Poll What Is The Cause Of Your PTSD?

[KayW]

I think like others here, it's difficult to pick 1 category. I was already screwed up enough from childhood abuse to go into abusive relationships. But it wasn't until the last adult trauma that I developed PTSD symptoms.

 

[Weemie]

My therapist thinks it is due to moral injury. If it had been relegated to the realm of "things that happened to me" I likely would have been resilient enough to endure them, as I had significant fortitude from a very young age due to lacking the sensations of emotion.

Even now it doesn't particularly bother me that I've been harmed by others. Every once in a while I regress and lose several stages of development where it is more likely to create child-like responses of "why me? Why are people cruel? Why blah blah blah?" But for the most part, it's the cognitive dissonance from being forced to hurt other people that created an impairment in my ability to use logical analysis (as opposed to subjective states).

It resulted in malfunctions like continuous thought loops, flashbacks, nightmares, conversive symptoms, etc. I get the feeling that this is probably a lot of people's "actual" reason - the more that they blame themselves, the less they can operate logically, the more destabilizing the experience.

 

[MaplePancake]

Ok.
Feel very detached writing this.

was sexually assaulted years ago as an adult. Always felt that it was more of a “ok, technically this fits the definition of sex assault rather than something significant. Sex abuse is always portrayed as being such a big deal that I used to feel like I was lying about it. Well it happened. I don’t think it affects me though. It was more of an obnoxious act than a traumatic one.

Maybe attempted sex assault…? I kept saying no and he kept trying. But again, did I feel freaked out or traumatized? Not really. I found him to be someone who was uncontrollably horny rather than violent and scary. So I don’t think his behavior was ok but it was an irritating experience rather than a terrible one. So no ptsd or any long term issues with that one either.

Physical assault is also not at all straight forward. I have an older brother. I do think siblings should be given a bit of leeway as far as they treat each other. When we were young and had our physical fights it really was more of a normal rivalry between siblings who disliked one another. But I am female and as we got older and older it became more of a bullying situation. A 12 year old girl is not an equal match for a 15 year old boy. She does not get a testosterone boost. So I discount the fights we had as little kids, but not the violence he inflicted on me from the teen years and beyond. I dunno. Abuse is probably too strong a word. more of a grey area. When we were young it was okayish. But, When he punched me as a 15 year old, when he would aggressively physically restrain me as a 20 year old, that behavior was not so okayish. No PTSD at all from that, but my self esteem in Junior High and High School was so bad that I didn’t have friends. I just retreated into a shell. There are other possible causes . My mother was cold and detached. but I am trying to focus on the events listed in the questionnaire.

I was a frontline Covid rt worker. I never felt too worried about getting sick myself, but I had family at home. The hardest part is that the treatments we had to use to keep people alive were very very uncomfortable for them. A lot of my patients will be mentally scarred from the techniques we used. Plus more standard equipment such as a ventilator can be agonizing if you are stuck on it for months. Bodies are just not supposed to be on vents that long. And those people were obviously sedated but not completely comatose and they couldn’t communicate. And a lot of people didn’t make it. I have mild ptsd from that. I quit my job at that hospital and tried to work at a rehab facility but I just couldn’t do it.

i don’t work at all. And that makes me feel pathetic. I don’t go out any where. I don’t want to run into people I know and tell them I have no life. Also it is unfair to my husband for me to spend money when I am not contributing to the household.
The end

 

[Somebunny111]

There are multiple different things that have happened growing up and throughout my life. But the biggest by far was a murder-suicide involving immediate family members. My late father was the murderer.