Poll Was Your Ptsd Diagnoses Helpful Or Not?

[Raj]

For me it is mixed. I understand more of myself yet I now I am also over analyzing everything I do.

 

[Abstract]

I had still been deliberating between the first and last choice (sometimes have looked at the second!) but have at long last made a decision - the first.

There are some down sides as I am constantly stuck on this diagnoses issue and battling to accept it (what a waste of time and energy) but truly I think it is the only thing that is going to make me grow up and face the trauma and stop me from avoiding dealing with it. I seem to have avoidance in very "healthy" (ha!) doses. More so than they warrant. I guess practice makes perfect....

It has also changed my life in so many other ways already. It started the process of understanding what was interfering with therapy for me and has opened up a lot of information that has made all the difference in managing my symptoms. Something that all the therapy prior to this never did and there was plenty of it.

I can't regret anything as I did what I knew how to do at the time. It is still hard to accept but it is what it is and I now have the opportunity for change.

I think in an ideal world I would have benefited the most from not having the diagnosed but having a good therapist whom I trusted who knew it and who educated and treated me accordingly. Even then that would deny me the opportunity of reading up information for myself which is huge source of growth so even that wouldn't work so well.

So PTSD, hate it, love it... :yuck:... try and accept it.

 

[TwoDee2ThreeDee]

Up until recently, I didn't have any idea about all the effects that PTSD can have on a person (and so could not distinguish between symptoms and personality flaws). There was no therapy and no inclination to improve. Now that I'm starting to have an understanding, I think I can actually cope with relationships and emotions a bit more.

 

[Marie10]

When I was told by two different psychologists, I felt some relief since I had a name to go with what was happening to me. I also had some kind of compass as to how to get better. Things got better and I quit therapy, then I felt PTSD was like a dark cloud I could never get out of. I began to see my therapist again and am now hopeful. I'm learning tools and different ways to handle things.

 

[Hashi]

I said no difference/non-issue since that was the closest. It's not 100% how I see it because knowing it was PTSD let me find this forum and get support from people who understand :inlove:. It gives a point of reference for talking about things, here and in other situations like making special arrangements at work.

In general, though, it has always been more helpful for me to understand that I experienced trauma than to think of myself as having PTSD. I think there's a difference. I've already posted around the forum about how I disagree that PTSD is a life sentence. I believe we can fully heal/recover from trauma. To me, PTSD is just a condition along the way.

In the short term I think it's useful to have an explanation and understanding of why we experience what we do. in the long term, I think it's actually unhelpful to be labelled with something which is presented is "incurable" and therefore lifelong.

I see it as like when I injured my hand. I had severe pain for some time and of course I had to do things for that (painkillers, ice packs, acupressure points, deep breathing). It was helpful that other people understood about pain so they knew what I was talking about. They could sympathise and give me ideas for ways to relieve it. But it wasn't helpful to see the pain as something I now had for the rest of my life (I was actually told it would always hurt at times, especially when the weather was cold.) I saw the pain as only a symptom, which would - and did - go away when the underlying cause was treated and healed. The important thing was the hand injury, not the pain.

 

[shell]

It helped to know what was wrong with me, I thought I was going crazy.

I got told I had it but nothing more, my therapist at the time said to go online and read more.

Knowing what it was, helped me find this site, get better help.. after that everything made so much sense.

 

[Abstract]

Hashi,
I think regardless of if someone sees it as curable or treatable (which it is at least) that is still OK in my book as they are still working on healing and believe in healing. What I find really very sad is that so many seem to misunderstand and see it as untreatable or use the concept as a reason not to get treatment - essentially an excuse. That's one of the things I was wondering about when I posted the poll.

When some keep seeing written that it is incurable then it seems they become hopeless and they don't understand what is really meant by it. Not everyone is going to believe in a cure but what causes the most damage in my opinion is this common misconception.

I understand what you are saying though and think your approach sounds healthy. The more we believe in the more we can get. That has proved to be the case for me with other mental health issues even when it was considered incurable.

 

[Abstract]

Just wanted to add too that I am talking about a theoretical belief in it being treatable or curable. Feeling hopeless as a part of depressive and other related symptoms can happen at the same time as understanding on a cognitive level that PTSD and trauma can be treated.

 

[DharmaGirl]

I felt a huge relief since it seemed like one moment I was a well respected charge nurse in a busy unit, and the next I was a basket case. I was triggered by a doctor who asked about sexual abuse during a breast exam, then when I had back surgery, I could no longer work and work had been my coping mechanism for my whole life. I really fell apart.

When I got the diagnosis 9 months later, I was so relieved that it wasn't just me. It wasn't my fault and I was actually a lot stronger than I felt. I could study it, work on ways to get better, practice stuff, and the cure fit right in with my Buddhism. What a huge relief!

 

[Hashi]

What I find really very sad is that so many seem to misunderstand and see it as untreatable or use the concept as a reason not to get treatment - essentially an excuse. That's one of the things I was wondering about when I posted the poll.

Is that partly the meaning of your possible responses about a diagnosis of/focus on PTSD distracting from recovery?

In terms of it reducing hope, aims or motivation, I agree. Whatever extent other people believe it can be treated/managed/recovered from/healed, I think the label of incurable doesn't help with that.

In some cases, I'd go as far as to say some people seem to be too attached to having PTSD. If someone's using it as a reason or excuse not to get treatment I'm not sure they'd admit that though, probably not even to themselves. I don't mean wanting to get treatment and struggling with that, but avoiding it.

 

[Abstract]

Yes. I was trying to convey that just feeling better about present symptoms was not what I consider as aiding in recovery. That it needed to actually be driving someone forward to getting better rather than just feeling more comfortable where they are. It's also the reason I didn't answer until recently as I wasn't quite sure of the answer for me. Not because I think it is untreatable but because I waste so much time and energy fighting the diagnoses.

Interestingly though people have answered with that in mind and it seems that for almost all who have answered it has aided in them moving forward.

I have seen a lot of it on the forum generally though. Both from those posting here and on the supporters forum where they describe their loved ones as not getting treatment because "it is incurable".

Anthony has just written an article on this issue which I am really glad about.

I know you still see this differently and see it as fully curable but there is a big misconception about what is meant by incurable. It IS treatable and is known to be treatable! People don't get that when they see the word. Maybe "treatable" should always be added wherever "curable" is mentioned. Most people if they are evaluated again at a later stage would not come up as having PTSD.

I don't think you are going to get most people to agree that it is fully curable as helpful as that may be for recovery but seeing it as treatable is a different story.

I think lots of different things can slow someone's progress and to my mind a lot of those are probably the things surrounding the trauma and not just the the trauma itself.

For me it is my extreme habitual attachment to privacy (read as long terror about talking) and my toxic shame and self abuse (including self invalidation). I recently realised that trauma would probably not be enough to keep me focused on facing this. The are too many loopholes: that maybe it didn't traumatise me so does not need to be processed; that it wasn't traumatic and was nothing; that all I need to do is what I was doing before - focussing on coping skills and building my Self.

If it is not PTSD and is general trauma then a lot of the specific ways of dealing with it may also not apply as much. Grounding and the stress cup and many other things may not be as relevant and probably are not for those with trauma that don't end up with PTSD.

Just my take on it.

 

[Hashi]

I don't think you are going to get most people to agree that it is fully curable

Just to clarify - I don't think PTSD is curable. To me, a cure implies medication, surgery, following steps A, B and C or some other defined treatment which will always be successful. There's no cure for the common cold, so in that sense it's incurable, but we recover/heal from it in five days or so anyway. There's no cure for cancer, but there are treatments which are sometimes successful, and other approaches which are sometimes successful. So both the common cold and cancer are "incurable" but they can be healed.

Healing is something different. Yes, I would like others to see that healing is possible. If they don't then they don't. But I have no interest in people thinking it's curable.

Leaving that aside and accepting ideas of manageable and treatable, I think slapping on the "incurable" label is irrelevant and unhelpful. I honestly think we're talking about the same thing in the end. But please correct me if I'm wrong.

I see "incurable so no point seeking help" sort of thinking much more reported on the supporters forum than directly from sufferers who are members here, and I think that's significant.