Unable to watch a music video tonight

[Graphite]

The answer to how to stop it is therapy. Which is now not available to me. Me having already had it and exhausted it. So I can't stop it and that leaves me at my feeling "at a loss as to what to do about it" again. Maybe the answer is nothing. And the answer is there is nothing I can do about it and I have to accept that. Which means I am 'throw hands up in the air' and nothing I can do about anything, again. It will not end. I am consigned to having things trigger me for the rest of my life, as treatment (what treatment there has been) has been unable to resolve that. I don't know what to do. (My lack of knowing probably caused by my autism, whilst I regularly think outside of the box on a lot of things, that don't get accepted by other people, I'm unable to think of new solutions and ideas in this sort of area, because of my autism probably? Not even sure about that lol.) I think, instead of not knowing what to do and pondering about that, that then causes me distress, I will now go away and not think about it (about not knowing what to do). I will go and think about something else and get on with my life and then that will hopefully solve the problem (until it happens again inevitably at some point, so was never really resolved, but anyway... hey ho...)

 

[Kubash16]

I don't think anyone is telling you to go away. I just think we are at a loss as well. Since therapy has been the most effective and often only tool any of us have had to desensitize from a trigger besides gradual self exposure therapy. You can do the exposure therapy yourself, I believe it was already suggested above (not sure since I just skimmed most of the posts) but you have to go slow and do only bits at a time.

 

[Graphite]

I'd personally be very careful right here. First, I can agree that sometimes it doesn't require a life threatening event to develop PTSD. By strict definition, I have PTSD without a technically life threatening event. My concern here is self diagnosing like this (not judging, I definitely have my moments) can lead to problem in and of itself.

The other issue I have is when something begins to be applied to such a large variety of circumstances it dilutes it in a way. I'm not saying your hurt isn't valid and I am not a medical professional, therefore cannot say whether you do or do not have PTSD. But, the more diluted an issue becomes, the less serious it is taken when someone who truly has it searches out help. Does that make sense?

Yes I agree, if something is applied to wider situations it can lose sight of the core. I can see where you are coming from in all the above. I can also see why you think my situation might be someone that doesn't truly have it. However, I can only post my experiences, what has actually happened to me and my symptoms which recur and are clearly not nothing. Anything can upset someone or violate them and it doesn't matter what and - maybe I was given this experience, from something seemingly stupid like this, in order to help me understand how people who have suffered worse things might feel or the experiences they might have with emotional distress occurring years later. However, I don't think I can ever truly do so because I can never understand how something really seriously violating would be when fortunately I haven't had it happen to me. Even so, the 'silly things' that have happened to me have made me feel, in total and in their duration, violated by them at certain times because of how they have 'infringed' on me by making me feel very distressed. So they have upset me and any upset for anyone without reason (such as discussing upsetting matters in the public interest or a doctor telling someone they have terminal illness) is not justified. What has happened to me is stupid when looked at from the outside. (I can't look it at from the outside when the situation because I lack context awareness, which may be why it automatically makes me feel anxiety and everything else whilst it does so to no-one else.)

"I am certainly not trying to invalidate you and I don't believe the other posters are either. But when stigmas are so strong, we can get protective. It is a serious fight sometimes to be taken seriously and given the help we need. So when someone comes along self diagnosing that doesn't meet the criteria, it can sting."

I'm sorry that it stung you. I didn't mean it in that way. I don't know that I was perceived as self-diagnosing that doesn't meet the criteria. I just know what symptoms I have, and that's the truth. There is nothing hidden behind it from a person who has autistic spectrum disorder. I won't know how to get protective. I realise other people may be able to do so and there is nothing in what I say that is to denigrate or reduce any other person's experiences. We all have our own experiences, and people having serious things happen rather than the trivial things that have happened to me. Although the effect on me of those things has been absolutely devastating, most likely bizarrely and unusually so, and anything but trivial. I can see rationally, divorced from it all, looking at it from objective outside of myself when not in the situation, it shouldn't be the case. However it has had the effects on me for the reasons personal to me that it has. My mother's death, which happened during some of this and didn't help, has wrongly had a less serious impact on me. That was because it was terminal illness and I actually felt relieved when it ended, relieved for her as well, and it was then "resolved" (even if not in a way I liked), whereas the other things around me have never been and persist unstoppably even these days. So, yes, it is totally wrongly, but it is a fact that the effect on me of all this has been greater than losing my mother.

 

[Graphite]

I don't think anyone is telling you to go away.

No, you've misunderstood. I just meant I wanted, voluntarily of my own accord, to take a break from here now so that I didn't keep discussing upsetting things for me on here. You managed to keep me here by your last post, however, so I am still here (whether good or bad).

 

[Kubash16]

So, PTSD is a fickle thing.

Most everyone has had a trauma of some sort and likely many. But very few in reality develop PTSD from them. There is no doubt what happened to you was traumatic for you. I am definitely not denying that and I don't want you to feel trivialized. I just mean that even in the heaviest duty of traumas only a small percentage will actually develop legitimate PTSD from it.

When you have been in therapy, what was the general consensus concerning the symptoms you do have?

 

[Graphite]

... I just think we are at a loss as well...

I don't feel better that other people have the same problem as me. However, at least I am not alone in feeling at a loss and it is helpful to know that others also have this problem. I don't think any of us know where to go... but, anyway,... I don't know, probably just best move on with life and stop dragging ourselves into this. If this now sounds like anything dismissive, I don't mean it in that way - I'm not undermining others' problems, or seeking to do so, I just think the best way is trying to move on. Easier said than done I know, because, as I've said, it just keeps coming back to me and undoubtedly everyone else on here.

 

[Graphite]

So, PTSD is a fickle thing.

Most everyone has had a trauma of some sort and likely many. But very few in reality develop PTSD from them. There is no doubt what happened to you was traumatic for you. I am definitely not denying that and I don't want you to feel trivialized. I just mean that even in the heaviest duty of traumas only a small percentage will actually develop legitimate PTSD from it.

When you have been in therapy, what was the general consensus concerning the symptoms you do have?

I don't feel trivialised. Objectively trivial things affected me that should not have done. (The reason they did was because of the problem swear words were, to some extent, made for me in my childhood - by my parents and teachers unintentionally and unwittingly following the standards of society etc. etc. and that's where the problem comes from for me. The worst thing people ever did in my life, unintentionally - making certain words swear words, that have, in some situations, affected me ever since. Much worse back then than what they are now. So goes back to my childhood and what my parents and teachers merely acting in accordance with society did.) Yes, only a percentage will develop PTSD and I don't think it's known why some people will and others won't, although people who have autism are more prone to stress, depression and anxiety so it seems I was at greater risk.)

"General consensus" concerning my symptoms? I don't think there was one; I have only seen a few people about it, in fact probably just two and was not diagnosed. The problem also is that, although I know my own symptoms and when they happen, I am not always able to express (particularly in face-to-face) to others what they are, again because of my autism - I think the first person took what I was saying and suggested CBT, no formal diagnosis (unless it has been written somewhere without my knowledge as happened to one of my relatives on another thing earlier on - I am their carer, went to all their appointments, would have been told but wasn't - the diagnosis just got written on a form and turned up much later when I went to ask for them to be diagnosed, turned out they already had been, much earlier). The second person said "it wasn't helpful to think of it as PTSD" but didn't give me any reason why it was not (probably because it is). Their sessions informed me that people who have autism are often unable to describe their emotions to others but, from what I was telling them, it turns out that my emotional feelings subject to the songs in public were largely feelings of anxiety. A whole load of anxiety and discomfort. Quite unnecessarily, as, if they hadn't played such songs at all, which I believe they should not have done, it would never have happened. The symptoms I have now are not just anxiety. The whole thing is that I now have symptoms and reactions to things even when I am no longer there. So it is a form of reliving and re-experiencing in my mind the song playing in the leisure centre. From five/six years ago. As it was three/four years ago. Now it's nine years, not really having the reliving experiences anymore (it does get better over time, maybe) but constant heart-racing for hours on end, uncontrollably, and extreme angry and annoyed feelings inside, real indignation and seething anger, and then same the following morning and then hours on end, and then the next day... For however long, up to a week. Happens immediately after each new exposure. This latest one, which I probably stopped most of by (quitting the video straight away), probably wasn't a real trigger - but had, on and off, feelings of heart racing on periods in the last week a couple of times. The problem was... I'd like to be able to watch videos like this and not have things coming back stopping me doing so and interfering in my life. I'm being selfish I think, especially as other people have had much worse PTSD causes to them that they should never have had to experience.

 

[Kubash16]

So out of that, I only see one PTSD like symptom, which heavily overlaps with anxiety and just a general stressor without having a mental illness/injury. To be formally diagnosed you have to meet much more than one symptom (I can't remember off the top of my head how many). Do you meet any of the others?

I think the original T had the right idea of CBT and not thinking of it as PTSD. Did you follow through on the CBT and how did it go?

The danger, too, is by ascribing to yourself a rather serious condition, you may in fact get diagnosed by an incompetent psychiatrist and put on medication that will be harmful.

 

[Friday]

Because, I think, it has been carried out belatedly and wasn't done right at the outset when it might have had success. It's too late, I feel, for it now to do anything and my PTSD condition has become resistant to treatment.

The good news, if someone has PTSD, is that’s not actually how PTSD works. Tier 1 treatments are as effective 40 years later as 1 year later.

I was also told, this late on now, it wasn't helpful to think of it as being PTSD even though, to me, due to the symptoms, it clearly is. My problem, as a person who has autism, is that I cannot deny the truth. Most people, I think, find that sort of thing very easy to do but unfortunately I can't pretend something to be not what it clearly is

There are no symptoms that are unique to PTSD. They are all found in other disorders

I do not know about verbal sexual harrassment not leading to PTSD as my experience shows that it does. Or can. If you make someone comments, that in sexual harrassment would be sexual comments, repeatedly and cause someone regularly to be uncomfortable, then that can, over time, lead to PTSD. Repeated minor events or events that cause anxiety or distress over a long period of time can eventually give rise to PTSD.

Nope. The DSM & ICD are both really clear about causality for this disorder, and both causality & symptoms have to exist -as well as a few other things- in order for diagnosis to be correct.

Now, these are both living documents that change as our experience and understanding grows. PTSD started out purely as a disorder related to combat, and for quite some time quite a lot of other types of trauma were both investigated and added, as they did indeed, cause the same effects, which responded to the same treatments, and had the same prognosis. For quite some time now, however, other types of events -even those related to existing CritA trauma, like combat training & sexual harassment- have not been added, whilst many others have been specifically excluded (criterion H exclusions), as even though there may be some similarity in cause or symptoms, the prognosis is entirely different. Which makes them fall under a different disorder.

This is basic taxonomy. Grouping like things alike. Mammals, avians, reptiles, and marsupials may all share many things; just as illnesses and injuries and disorders and conditions may all share many things, but whilst the similarities group them together in some ways, the differences split them apart in other ways.

Just because someone has a fever (symptom) it follows that they probably have an infection (but not always, fevers can also be caused by a small handful of other things, including autoimmune response, brain injury, dehydration, heat stroke, etc.). But purely having a fever doesn’t mean they have scarlet fever, or yellow fever, or even any other illness with fever in the name. All fevers are treated the same up until a point, where they are then treated differently, because the different causes respond differently to different things. The cause, treatment, and prognosis are all different from each other.

Or, since you’re more familiar with it... Someone can have all the symptoms of autism spectrum disorder, but if they haven’t had them their whole life, but developed them after a blow to the head at age 31? They’re not going to be diagnosed with autism, (unless the poor bastard is misdiagnosed by some idiot who doesn’t take a proper history) but with a TBI. Symptoms are the same, but the cause is different, and the best treatments for TBI & Autism? As well as prognosis? Are very different from each other.

As I said above, for several decades the definition of PTSD was broadening and broadened. From combat alone to all forms of life threatening trauma and sexual violence. For quite some time now -several more decades- the definition of what PTSD is has been narrowing. To the point the disorder itself is beginning to be split (PTSD vs CPTSD, at present). The narrowed definition of it is not because other causes have not been considered, but because they have been considered, and ruled out.

For any disorder to be correctly diagnosed the entire constellation has to be present. Cause (if known, not all disorders have a known cause), symptoms, treatment, and prognosis. If any of those items are different? You’re looking at a different diagnosis. Basic taxonomy.

 

[Justmehere]

What diagnoses have providers said you have, and how do they think those conditions can be managed? Have you ever been diagnosed with a learning disability or developmental delay?

One of the main goals of therapy is to give skills and tools to manage outside of therapy. What have you done to utilize those tools? Have you considered self help workbooks to learn more tools?

There is nothing hidden behind it from a person who has autistic spectrum disorder. I won't know how to get protective.

Was this diagnosis give by a professional? It can cause fight or flight responses to various things in the environment, including to music.

 

[somerandomguy]

@Graphite - I have great news for you! You almost certainly don't have PTSD.

This:

In fact my heart didn't stop racing after the song - I have never found out what song it was but featured a particular pop music artist - that made me suffer a nervous shock that gave me my PTSD.

in no way fits Criterion A, the diagnostic criteria of PTSD.

Criterion A: stressor (one required)

The person was exposed to: death, threatened death, actual or threatened serious injury, or actual or threatened sexual violence, in the following way(s):

• Direct exposure
• Witnessing the trauma
• Learning that a relative or close friend was exposed to a trauma
• Indirect exposure to aversive details of the trauma, usually in the course of professional duties (e.g., first responders, medics)

While music with bad language certainly bothers you, listening to it - or even being forced to listen to it - in no way meets Criterion A.

As Kubash said, we are not psychiatrists, and there's no one here who can diagnose you. Bust from your own account, it's very clear to me, personally, as a layman, that you do not have PTSD. (@Kubash16 - please note that you DO in fact meet Criterion A.)

I still strongly recommend therapy for you. You are obviously in a lot of discomfort, and it would be great to talk it over with a professional.

 

[Kubash16]

Really @somerandomguy?? Can’t I ride on the denial pony just five minutes longer?! ?