What Was/Is Your Weirdest Symptom?

[Blues in NYC]

It's funny how much this thread makes me chuckle and smile. :smile: Thanks for opening up and sharing and bringing some humor about our predicaments to the table everyone.

 

[ok4a56]

I think the strangest thing for me is when we go out to dinner I must be the one who picks where we sit. It must be near an emergency exit, and I must be able to see the front door. If those 2 things don't come together, we don't eat at the restaurant.

 

[Lionheart]

To my mind, almost all ptsd symptoms are weird, so I will share the most embarrassing one and then, also one of the hardest symptom to deal with, (in that order).
Walking through the mall and suddenly having a pain like someone shoved a broom handle in my bum, is not only the most embarrassing, but brings on full scale flashback/panic attack.
Some of the hardest symptoms I deal with, are the ones I cannot explain to others who witness it, (because I don't know what triggered me). In a world that demands we be responsible for everything (even when it is unreasonable), I am most often made to feel stupid or incompetent for not being able to "get control of myself." I want to yank people's arms off when they treat me that way. Prolly a good thing that I don't huh? LOL Oh well, it doesn't hurt to think about it. hahahaha

 

[ilim]

When I was a kid, and sometimes now when I think about it enough, I couldn't swallow anything. I would check my mouth/spit for hair constantly and had to spit it into a paper towel next to my plate. Spitting into the trashcan was enough to make me gag...
Then I guess that turned into full blown emetophobia, but as of two nights ago, I'm TOTALLY FINE WITH THROWING UP! Thank you stomach flu from coworker! :D

 

[his_swallow]

Oh wow! I had no idea clumsiness was a symptom. I feel better now!

The funniest for me clumsiness!
I had a joke with my therapist that as if ptsd isn't enough I was becoming clumsy maybe I could blame that on the ptsd as well.
I was stumped when she told me clumsiness (or lack of coordination) is a genuine sympton.
Unless she was just having the last laugh!!!

 

[growingpains]

The last triggering I probably seemed so funny...I was trying to normalize the hypervigilence so I said, "yeah well you would be careful and watchful too if you had people try to stalk you and kill you"....in a normal tone kind of matter of fact. When I calmed down and de-stressed after the triggering and felt more like myself again I laughed thinking that the non-PTSD person I said it too probably thought I was a bit....unique?

 

[onebravegirl]

The toughtest for me was a combination of trembling hands and jumping out of my skin at the slightest sound. Like, off the couch when the cat sneezed. I gradually got to see the humour of this, and laughing it off helped so much. Come to think of it, laughing was a symptom too. I would regularly get fits of laughter, where I couldn't breathe and tears would pour out. Those fits would feel better after than a good hard cry would. Now I just laugh when something is appropriatley funny, not when old ladies fall off the sidewalk like before.
O

 

[Paloma]

Hey, OBG...was that you laughing at me cuz I fell off the sidewalk because I am old, have PTSD and am clumsy too?? ;-p
This is a great thread. I have a lot of those here. Shaking uncontrollably in public is embarrassing. The loss of language processing ability really sucked at work...or when stressed at all. The two weirdest and I guess they are PTSD because they happen when I am stressed are inability to switch from left handed recognition to right handed. When I worked at a cabinet shop, I could not recognize something reversed as reversed. And the other is not recognize something common that I am looking at...like a branch or book. I see it but have no idea what it is...kinda like the language thing. I can hear fine...but it isn't any language I know.

Those normies just have no idea how endlessly entertaining this freaking disorder is!

 

[Tija]

Count me in for the clumsiness. My legs and arms stop working in unison and I feel totally uncoordinated and really geeky LOL
The symptom that is the most troublesome for me is the internal shaking. I just hate that feeling.

 

[onebravegirl]

Count me in for the clumsiness. My legs and arms stop working in unison and I feel totally uncoordinated and really geeky LOL
The symptom that is the most troublesome for me is the internal shaking. I just hate that feeling.

My only hope was that it burned calories!
O

 

[the racha]

Love this thread, here are my top crazy symptoms:

1. Super hearing. I can hear a pin drop from across my house. I swear I can even hear the TV when it's on mute.
2. Clumsiness. Big time. Especially, for some reason, on my way to the bathroom. I bump into the walls and stuff.
3. Spelling
4. Keeping more than one thought in my head at a time. Multitasking, nowadays, means taking a klonopin and walking at the same time.
5. Night Sweats. These are horrible, but it was a huge relief to know that this isn't uncommon for folks with PTSD (after having been tested for diabetes a zillion times).

racha

 

[Marlene]

Visual and tactile hallucenations that were timed in sync. I had hallucenations of seeing bugs and seeing them crawl on me and felt it. Yuck! Standing up in the livingroom and ripping my shirt off was quite a shock for my family.:rofl:

I think the worst was (and can be, given enough stress) losing the ability to do the simplest things. Like read, write, work on a computer, etc. I would have these 'wires touching' moments and I just couldn't remember how to do the simple things I've been doing for years. Hell...decades. Fortuantely they are short lived.