Other Tbi and ptsd

[Whyteferret]

how many others have sustained a TBI and also have PTSD? My PTSD was from an issue unrelated to the TBI.

There are so many cross over symptoms that it's hard to tell what comes from which. I know my PTSD got worse after the injury. Are the problems due to both.

I suppose it really doesn't matter in some ways. I wonder if knowing what was what would help make some things better? Nothing seems to be working anymore. No improvement on either for a few years.

 

[Friday]

I've banged the old coconut around a few times too many. These days, when it happens, stuff keeps falling out of it. Numbers. Speech. SMH. :p So I've started taking it a bit more seriously.

I had PTSD well before the worst of the first of my noggin bashes. Although there were quite a few smaller concussive blasts around the same time period, nothing that did more than set my ears to silent &/or ringing for a few days. At least, not that I remember. So nothing too serious. Most of the times I've bounced my head off of concrete & steering wheels to noticeable effect... were years after my initial PTSD diagnosis. Like PTSD, I've always sort of just ignored them. Waited 15 some odd years to start treating my PTSD, & ironically, going to the hospital for pneumonia recently led to my first neurology appointment.

I've just always treated symptoms, rather than gone after root cause. Until last year.

I already deal with crossover symptoms (ADHD + PTSD). Basically... What I've found is just keep trying stuff until it works. Sometimes ADHD tricks work. Sometimes PTSD tricks work. Sometimes I need both. I suspect it is / will be the same with TBI & those therapies. Just keep hitting symptoms in different ways, until catching some traction. And then just keep on hitting them, until I am where I want to be. Just gotta keep moving. Sooner or later? Something always works. Then something else works better. Then something else, and something else, and something else. Just keep chipping away.

 

[joeylittle]

I wonder if knowing what was what would help make some things better?

I lived for a long time with depression that pre-dated my TBI, then TBI-specific symptoms along with depression, and then eventually adding a PTSD diagnosis.

It helps me to keep sorted out which symptoms are aggravated by which - but in most ways, I'm just making it up. It's what feels right to me, in terms of what has exacerbated what on any given day. I don't think there's anything wrong with making a mental filing cabinet for your symptoms, just so long as it doesn't cause you unnecessary upset.

Remember, they are all, ultimately, symptoms. Not enough is understood about the brain to get much farther than 'we see these symptoms happen as a result of X or Y, and our name for it is Z'. So, your particular alphabet soup is PTSD/TBI/GAD. How you choose to understand it is, in large part, up to you.