Poll When Did the Symptoms of PTSD First Appear, After the Initial Traumatic Event?

[rainy_daze]

The first flashback I had was a couple of months after my friend was murdered (I think). I thought I had went insane. I did not know where I was or what I was saying, all I know is that I was shouting a lot and it felt like I had been teleported from where I was in reality. The nightmares started around then. It has taken me a long time to really acknowledge my diagnosis, and begin to work on getting better. It is more difficult knowing that the abuse I suffered in childhood was really the first trauma(s) I expreienced, as I lived for many years in complete denial of the whole thing, becoming a master at pretending I was fine. I suppose this can happen with people, as in, you can be resillient and coping with abuse for so long (or rather, you can be ignoring the memories and living in denial), and all it takes is something sudden and devastating to tip you over the edge into PTSD. I was not diagnosed until almost a year after my friend's death.

I believe a lot of the symptoms were there from the moment she died, the shock was not something that wore off, and the coping technique I used the most was cutting myself off from everyone and hurting myself in any way that I thought could numb the pain. Also known as Self Destruct Mode.

Timetorecover is right, healing is painful, but acknowledging it all and acceptance is a step towards the pain beginning to lessen, or the brain starting to heal.

 

[theworrier73]

Mine started when I was 16. I lost both my parents 9 months a part which was devastated, then I moved quickly into a relationship to feel the void and it became abusive. I then became pregnant and the abusive man hit me in the stomach with a baseball bat which caused me to miscarry. I could never have another child. Many abusive relationships to follow. If they weren't abusive, they cheated which caused trust issues. I am now in a safe and wonderful relationship but the fears are still there so I become overprotective.
Work is affected. My anxiety builds everyday before I have to go... Ok, I got a little long winded. lol.

 

[Mercy]

Dear worrier,
This is the place to say what you need to say. I invite you to say more either here or in a dairy if you don't have one yet. Talking to the understanding people on this forum has really helped me through a lot.

 

[Judah]

Mine started 2 years almost to the day after one of my most tramatic events @ 10 When I was at school my friends asked me WHY ARE YOUR HANDS SHAKING LIKE THAT ??? Only then did I notice and start to hide my symptoms from others.I was great at volleyball and then I could not proform in front of others without feeling enormous fear and anxiety.I never hit the ball right again while in the presence of others.

 

[Mogwai]

I actually had physical symptoms that occurred during the trauma. (weight loss, hair loss, phantom pains) The flashbacks/nightmares, etc came about 2 months afterward.

 

[Mercy]

I guess I had symptoms as a teenager but didn't recognize them for what they were. I was in a senior in a boarding school. Seniors had freshmen to guide through their first year, little sisters.

Our room had an inner hallway. I was standing at the opening into the room. My roommate's little sister came up behind me so silently I was totally unaware she was there. When I turned to leave there was this tall blonde filling the hall. I screamed and shrank down into a tight crouch. Then, I was so embarrassed. This poor freshman must have been uncomfortable with her height. That whole thing I have always remembered and wondered about.

Another sweet and funny moment came when my husband was driving. The road went straight west. It was at the end of a hot and dusty day. Some cute little voice peeped up, "Lookie, lookie a full sun!" I pondered that one too. Now, I know she was a child of the night who felt safe enough to be present. She knew the moon had fazes so she assumed the sun did too. That one makes me smile.

 

[BlueOrange]

10 years later.

It's not the injury that causes PTSD, it's the interaction between an unhealed injury and an environment that is different to the original stress environment.

 

[McCoy]

I don't remember what my first traumatic event was, but I was 6, and that's when the depression started. But when I was in college something terrible happened to me, and then it got out of control. It started in a crazy way. I actually started laughing and couldn't stop, then I just went numb and didn't talk for about 3 months. It was very awful. My mind broke.

 

[rightkindofme]

I went through long term abuse starting when I was a baby. I don't know for sure when my symptoms as such started. By the time I was a kid, surely.

 

[InHell11]

I first showing symptoms within weeks, but I kind of attributed it to the general trauma of the whole thing.

First major thing I noticed though was I found reading uncomfortable and hard to focus on it had been my favorite activity up to that point but then I tried to just kinda push away that anything could be wrong (thought I had gotten over my depression, so I did not want to even think I'd have a lasting mental disorder from that).

But then other symptoms such as unwanted thoughts, having panic attacks when reminded of what happened though it seems since that started now I think about all the slightly less traumatic things that have taken place in my life before that, and those can trigger me to.

I of course tried harder and harder to just fight and ignore the symptoms but that only served to make them worse so now I am stuck in a hellish place it seems.

 

[Artfulone]

I started to notice a greater level of arguments between my parents around the age of ten. My father became increasingly aggressive towards my mother from this sort of age. By the time I was twelve or so I started to witness my father acting out his aggression with my mother, catching her on the stairs as she ran from him and acting out his rage and control dramas by acting out strangling my mother but not properly physically doing it, thus leaving no marks. Between twelve and fourteen my father turned proper psycho for three periods at least. During these periods which would last ten days to three weeks my father would rage and threaten my mother in the above manner, never leaving any marks physically but mentally scars were left. My mother denied that it was so bad and said that they were just arguing. During these three phases my father started acting out the same aggression upon first my older brother and then myself. Whilst I was only given the strangle treatment probably only once or so, it became normalised for my father to threaten us regularly. We would escape up the stairs, where my father was less likely to act out because we had a younger brother and sister, sleeping.

The time when my father properly acted out the strangle thing with me was probably when I was fourteen or possibly thirteen. Unfortunately I had started to to be mentally bullied at school, called names and such by my class members and then by other people in my year. Unfortunately again this lasted until the end of school.

As far as symptomology goes, I kept delaying my symptoms because I had already developed a very high level dissociative ability as a far younger child for other purposes not related to family trauma. My honest opinion is that between the ages of ten and twelve I developed first minor depression, which became major depression. When my father went through his three or so full blown clinical phases of acting out (he almost certainly had chronic complex PTSD from childhood medical trauma and bullying, which was being re-triggered into clinical phases) my mother and brother started showing clinical level symtomology from secondary traumatisation. I kept dissociating and delaying my symptoms and by the second and third times I became overwhelmed. I was still delaying my symptoms somewhat but showed sufficient symptomolgy for PTSD/ complex PTSD at age fourteen because the bullying became true mobbing at this stage. These two forms of traumatisation combined and continued, although my fathers profile became more sub clinical in its' presentation, i.e. less focused upon periods, less severe but more constant rather than occasional.

 

[Bosco2153]

I was born to a pediphile, the 5th of 5 girls, so I could never pick a time if I tried. I was 'odd' all through grade school, a cutter and rebel through my young teens, and a mother and wife from 15 onwards. Then a victim several years married to a sociopath...still I 'functioned' somewhat in the world. Two years ago, at age 58...it hit me like ton of bricks. ALL of the symptoms, full-blown, gripping intensity. I had to quit work and go on permanent disability. In my mind, that's when it went from pts to ptsd...but my therapist says I've likely always had it. So that would be about 50+ years.