help myself.
 
Sounds like you’ve never lost your mind.

Nor been around someone who has lost theirs.

Came here to say this. (Sorry to have yanked you into my greater reply, heh, but basically: yeah.) The fact that y'all can actually form a coherent logical response to these statements, like, it frankly just isn't in the same league as having a psychotic episode. They are scary in ways that PTSD just isn't. I have PTSD with Secondary Psychosis, that is my official dx (and RAD and DDNOS for the rest of the environmental shit).

I have gone from being able to produce practical dissertations on ICL/IHL and cogency on par with any doctor or clinician on hand - to screaming in the back of an ambulance that I am covered in blood inside of a machine and everything tastes like batteries and I'm going to kill everyone I see. Someone is screaming because they are on fire. I am going to kill the ambulance driver.

I've spent 24 hours wailing at the top of my lungs like a baby in the ER completely unable to control myself. I have trauma dumped on strangers and tried to proposition them. I almost got abducted by two pimps after being released without my carer still delusional. I have rejected going to therapy because I thought social services would call the police and the police would come and murder my family because one of the social workers happened to be a friend of my trafficker back in the day (she was a volunteer ironically a "trafficking advocate") so I hid in my house and wouldn't let my mom go near the windows because they knew where we lived.

It's not exactly more or less worse than the long term pervasive issues caused by PTSD that I live with (I can't get a job, I can't live on my own, I struggle with sensory regulation, my emotional and psychological development is exceptionally behind my peers, I get 3-4 hours of sleep a night on a good night, I have functional neurologic disorder and various physical disabilities due to physical abuse, blah blah blah blah. You all get it.)

But I will say that it is extremely distressing, violently acute, alarming for everyone around me and actively traumatizing to people (as I unintentionally expose them to aversive details of extreme abuse and I have also assaulted or attempted to assault - fortunately I got restrained - people physically and sexually during these incidents - the last time it happened I tried to grope a paramedic because he wouldn't let the ambulance move unless I stopped kneeling on the ground which I interpreted as, because at that moment in my mind it was 100% real that "I was a slave," that meant he was demanding I have a sexual encounter with him).

It's bat shit! That's what crazy means. It's total nonsense. It lands me in the hospital every single time and is pretty much an emergency every time. I literally lose the ability to know where I am, who is around me, what is happening, how old I am, and I become totally unable to engage with the world in a rational manner. I know this stuff because I have seen the things I've written and been told the stuff I've said and it's all very public and embarrassing. It has happened in every social group I've been part of including here, which effectively reduces my ability to have real life friends to zero.

To be honest though in general I think the idea of comparison is never really useful anyway. PTSD has permanently impacted my capacity to form human relationships and dis-associated me from my peers in every conceivable way.

When I am unmedicated I have thousands of intrusions a day, like one every 3-5 seconds, some flash or another of insanity. I'll look at my cat and be like I smashed a cat's head in once and snapped its tiny little feet because they made me. My neighbor yells and I think she's being tortured and raped and tied up and harmed. I could go on and on and on, we probably all could. Having struggles with both of these issues they each present challenges that can seem essentially insurmountable and cause pervasive long lasting harm in every aspect of our lives.

But all the same, one of these things can usually permit you to go about your day to day in a relatively coherent manner while the other one is completely self-decimating. At least in my experience.
 
everything exists on a spectrum I go by the mantra of it could be/have been/might get worse because those are facts. Sometimes I use the mantra to prop myself up and keep moving. Generally I use it to do something I’m struggling with.

So if someone said that at least it’s not psychosis, I’d join them in agreeing. If they compared it to anxiety I’d agree that I’ve never been anxious to the point of not wanting to leave my house. But I’d also make the point that PTSD is worse in other ways if I felt offended.

Stupid people say stupid shit all the time. So I can pretty much let anyone say whatever they want, I don’t have to agree.

If someone is comparing things you don’t agree with your choice is educate them or ignore them. They might know someone with PTSD whose symptoms aren’t that bad so of course they think it’s not a big deal. For me when someone makes a comment about PTSD I’m going to let them reach their own conclusion because I have no desire to share my own story with anyone. So preferring not to educate I’m going with ignoring. Even people in the medical/psychiatric community have only had so many experiences and therefore only have that data to reach a conclusion.

I’m pretty sure my T thought I’d be easy as a client because I came in all matter of fact, this is what happened and I need help with it. But his experience with me changed his opinion. When not long after I could barely speak about it and every time he uncovers one thing he gets another. His experience has changed which means his next client he will treat differently as he’s now been educated.

Unfortunately WE the sufferers sharing our stories will be what makes any provider better, more understanding, more informed.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top