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

[Jester]

My best guess would be 9 to 12 months, though it certainly wasn't any more than 13 months.

 

[Deleted member 28862]

I think my symptoms started at the age of 12 when the abuse had stop. I remember wetting the bed for the first time is a very long time and it was because my cousin (one of the people that raped me) were coming to spend a couple nights at our house. It wasn't as drastic but then at the age of 14 is when it really took a turn for the worse.

In the 10th grade we had this physics teacher that likes to gives pats on the back as a job well done but sometimes he would rub your shoulders as well, while all students were uncomfortable with this, when he did it to me I felt a burning sensation when he did it and instantly felt dirty. After that I started to develop a huge phobia of men and people. I can't be in huge crowds or around loud noise, i hate physical contact and I can't make eye contact with anyone. I don't sleep I just have nightmares I tried suicide at 16, 17 and 18 after not being able to actually go through with it I just gave up and has been living miserably through live. Now I'm 20 and everything has gotten was too overwhelming so I can here hoping to get some help and trying not to got back to my cutting and pill swallowing days

 

[Deleted member 19804]

Very interesting how most people seem to deviate from the norm, which I believe is showing symptoms within the first 3 months. I can't specifically determine when I first started showing symptoms. At first I think I was just in a long-term form of shock. I didn't feel anything, other than self-hatred. When I was raped I was already very vulnerable, and I thought it was a confirmation of how little I was worth as a person. I was alive, but as I look back, I think I was nothing more than a shell of who I used to be. After those first 3 months the severe depression and increasing anxiety started. It got worse every day, until I was so afraid that I thought I was either going to die or about to completely lose my mind.

 

[Digz]

You're not strange. You're in good company. My trauma began around 3 or perhaps even before and although not as old, my flashback didn't begin until 25 years later. I certainly had strong mental health issues, although noone knew or cared, during adolescence and after, however. I was self-harming, suicidal, depressed from a young age.
I think it's ok for it to take however long it takes for memories to resurface. My therapist used to say, 'the brain protects you until you are ready'. I like to think that is true... at least it makes me feel like my brain is on my side for once!

It has been a loooooooong time. trauma started around 3. Symptoms didn't come until last yr. 45 yrs afterward. I know it's strange, i can't seem to do anything the normal way.

 

[Chava]

Tried to kill myself within 1 week of an assault. Diagnosed PTSD that year but did not follow through on that treatment because I did not feel good about it and I was a mess. Dropped badly into anorexia and went ED therapy and alcohol rehab route. But I was eating disordered and horribly self-injurious before that assault, which was now what I understand as CPTSD which showed up as very problematic in young adulthood (years after the worst original traumas). So it's been confusing.

 

[Senecia]

My parents' marriage was rocky and the divorce was hell. I remember having to move and go to a new school the next year and I think I was 10. All throughout elementary school I did performance s in music or plays. I wasnt afraid before the divorce and a bunch of trauma. But after, i remember it started to show up. About a year, but honestly it could have been much longer. The worst of it has hit me a decade later. So maybe Im pointing it at the wrong thing. Anyway, I remember starting to be afraid of people after we moved. I shook in front of people if I was presenting or performing - I stopped playing music because of that performance stress. So I guess, some warning signs started to show up very early. Its a shame.

 

[OneWing]

Mine was about a year after a major caraccident... One morning I woke up and without cause I jumped out of my bed with an intense feeling of being trapped and having a desperate need to escape. I remember being terrified that the feeling would never leave. I drank a few shots of vodka, something I never ordinarily did in the morning, it relaxed me enough to end up going back to sleep. I thought it was just an isolated incident. and then new symptoms and phobias kept manifesting to the point where I could no longer function. Then someone who I know who has PTSD told me that what I was experiencing sounded like the symptoms.
Being a man who has never went to therapy and thought I was tough enough to fight my way through anything. I thought it was all just temporary and would go away if I just kept walking it off. Nope, I have PTSD and this is a battle that I will be fighting for the rest of my life.

Also, I was also in the military for a short time. During basic training I got pneumonia and almost died. My drill sergeants didn't believe I was sick so they forced me to keep training. I gave 100%, but my body gave out and I ended up in the hospital for a few weeks and had to get a medical discharge due to it. My therapist believes this may be where my PTSD began, that was about 5 years before the car accident that ended up giving me full blown symptoms.

 

[SurvivingWarrior]

As far as distinctive PTSD symptoms it took nearly 3 years. However I believe that the more general symptoms stemming from the trauma were evident much sooner than that.

 

[OneLife2Live]

I am almost 35 and I know I have had issues since I was a child, and things got worse for me until my late twenties. The past 3 years...PTSD central!! All my life I brushed things aside and told myself I am fine and there is someone else in a worse situation. No I am dealing with everything and at times I feel so helpless and hopeless. I want to heal!!!

 

[notsurewheretoturn]

Always had mild symptoms and my friends 'knew' something was wrong but didn't/couldn't say anything.

I'd have to say initially years after the event when the memories started to surface, although I was far from 'normal' prior to that. Really kicked in following the deaths of my parents - they died with 9 months of each other, so didn't have time to deal with the one before being smacked by the other.

 

[Lcpl Adams]

My crewman says i was messed up just hours after that first night on the battlefield.

 

[Mercy]

My symptoms came back when my baby was the same age that I was when the prostitution began. I feel blessed to do the remembering when she was the same age as I was when stuff happened to me. I could see how small she was, how helpless to protect herself. That made sense of the size distortions I often had when I described something as 'big as a #10 can' when it could only have been a coffee can. My favorite outburst of an inner little one was "Lookie,lookie! A full sun." She had never been out in the daytime so she thought the sun had phases like the moon. sweet....and sad.....