Sexual Assault What Ptsd Symptoms Do You Experience?

[GettingBy]

I've been looking into the symptoms of PTSD and I've found that I suffer from most of them. Although I've already been diagnosed with PTSD, I feel like it's weird to have many of the symptoms especially as most of the websites put a specific number on it e.g. 'three or more of the following etc'. For my re-experiencing symptoms, I get flashbacks, nightmares and intrusive thoughts. The fact that I'm experiencing many of the symptoms scares me.

So what symptoms do you get?

On a side note, what type intrusive thoughts (if any) do you experience? I've heard that some can be trauma related and some can be about other things.

 

[rightkindofme]

From the Mayo Clinic site...

"Intrusive memories
Symptoms of intrusive memories may include:

• Recurrent, unwanted distressing memories of the traumatic event
• Reliving the traumatic event as if it were happening again (flashbacks)
• Upsetting dreams about the traumatic event
• Severe emotional distress or physical reactions to something that reminds you of the event"

Three years ago I wrote a book about my childhood. That was the best thing I could have done because after doing so I have much less of a problem with intrusive memories. I used to have flashbacks so frequently that weeks could go by where I wasn't aware of what was going on in my current life. I couldn't get out of the memories. "Severe emotional distress or physical reactions" I think vomiting and sobbing uncontrollably counts. Lots of things remind me of my traumas because I had so many.

"Avoidance
Symptoms of avoidance may include:

• Trying to avoid thinking or talking about the traumatic event
• Avoiding places, activities or people that remind you of the traumatic event"

I have lots of avoidance issues. If I have to drive to southern California (where most of my traumas [but certainly not all] happened I start freaking out. I avoid the small northern California town where many of my later traumas happen. At this stage I have managed to put my thinking time about trauma into a little box. I open it first thing in the morning, write all my terrible thoughts down, then I can close the box for the day. This didn't work very well until after I had written the book because putting things together in chronological order was huge for me. I finally felt like I had a story of myself.


"Negative changes in thinking and mood
Symptoms of negative changes in thinking and mood may include:

• Negative feelings about yourself or other people
• Inability to experience positive emotions
• Feeling emotionally numb
• Lack of interest in activities you once enjoyed
• Hopelessness about the future
• Memory problems, including not remembering important aspects of the traumatic event
• Difficulty maintaining close relationships"

Yeah, I pretty much think I'm a piece of shit. I have a really good life at this time but I spend a lot of time crying, thinking about harming myself, and feeling like I'm stupid for trying. No matter how many "successful" check boxes I can check off I think I am minutes away from losing everything because I am a monster who deserves to die. My relationships rarely last very long. My husband is autistic and I think that is the main reason he can live with my emotionally volatility. He barely notices.

I will say that I have unusually good memory for someone with PTSD. I do remember my traumas. I really wish I could forget.

"Changes in emotional reactions
Symptoms of changes in emotional reactions (also called arousal symptoms) may include:

• Irritability, angry outbursts or aggressive behavior
• Always being on guard for danger
• Overwhelming guilt or shame
• Self-destructive behavior, such as drinking too much or driving too fast
• Trouble concentrating
• Trouble sleeping
• Being easily startled or frightened"

I have trouble thinking about these as "emotional changes" because I have always been this way. I was put in court ordered therapy for massive abuse at age 3. I don't have a pre-trauma. I am incredibly irritable. I am an incredibly angry person. This has been a real problem for me. I get in fistfights way too easily. I count exit doors in every building I go in. I think just about anyone can and will screw me. Yes, I have overwhelming shame and guilt. I spend days locked into the fetal position crying because I feel so guilty about shutting my mother out of my life despite what happened to me. I am torn between wanting to defend myself with weapons and thinking that I deserve every bad thing in the world and I am not worthy of defense. I have been re-victimized a lot because I put myself in very dangerous positions.

Lots of trouble sleeping. Oh man. My startle reflex is through the roof. I have seriously injured people who startle me. My trouble with concentrating comes and goes. I can have incredible hyper-focus but I also have times when I can't at all.

For example: some years I can't read a single book. I just *can't*. Some years I literally read more than a hundred new-to-me complex scientific books because I'm in a phase where I can drink in the knowledge like water.

I had to adapt to PTSD just being the way I function in a way I don't think other people do. That's what I mean by not having a pre-trauma. I have always had PTSD. This is just my way of existing. So as a result I have learned some coping methods that allow me to be hyper-successful at times. But I bounce between hyper-accomplishing and lying in the fetal position for weeks alternating with bouts of intense self-harm.

I'm a hard person to deal with. I've been in therapy for more than 30 years (off and on) and I kind of doubt I will ever get to the point where I can function without it. I have better phases and worse phases. That's just how life goes.

 

[Samantha_38]

They put a number on it because they have to. That way someone who just has nightmares, or another symptom, won't maybe fall into the criteria for PTSD, but they could still fall into the criteria for something else. All DSM conditions have criteria that are typically number like what you saw in PTSD.

I at some point, and typically quite frequently experience every single symptom that's listed. My PTSD stems from 24 years of continued abuse by multiple abusers, I will only be 25 in October and have only recently gotten safe from those people. I've been told I fit criteria for complex-ptsd, but that this isn't really considered a separate diagnosis anymore.

My intrusive thoughts can be any of the one's that's @rightkindofme listed, or sometimes sort of combination of multiple one's at the same time. I get just images with little emotion several times a day, over things that do make sense and for seemingly no reason too. I get overcome with emotions with no images sometimes. I constantly have nightmares and haven't slept for more than an hour at a time, if even that, for a very long time. I can get get images, emotions, and dissociation (leaving yourself) all at the same time, and that I consider one of the worst symptoms. It's like literally being back in the event, hearing, seeing and feeling everything I did when it first happened. When I come through a lot of time I can still feel the pain that had when it actually happened.

I also avoid things as mentioned above, have negative feelings all of the time, and my emotions go all over the board. Concentrating turn on and off, but amazingly if it's my school work (I'm a grad student) I can almost always focus. School as a child was my only escape and I did incredibly well growing up too. School has been, and continues to be my only escape and the only thing that seems to curb my symptoms at all. Sometimes that doesn't even work, but it isn't often.

I've been told I'm incredibly successful considering everything I've gone through. I have a really hard time believing and even hearing that, to the point I almost get angry when people say things like that. It's not uncommon though, as there are quite a few people on here who also have reacted in the same way. Its like an overwhelming push to do everything and get everything done and never have one free second of time to let PTSD in. It's probably a HUGE avoidance technique quite honestly. Others have a hard time acheiving anything and it's really tough for them to even take a shower. I have days like that, but for the most part I can make myself keep going because I always had to. It was either lie over and die, or keep going.

It's incredibly different based on each individual and as far as I can tell the trauma itself doesn't seem to correlate a whole lot with what symptoms and how bad it effects that certain individual. Some people have one traumatic event and can't get through the day, while others have never known anything different and are presidents of companies, or vise versa. It's all individual for the most part.

 

[desiderata310]

"I've been told I'm incredibly successful considering everything I've gone through. I have a really hard time believing and even hearing that, to the point I almost get angry when people say things like that. It's not uncommon though, as there are quite a few people on here who also have reacted in the same way. Its like an overwhelming push to do everything and get everything done and never have one free second of time to let PTSD in. It's probably a HUGE avoidance technique quite honestly. Others have a hard time acheiving anything and it's really tough for them to even take a shower. I have days like that, but for the most part I can make myself keep going because I always had to. It was either lie over and die, or keep going."


I could have written this. I get so very angry when my therapist looks at me and says that it's amazing that I am so very high functioning and successful. WTF? NO goddamn it no. I am NOT.
I stay as busy as possible to keep the PTSD at bay. If I am busy, then I am less likely to notice that I am stupid depressed,hyper vigilant and having a panic attack.

We've had to move my appointment because of my startle response. First a noise generator in the room then we tried meeting outside, but that proved problematic because I was hyper vigilant about who was coming down the path- not for fear of them hearing our conversation but because they were THERE. Then we moved it to early morning. Now, we are meeting at 7 am and someone has started showing up early to work and they have to pee midway through my session which means they are banging around upstairs. (the women's restroom is DIRECTLY above) When that happens, I stop talking, I don't hear what the therapist is saying to me, I am just concentrating on where that person is and what they are doing. I will check out if it goes on too long. He's started taking me outside after that happens. I was pretty upset the last time it happened and he told me that I would be surprised at the number of people in just our county alone who dealt with this and reacted as strongly as I do. He said that being in therapy actually stirs it up and makes it a bit worse. THAT made me feel a bit better.

I pretty much had every symptom on the list. I no longer drink....at least there's that.

 

[Friday]

It fluctuates. Sometimes I'm super symptomatic, sometimes I'm not.

Also, the degree to which I am affected by symptoms changes a great deal. Whether I'm able to lock it down and grin on, or whether I become totally nonfunctional, is something of a coin toss.

 

[Samantha_38]

@desiderata310 - I too become hyper vigilant during session. My old T that I just ended with had a conference room next to his office. On normal days no body would enter and I would hear it the entire time. Every once in awhile the door would close and it'd be SO loud. It through me straight into flashback/dissociation with no warning. I only went outside with that T once, and I was shut down the whole time. We were walking to a different office, he was just making sure I got there without talking myself out of going. He asked me questions on the way there, but I think I said like 2 words. I had eyes on everyone too, and it was on the campus of my old college so there were a lot of people.

Just in session I notice it though. I don't make eye contact at all, which is just one of my issues. I have eyes on hands and feet at all times. When my T moves, even just to readjust the way they are sitting or something, I can feel my symptoms go through the rough. My heart jumps 50bpm in a second for sure. It takes everything in me not to jump up and be standing and shielding myself. It's hard to get much done in a session when just the things around you and every movement sends you through the roof.

My new T's office has yet to have anything similar as far as noises go, and we haven't gone outdoors. I'm not sure it's even allowed. It's a really large place though, with countless hallways that look the exact same and are lettered. I have to follow her to her office because I couldn't find it on my own anyways. That makes me quite nervous too, but I have yet to mention it. The fact that I couldn't just stand up, walk out, and find my way straight back to the door scares me a lot. The whole process with her is very scary though, because it's still so new, so it's hard to narrow down one thing.

 

[Samantha_38]

@GettingBy - I think for the most part what you should get out of this is everyone is affected differently. Just because you have, or have had, every symptom on the list doesn't say much about your actual PTSD, just that you for sure have it.:(

I tend to not even distinguish between symptoms when I try to rate how I'm doing, just rate how often they are occurring and how much they are affecting me at the time. I tend to conglomerate them all into one and call it "my PTSD stuff". Therapists want to distinguish them from one another sometimes because different things can be done for some of the specific ones, but all in all it really just depends how often they are occurring and how much it affects your life.

I have almost constant hyper vigilance to some extent, and probably hourly episodes of intrusive thoughts and short dissociation. Those have been there for so long I don't think it affects me much, it can just get quite annoying. I know my T asks often what I think it'd be like to not have them, and I can't even say what it would be like. I don't know a life without it.

If I were you I wouldn't worry about having all of the symptoms, just how you let them affect you and how hard they are to "treat". Some people with a lot of symptoms respond to therapy almost instantly with a lot of success. Other's don't respond well to anything. I'm somewhere in the middle. I'm not sure I'll ever get rid of my daily sub-max level symptoms, but with just 8 months of therapy (after a lifetime of abuse and years and years of PTSD symptoms) my really bad days and hour long(or longer) dissociation/flashback episodes are occurring much less than they used to.

 

[Deleted member 27340]

I don't even want to look at the list of symptoms in the first post, it's just depressing.

What I notice the most without looking at that list, is fatigue, concentration difficulties, flashbacks (usually as small pictures only, or as a sensation -- often feeling like I'm being touched when I'm not), some freaky nightmares that aren't directly connected to my traumas but are just plain scary, panic attacks, being anxious, easily startled, paranoid, trust issues, low self esteem, dissociation and there's probably a lot more that I've forgotten (also a symptom, I think).

But how symptomatic I am does vary in both longer episodes and my surroundings. I have one friend that I barely notice my PTSD with, while at home it's at a fairly high level given that it's stable up there and not just up in the skies for an hour.

The worst part is panic attacks with flashbacks, I think. To me they are. I end up shaking so much that I can't call anyone, get weird cramps, sweat, can barely breathe and cry and scream hysterically. I'm used to the symptoms that are always there, because they have always been there, but panic attacks and flashbacks are so much worse.

Think I answered this thread quite different from the rest of you guys, hehe