News Unexpected Death Of A Loved One Linked To Onset Of Psychiatric Disorders

[MyPTSD]

The sudden loss of a loved one can trigger a variety of psychiatric disorders in people with no history of mental illness. While previous studies have suggested there is a link between sudden bereavement and an onset of common psychiatric disorders, this is the first study to show the association of acute bereavement and mania in a large population sample.

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[Pencil]

OMG, OMG Thank you for posting this. As I've stated before, hundreds of times, on this forum, I lost the plot when my sister died in August 2012.

 

[Tinyflame]

@anthony , may I ask, I experienced this as a teenager (14), and granted it took 30 years to realize I wasn't responsible for stopping the moment of death [due to the circumstances surrounding it- I realized even then their death would likely ( but not 'guaranteed') be occurring sooner than later, as though despite my age I was more informed and 'adult' than most ever are at that age. But I never 'spoke up' or told anyone when I saw someone else in essence 'pull the plug', even though it would have also made a critical difference if he had lived just about 5 hours more, & I knew that too].

What I am getting at is although there ended up talk of ptsd months later, and well also when I once had the courage to be re-assessed on my own as an adult the Dr said the same, I've never felt it sufficient as 'causative' (though that's when everything fell apart. I seriously thought I was going/ had gone crazy though I didn't 'feel' crazy, but I must be?). I do realize I've actually had several incidences otherwise that (technically) would be sufficient for cause, and I meet all of the diagnostic criteria, but because many of these things occurred in childhood how do I determine the primary trauma? Are they saying with this quote: "..Losing a loved one suddenly also raised the risk of major depression, excessive use of alcohol, and anxiety disorders, including panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and phobias. The largest risk increases were for post-traumatic stress disorder, which was seen across age groups with an increased risk as high as 30-fold. Most other disorders were concentrated in the older age groups.." that even if I had not felt responsible such a happening could be the primary situation that precipitates ptsd?

Thanks so much.

 

[anthony]

The sudden death of a loved one has pretty much always typically fit the criteria for PTSD / engaged the same response or possible symptom range, as unexpected has typically meant accidental, suicide, so forth. It is not "unexpected" when a grandparent dies, for example, because elderly can be expected to die at any time for normal reasons. I guess that is the aspect right there that differentiates the possible response as to psychiatric onset or not, whether it is normal or otherwise. A 30 year old parent or sibling, for example, if they died suddenly of a heart attack would not be considered normal in the scope of things, and thus could lead to PTSD.

I think the brain is very complicated, and to be perfectly honest, many of these studies really only confirm, or attribute, to what is common-sense in reality. Life is complicated, and I don't believe any amount of studies could effectively cover these complexities and unknowns of life, though they are interesting to read and many do provide good samples of common-sense reactions based on life aspects.

I think the problem with death, unexpected or otherwise, is simply determining whether the reaction is physiatric or normal bereavement, as both can show as near identical to the trained person. I say otherwise, because every person must accept that everyone is going to die... its just when and how it happens that is unknown.

 

[Pencil]

every person must accept that everyone is going to die... its just when and how it happens that is unknown.

Yes, but there are innumerable variables. When my one sister died (after I had been diagnosed with PTSD) of a pulmonary embolism while in excellent health and on holiday in Mauritius, my reaction was 'normal'. When a lover died, in a car accident on the way home after visiting me, my reaction was 'normal'. When my mother died, I went over the edge, as her death left me with a plethora of unresolved issues.

When my eldest sister died in 2012 the circumstances were ... different. She was the only family my daughter and I had - immediate and extended - apart from the two siblings the police have advised me to get protections order against. On two occasions my eldest sister intervened in situations where my sick sister had involved the authorities (welfare and police) in attempts to get custody of my daughter (yes, it is THAT insane!).

There are rumours that my eldest sister was actually my biological mother. (I've never had the courage to get a copy of my birth certificate). We lived in different cities and spoke to each other on the phone every morning before 7. She had bronchitis. I asked her to see a doctor, she said she would, but needed to get a few things done before going. I phoned my nephew and asked him to nag her to go to a doc. Cut to the chase - she saw a doc, there were complications, she was admitted to hospital. My nephew and I arranged that I would go up to take care of her once she was back home. I often spoke to the physician who assured me she would be fine. One morning my nephew phoned me as the hospital had phoned him, saying she was not doing well. He was panicky and asked me to talk to her. He held the phone next to her ear, I spoke to her for a while, then told her I loved her. There was a long beep. Her heart had stopped.

I'm not saying this is what caused my PTSD. My PTSD was old hat. But being left 'alone' in the world with my primary caretaker (sick sister) and her sidekick, and ... lots of other very hectic stuff, kicked my PTSD into gear - and I had, for the first and only time, flashbacks to my childhood in the care of sick sibling and her sidekick. The context also included the fact that I had a mother who repeatedly abandoned me, two primary caretakers who were respectively 10 and 12 years older than me, and rather f*cked up individuals, and then another sibling who might have been my real mother. So for me questions about 'my mother' are confusing.

I've always been almost self-conscious about how her death tipped me over the edge. Her death was more 'expected' (statistically) that my other sister's death, and yet ... No study in the world can factor in all variables.

Apologies for the ramble: I'm just relieved to feel 'normal' having read the article.

 

[fly away home]

Yeah, losing my partner to suicide at 20 tipped me over the edge and just recently losing my boss (of fourteen years) had me in a manic state. Psychologist wanted me hospitalized.

 

[Tinyflame]

Thank you @anthony, that brings me some peace (not an easy feat to achieve) . It really does seem like common sense, doesn't it?

I think you've hit on something very important. For myself, even as a child I had lost a couple of family (they were young), but at 4/5 years old I didn't understand. I knew my dad had been very ill during my lifetime, on-and-off, but he did everything. But after him avoiding Dr's for years he had to have a massive medical for work about 3 months before & they told him he was in virtually perfect health, 'body of a 24 year old'. It was the first time I 'relaxed'. He worked away, and hid it, so it was a double blow to have 36 hours between diagnosis & death. (And of course, feeling like a murderer didn't help, I was a gentle person.) I thought I was handling grief in a normal way, it was when flashbacks & everything else started I couldn't figure out what was happening. It didn't even feel connected to the death; in a sense it wasn't.

Like the others said, I know that a relatively small happening too put me just about over the edge again years later. And oddly enough it was over a totally unrelated type of happening.

I'm pretty sure I was an anxious child, but none of the other was present til after that, & it's been 31 years and I still deal with some of the same symptomology. So now I just deal with it and figure it's a new 'normal'-(ish). But what was there then still occurs now. But I 'get it' better.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

My mom was killed in a plane crash when I was nineteen years old. It was very traumatic and I had so many nightmares about her burning up in fires. I was not diagnoses until I was thirty years old. My family was so dysfunctional that nothing was managed very well at all. I was not ready for her to go. I just went numb. I even showed up for work the following day. I was sent home thankfully. I was not thinking very clearly at all. I was just a kid.

 

[LhasaLover]

It was interesting after I had a PTSD diagnosis that I was also told I was experiencing complicated grief. It is my experience that the two diagnosis are intertwined and difficult to separate at times.

 

[anthony]

Our brains are complex, and compounding trauma is the most common that a further trauma throws us over the edge.

 

[KwanYingirl]

Yes I also had trauma throughout my life but went off the cliff after losing my career my vocational identity to a chemical exposure. Complicating matters is the fact that the chemicals I was exposed to cross the blood brain barrier and wreck havoc on the limbic system. Even the AMA states that differentiating chemical brain injury from PTSD is difficult.

 

[shimmerz]

@gizmo, my mother died suddenly when I was 19 as well. As a teenager she was the major protagonist in my life and finally, after I moved out at 17 our relationship took a turn for the better. Then she died suddenly due to an aneurysm. Life was never the same again. My sister still obsesses about my mother's death (as she fought with her about me in her last conversation with my mother). My sister blames me to this day.

My birth mother died the year I went through hell and back and when my re-kindling occurred. I went insane I swear. I couldn't stop crying etc not because she had died, but I got this feeling that I didn't know where she was and that scared me. I realize now after receiving documentation from CAS that this was a feeling I had experienced prior to the age of two - and it sent me right off.

No, there is no way to quantify or measure this type of reaction and all of the variables.