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Were you diagnosed with another mental health illness before ptsd?

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My so was diagnosed with GAD about 10 years before his PTSD diagnosis. Ever since I’ve known him, he has had troubles with anxiety and sometimes also had symptoms of depression.

My question is, and I really do apologize if this offends anyone, but I’d like to know if any of you sufferers had any other mental health diagnoses before PTSD?

I read somewhere that if an individual has anxiety/ depression or other mental health illnesses then you’re more likely to be prone to develop PTSD. I’m not sure how correct this is?

And on this notion, what makes an individual more ‘prone’ to develop PTSD? Or is there no such thing?

As always, just trying to learn.
Hope everyone’s having a good day
 
My so was diagnosed with GAD about 10 years before his PTSD diagnosis. Ever since I’ve kno...

Hi,

Supporter here too.

From her teens, my wife was diagnosed depression, then Bipolar, then BPD. She repeatedly told her doctors that the diagnoses didnt fit, and the treatment wasn't helping. New doctor. New psychologist. Diagnosed complex PTSD last year (she's 31 now, so LONG time). She says PTSD fits. Talking about trauma fits, and is starting to help. She says she doesn't feel doomed or worthless anymore.

From my research, I think mental health often gets misdiagnosed. I'm not sure (and I'm definitely not an expert) about developing PTSD being easier from other mental health previously, sorry. I guess it would make sense that if a person's mind is already in emotional pain, trauma would effecf them more? Not sure though.

Take care
 
I have co-occurring diagnoses of Bipolar 1, severe GAD, OCD disorders, an eating disorder, ADHD, etc. The only 1 I feel might not necessarily fit is/are the OCD disorders (pure-O, Dermatillomania). Though I'm not sure how Dermatillomania could be CPTSD in disguise...but the purely-obsessional OCD definitely could be.
 
I was initially sent to professionals within the Employee Assistance Program through my former workplace (was there 13 years) when seeking help after finally breaking down and not being able to continue to "fake it 'til I supposedly made it". The difficulties arose from me trying to hold a state agency accountable for unethical happenings. Opened a huge can of worms i didn't even realize had been closed for so long.

I shared all of my childhood sexual abuse, teen rape incidents, and early adulthood repeated domestic violence incidents where I was near death more than I'd like to remember. Even shared it all in writing so I wouldn't forget or leave any of it out. Up until that point, I had assumed I had handled it all well enough since I was still able to work, help raise two step-kids, and help care for others in my family.

However, NONE of them ever discussed PTSD, but rather diagnosed me with severe depression, severe anxiety, severe insomnia, severe adhd, severe stomach issues (IBS, "nervous stomach", etc.), severe this, severe that, and some kind of personality disorder that they just couldn't quite narrow down. I thought that meant I might get one named after me at that point. I was pretty much told I lived a severely impaired existence and they were going to try really hard to medicate me out of it.

Each of those diagnoses came with a prescription, often of many sorts, to try to supposedly balance things out. However, all they did was make things much worse. Whenever that happened, they'd suggest yet another prescription to mask the discomfort the previous one was causing. Never did they dive any deeper into my life to discuss or weed through actual events that occurred that may have caused many of the issues I was dealing with, no matter how many different specialists I was farmed out to. I learned really quickly that pills don't teach skills and I had to fight like hell to find help that actually felt helpful, as well as healthy.

I finally found what feels like genuine help through a local domestic/sexual violence shelter, an osteopathic doctor, and many holistic healers, who are luckily willing to barter, that I'd been taught to ignore throughout the rest of my life, as they aren't often covered by insurance nor do they offer endless piles of supposedly substantial peer-reviewed studies to convince folks of their therapeutic worth, as it seems quite difficult to receive funding supports if they aren't already existing within socially accepted arenas of "help".

I'd also like to add that my older sister was sexually abused by a distant family member and raped multiple times in her youth, as well, and was told she obviously must have done something to cause it, and was then immediately sent to a mental hospital and given shock therapy treatments and many varieties of meds to try to "fix" what our parents and the professionals perceived as a "chemical imbalance", totally messing up an otherwise healthy, albeit abused, individual. It's a jungle out there, from what I've experienced. Tread gently and wisely.
 
Thanks for your replies everyone.

My so had somewhat of an emotionally abusive childhood and he witnessed abuse (father used to beat mother).

He got diagnosed with GAD at 18. Then last year he went through the event that led to PTSD.
I was wondering if he was more prone to PTSD due to having anxiety in the first place, and also at times showing symptoms of depression too.
 
You’ve got multiple questions so the replies won’t be all that straightforward.

Many of us had other diagnosis’ before PTSD because we were misdiagnosed. It wasn’t a matter of being weak and prone to ptsd by the time we were diagnosed.

And in your case, again, it’s not a matter of other disorders setting your sufferer up for PTSD. Your sufferer has trauma before the other disorders so it’s impossible to really say that the other mental health stuff set him up for ptsd.

The only way to know for sure is in people who have had zero trauma but are anxious and/or depressed, then had a trauma occur, then developed ptsd. Then you MIGHT be able to say that the other disorders set them up for ptsd, but of course you’d have to find studies to this effect.
 
@EveHarrington thanks for this.

My sufferer has an abusive childhood and witnessed abuse at times against his mother. He has on VERY few occasions mentioned his childhood, I’ve had to gather that it wasn’t quite the pleasant one from the few things he has said.

From what I know, during his childhood he mostly suffered emotional abuse. Can one develop PTSD from emotional abuse?
 
I actually don't really like mentioning this on here, mainly because when I see people on here talk about the disorder, it's usually in a negative way. Usually this has to do with someone's parent having aspergers and being a bad parent in some way, and the poster blaming the aspergers. It's not like everyone with aspergers is an asshole, neglectful or abusive. I'm just kind of afraid of being perceived negatively for having it, so I guess I'm stepping out of my comfort zone a little bit making this post. Maybe my perceptions are skewed, wouldn't be surprising.

When I was 7 or 8 I was diagnosed with asperger syndrome. I wouldn't currently fit into the diagnostic criteria, though. I think early intervention made me blend in really well, adapt, and become pretty much normal in behavior. I will admit I probably think in a different way than most people, and still have things about me that stem from the aspergers. I have just developed a lot of tools to not appear odd IRL and not have socialization problems, and other things. I don't feel like it was negatively impacting my life as an adult. Prior to the abuse I had relationships, friends, I did lots of stuff with people, played music in bars with bands, I blended in.

Of course, PTSD has complicated things. Sometimes it can be hard to distinguish whether something is just from PTSD or if the PTSD is causing me to do some behaviors that I've long since trained myself not to do. On the other hand, I feel like PTSD has actually suppressed some of my aspergers symptoms, at least for the time being.

A few considerations, regarding whether my aspergers made me more likely to develop PTSD:
Maybe it made me less able to read my abuser as a bad person who should be avoided?
Maybe missing red flags is related to autism for me? It could totally be from other things, such as my emotional state prior to meeting my abuser.
People with autism spectrum disorders are more likely to experience traumatic events, which is partially due to them being less likely to read danger signs in social situations. Not being able to read social cues very well can lead to winding up in really bad situations, it can lead to physical or sexual assault, so on and so forth. There is research out there on this.

If someone doesn't have much of a "spidey sense" for dangerous or fishy people/situations, they're going to be more likely to be messed with in general. I've read a lot of anecdotal accounts from other people with ASDs where their autism caused them to miss danger signals and experience a traumatic event as a result. Most of them didn't develop PTSD, though. Of course, that's just anecdotal, I'd be really interested to see actual research on PTSD rates among people with ASDs.

So basically autism spectrum disorders make one statistically more likely to experience a traumatic event, compared to the general population, and I think it can be made worse by PTSD, but I don't think it increases the likelihood that a given traumatic event will cause PTSD to develop, if that makes sense.
 
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