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

[fish out of water]

I had a trauma that resulted in loss of three lives and myself being life threatining injured with a two year recovery and still ongoing. The doctors only said they could diagnose ptsd after the 6month 'marker' but I had symptoms from the start and still struggle on a daily basis. Work is awful and have been no support life is hard and there is very little help from my local health service without the long long wait.

 

[JoeNavy]

I think mine started within a few months after my "events", but then pretty much went away for 20 years. On the 20th anniversary I pretty much got hit full force with everything....that lasted two years....been relatively manageable since then, but now the damn 30 year anniversery is coming up next year....I am really really really dreading that! My symptoms are already starting to get bad. Hopefully by going to see the doc's and groups between now and then it won't be too bad?

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I voted 1-3 months. I was a teenager and was'nt getting help. This is why I got into drugs and alcohol which increased my traumas and messed me up more. I did'nt get help until 1985. That is when I first started therapy. Drugs and alcohol caused me to have so many traumas. I was carrying the shame of it for years. Until I realized that I was the victim of many abusers starting with my parents.

I had so many symptoms. I did not know what I was dealing with I thought I was going crazy. But as I was young I was resiliant. It was'nt until I got married and started exploding with anger and rage that I knew I needed some kind of help. I did'nt know I was a victim either. I just thought I was a person who had alot of bad things happen to me. Good topic.

 

[TeddySue]

Until I realized that I was the victim of many abusers starting with my parents.

As a child I accepted all the abuse and neglect my so-called parents directed my way. I knew something was wrong with them but they always turned it around and called me a "sorry child." I lived my childhood under the impression that I owed my so-called parents something. Only when my so-called mother died was I able to walk out of that hospital room in freedom.

I did'nt know I was a victim either. I just thought I was a person who had a lot of bad things happen to me.

I was led to believe my so-called parents were "normal" and that the problem was mine. All the bad things that happened were ignored or hushed-up, and never dealt with, so I assumed all those years that there was something terribly wrong with me.

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[Cylesh912]

Flashbacks and full-blown symptoms of childhood incest (sexual, emotional)--PTSD, dissociation, depression, etc.--didn't appear consciously to me until the summer of 1999, when I was nearly 37. However, my sister-in-law recalled me divulging memories to her when I was in my 20s. I have absolutely no recollection of doing so. My therapists indicated that I was likely dissociating at the time and not co-conscious. Dunno. All I positively know is that I was blown away by the flashbacks that surfaced in 1999. It was all "new" to me.

 

[PurpleHope]

I couldn't answer the poll. I don't know when I developed PTSD. My abuse started when I was about 18 months old, possibly earlier. I know that when I was 5, I had all of the same symptoms I have now, except I had no coping skills at that age so the emotional pain was far worse.

I do know that my symptoms became worse again when I started remembering the abuse at age 30.

 

[TeddySue]

My abuse started when I was about 18 months old, possibly earlier. I know that when I was 5, I had all of the same symptoms I have now, except I had no coping skills at that age so the emotional pain was far worse.

My memories go back to age 18 months, too. When the trauma hit so hard 6 years ago I began to cry every day. Listening to myself cry, many times a day, brought back the memory of myself crying many times as a baby and there was no one to pick me up, care, or say something comforting to me. The sounds of my crying were the sounds of me as an 18 month old; it was so strange to suddenly realize the sounds were that of a real baby...

At five, things changed forever. How was I to know that telling my mother the truth would not set me free? The truth came down around me and smothered me; it was hushed up and I lived on in that vacuum of confusion for many, many years.

My abuse was treated as if it never happened; only at age 10 or 11 did I start asking myself, WHY are these things pushed to the back of my mind? I only allowed myself to speak outwardly of the abuse after 6 years of therapy and mega doses of Effexor.

 

[soph]

I remember having 2 panic attack at around 5 and 7, I would be waking from a dream of being chased. I would run around the house terrified and shaking, screaming hysterically. I remember my mother taking me to the hospital in the middle of the night, as it must of scared her to see me like this.

This also happened when i was on holiday staying with family aged 7, again waking up from the same dream and screaming running round my aunties house looking for a way out. My earliest memories of family life were violent fights, shouting, and being hit a lot.

I suffered a lot of nervousness as a child, and would go through bouts of not sleeping, being hypo, having big head aches, that would make me hit my head on things to get the pain out. I think id seen too much too young.

Depression has come and gone through my life. I think i started suffering with PTSD in 2006/7 as my symptoms are similar now to that time. Unfortunately i never sort any help and then my life picked up speed in a different direction and i ran on auto pilot until March 2012, when i was taken into hospital for septicaemia and since then Iv not been right. Smells, loud noises/voices, all seem to set me off and flashbacks are crazy.

 

[HopefulbutFrank]

So when did your symptoms first appear?

When I started to isolate. So approximately 1987. Was working in Law Enforcement and when I left the only thing that would quill my pstd was self medicating (Alcohol and Drugs) to the point of self destruction. Been clean and sober since 1990. However been looking at my PTSD since and still take an active role.

 

[Jadetiger]

I've had childhood trauma all my life, as far back as I can recall, in differing forms. Morphed into rape at age 7 until I was 12 by an uncle. It continued with an obsessed bf who stalked me and raped me, beat me and left me for dead after breaking in and beating nearly to death two other people in the room. That rape left me pregnant and I felt filthy and so guilty I married my rapist. The list continues like this, getting worse and worse and culminating in my having a breakdown at age 40 when I went off the rails and cussed out my cousin who was asking how sweet uncle so and so was, and it went all over me like hot water, and I revealed what had actually happened and that he had killed me that day, and since then they have shunned me, disowned me, called me a liar and ran me out of town. So, here I am, dealing with a lifetime of trauma. I have no idea when the symptoms started, they've always been a part of who I am since I can remember.

 

[Jeni]

I was ordered into therapy by the state in my preteens. I started meditation and yoga around the same time. I went on with life as any normal person would, never showed any signs of trauma, but PTSD smacked me upside the head around my third trimester of pregnancy. I was 28 years old.

Up until that point, doctors thought it was hormone related. 2 months postpartum, when the hormones should have started to die down, it was getting worse. That's when I was evaluated and diagnosed. The weird thing is that I was not depressed or stressed- just made a big move to Australia, married the greatest guy, and got a baby girl for my birthday. I was on cloud nine, far away from the people that hurt me, feeling safe for the first time in my life.

At the end of the month, it will be 4 years that this has been going on- hypersensitivity, panic attacks (which I never experienced before in my life), flashbacks, drifting away in thought, lost my ability to multitask and now I am having problems sitting still or concentrating for more than a few minutes at a time.

Oh, the inability to keep food or drink down without getting physically ill and the abdominal pain is not fun, either. Those episodes can last for weeks at a time.

 

[jimmy-joe]

When I was four I'd automatically cry when punished, even though I didn't cry when hurt, and I've never been burdened with a sense of guilt for breaking the rules(which was a long-winded way of saying I was autoprepping to be beat), when I was 5 I was interrupted when trying to kill myself(nobody found out because I just heard someone coming so i had to hide). Ever since then my temper has always gone from 0-100 instantly, panic same way, everything 0-100 in an instant. I don't know if those are actual symptoms, but I don't recall much change between now and then besides the environment :p.

Oh yea, hypersensitivity, my watcher. I can't help but keep track of every person within sight or hearing. Now that I'm tired I don't keep as sharp track, but I used to have a photographic memory, and I'd keep obsessive tabs on everyone. I can still feel people if they are in the same room. Like, I don't know how to describe it, it's like a buzzing under my skin in their direction, and the closer they get, if I'm not comfortable, the more it spreads and prickles.

Wherever I go I'm always thinking about escapes and weapons in case something goes wrong, as a kid trying to sleep in my room at night, all the shadows and clothes and everything would start to move and change shape. Again I don't know if that is under ptsd