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

[Engineer]

I just ignored the trauma for 6 years. But, I'd say around 12 yrs. old so, 4 years after, I started showing major symptoms. Social anxiety. Panic attacks. Inability to sleep. Flashbacks and Paranoia. Isolation from people. Thoughts of suicide. Angry attacks on people at the slightest criticism. I became my tormentors and bullied them in return along with random strangers. This happened when I was 8 I'm 16 yrs. old now.

 

[420kitty]

My trauma occured in adulthood so it took 2 months for me to realize it, but I was showing symptoms while still in the relationship.

 

[GwenDR]

I don't know, because I don't know what counts as trauma and what doesn't. I don't know what counts as symptoms, and what's just me being depressed, or reacting to the situation at hand. I know when my first conscious panic attack was. But i'd had multiple mental breakdowns before then. I'd had what I could now recognize as anxiety attacks already, maybe even panic attacks. So I don't think that question has an answer for me. But they haven't stopped in the 10-15 years since.

 

[CJGilbert]

Here's the thing. I survived the trauma and returned home. I began to drink ( A LOT) and everyday. I just figured it was due to me moving out of my parents and then the symptoms happened more and more. But I just thought I was somehow transitioning from having Depression to having Anxiety. I honestly didn't connect anything to my trauma because my brain wasn't even processing it as trauma yet. It was simply trying to make me feel okay and normal again. Not until other symptoms began ruining my life (about a year and a half later) that I saw a therapist and we discovered my PTSD.

 

[Deleted member 41588]

My trauma happened one after another for years and it didn't kick in until all the trauma finally stopped happening back to back. I've been going through it my whole life but actual ptsd symptoms didn't kick in til 13.

 

[KerriJ]

It's been messed up because most of my childhood memories are still kinda repressed. I started showing PTSD symptoms from that after being assualted in college.(So technically a year after leaving my parents/the situation)
The symptoms from the assualt began immediently and never went away. My past T believed that it was because it triggered the childhood stuff.

It took until almost 3 months after I left the abusive relationship/after the r*pe til I even remembered/acknowledge the abuse. Almost immediently the PTSD symptoms took over. (I already had been dissociated and/or manic, but it got 100 times worse after the memories surfaced)

With being abused my whole life, it's hard to pin point when the PTSD "started", basically right after I got out the situations my sh*t hit the fan.

 

[Deleted member 8714]

I always believed that the bulk of my PTSD symptoms did not occur until 1988 when I saw a puddle of water in the bottom of a boat. Though I said in the poll 1 to 3 months, some symptoms occurred during the murders.

I started making a timeline for my new T, and I can clearly see that many of my PTSD symptoms started during and within the month following seeing my father brutally murder two people. I had derealization and depersonalization or out-of-body (now both considered a subtype of PTSD) during the murders. And avoidance of triggers within several days after the murders.

So for me, I need a poll selection which says, during the inciting incident.

 

[zebbidee]

30 years. i witnessed a murder when I was 17. through therapy i've worked out that I dissociated straight after. i felt nothing at all about it, until I was triggered by meeting another murderer in 2016. both these men killed their wives, in front of their children. for me, the first flashbacks I got when I was standing next to the 'triggering' guy, were of the original murderer being in front of me with the gun right after killing his wife. and it all went downhill from there.

 

[zebbidee]

I always believed that the bulk of my PTSD symptoms did not occur until 1988 when I saw a puddle of w...

hmmmm, so I put 30 years because I wasn't aware that I dissociated, so I wouldn't consider I had ptsd until I got all the other symptoms much later. i consider i was traumatized instantly but didn't feel the effects of that until I was triggered, due to the dissociation. i can absolutely see how you would instantly have symptoms, especially since I'm guessing you were still in contact with your father. for me it was an isolated random incident so perhaps would have been much simpler for my brain to completely compartmentalize it, once the threat was over at the time. i did not avoid any triggers the time, and actually continued to work directly opposite where the trauma happened without giving it a thought. i guess my brain felt under threat when I was close to a killer again and that's when the ptsd started. i cannot even begin to imagine your experience @Congruency and I'm just so impressed that you are continuing to work through it. i hope you can get some degree of peace.

 

[Nessa7]

I never thought about it before, but I think it was almost exactly three months. Probably three months and one week.

 

[J-Hump]

Oh man I was 16 when I was mualed by a pack of dogs, I wasn't showing symptoms of PTSD until I was 26, thats when I was diagnosed, I mean I was obviously afraid of dogs after that but then one day I was having panic attacks and anxiety about leaving the house or being around people, night terrors, I went 10 years with out any of that happen then one day it all just started happening as if a switch was flipped. I didnt even know what was going on until I was committed to a mental hospital for self harm and suicidal ideation then I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, chronic PTSD, and panic disorder.

 

[Friday]

Reopened