CJ, I like the way you did that. :clap: So I copied your style a little bit, and came up with this. I put my responses in bold print, I'm not sure if show up here or not.
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A. The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following have been present:
(1) the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others
(2) the person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror. Note: In children, this may be expressed instead by disorganized or agitated behavior.
I experience intense physical, emotional, and verbal abuse starting at a very early age. In addition I witnessed this with other members of my family, until I was 16.
B. The traumatic event is persistently reexperienced in one (or more) of the following ways:
(1) recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event, including images, thoughts, or perceptions. Note: In young children, repetitive play may occur in which themes or aspects of the trauma are expressed.
BEFORE: my mind spent more time reliving traumatic things that had happened, than it spent in the immediate present. I was powerless to stop it. Reliving those events was very painful, and was so realistic to me, it was if it was indeed physical reality. One counselor had told me she thought I processed less than 10% of the things happening around me.
AFTER: Those events seldom cross my mind. If they do, it is not distressing in the least, and I can stop my mind from doing this if I choose.
(2) recurrent distressing dreams of the event. Note: In children, there may be frightening dreams without recognizable content.
Before: Nightmares were very common, many times I have physically reacted in my sleep, such as jumping out bed, yelling, swinging, and kicking. A few times I actually hit my wife.
After: I have not had a nightmare for about 3 & ½ years.
(3) acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (includes a sense of reliving the experience, illusions, hallucinations, and dissociative flashback episodes, including those that occur upon awakening or when intoxicated). Note: In young children, trauma-specific reenactment may occur.
See #1.
(4) intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.
BEFORE: There were a number of sights and sounds that were bad. I remember that some violent scenes in movies were very disturbing. Torture scenes were excruciating to watch. Ex. Walking Tall, had a scene where a prostitute was tortured. There was a POW movie from the Vietnam war that was horrific. It was called “When Hell was in Session”
In treatment centers and psyche hospitals I could not discuss the childhood trauma without falling apart, and experiencing the worst possible anxiety and fear.
AFTER: A couple of months after I told my wife I no longer had PTSD, we went and watched “Passion of the Christ”. He got beat to a pulp in that movie. To be honest, I sat through the whole thing, and on an anxiety scale of 1 – 100, I felt about a 3 or 4 at most.
IN ADDITION:
I had a discussion with Dr Frederick Schiffer several months ago. He is the author of several books on the subject of PTSD.
We discussed PTSD for about 30 – 45 minutes. During this time we discussed some specific childhood events, which I was OK with. He had me cover my right eye, and restate what happened. I did feel some anxiety, about a 6 or 7 ( on a scale of 1 – 100), and I told him so.
(5) physiological reactivity on exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.
Before: commonplace in my everyday life. Once in treatment center, I had a nightmare involving my dad, that I shot and killed him. I woke up in a state of sheer terror, and I did not recover from this for about 6 hours. Oddly, the staff did nothing to help, diagnose, monitor anything. They just told me I had pinpoint pupils (which is opposite of what you would expect), and my eyes were about to bug out of my head.
After: Just does not happen.
C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by three (or more) of the following:
(1) efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma
(2) efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma
I do not recall avoiding things.
(3) inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma
Both before and after, I have this. To the best I can come up with, there are 3 events that I have a partial or entire blackout to. Family members can remember details of these 3 things, I can not. One was with myself, I can remember events leading up to a beating, but not the beating itself. Another was with a brother, another with my sister.
(4) markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities
(5) feeling of detachment or estrangement from others
All of my life.
(6) restricted range of affect (e.g., unable to have loving feelings)
Before and after, I care about and love my family more than I can express.
(7) sense of a foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage, children, or a normal life span)
Before: I knew I would have a shortened life.
After: This took a while, but I no longer feel this way.
D. Persistent symptoms of increased arousal (not present before the trauma), as indicated by two (or more) of the following:
(1) difficulty falling or staying asleep – always had trouble with insomnia, no longer an issue.(2) irritability or outbursts of anger
(3) difficulty concentrating - had it bad, I don’t pay much attention to this, but it does not seem to a problem
(4) hypervigilance –
(5) exaggerated startle response **IMPORTANT**
BEFORE: I will use a description from my own story, I Believe PTSD IS Curable, posted on this forum:
“It was also determined that I seemed to suffer from an "exaggerated startle response". Brother, you could have said that in lights. I didn’t need a psychological evaluation to tell me that. I was slightly aware of this. Loud noises, people walking behind me, sudden events would trigger this, like the hair trigger of an atom bomb. The worst thing was a door opening. It did not matter if it was opened slowly or quietly. When a door opened I felt as though a high-voltage shock went down my spinal cord, and down to my toes. Instantly hands would come up in self-defense, and at that moment I would have been capable of striking out, although I never did. Strangely enough, I would have the same response if I consciously knew beforehand someone was about to come through a door. For example, if I saw a person approach a door, maybe seeing the person walking to the door, through an exterior window, I would know in advance a person was about to open that door. I would consciously brace myself. When that door opened, I would still completely jump out of my skin. I could not prevent this, even with the most determined effort.”
After: This simply does not happen. I am 100% positive, I have been subjected to loud noises, etc. This response just isn’t there.
E. Duration of the disturbance (symptoms in Criteria B, C, and D) is more than one month.
F. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
Before: This was an area I was hard hit. Putting it simply and mildly, I was socially and emotionally immature. I had almost no ability to connect with others, and to behave and respond appropriately was just not on the map.
After: I’m not about to have my own TV show or anything, but I’m MUCH better than before, MUCH, MUCH better. It did not happen overnight, but it has happened, and I believe I continue to get better.
Specify if:
Acute: if duration of symptoms is less than 3 months
Chronic: if duration of symptoms is 3 months or more
Duration was about 44 years. I am 48 now.
