Why Is Ptsd Sometimes Delayed?

[Enaila]

May I ask?:)

In hindsight, did you have anxiety, depression, whole body tension, and dissociation, during t...

I kept being diagnosed with situational depression. When the nightmares and flashbacks started is when the diagnosis was made for ptsd.

 

[anonymous]

@Lionheart777 whom is it you need to explain this too and have you decided how much you will say? I think a succinct way of saying it is that sometimes we have strong avoidance or coping methods but that they can either be overwhelmed at a certain point or be broken by new stressors and that means all the previous harm is let out of its box.

I say that but on an emotional level I just cant get my head around late onset. Surely something has either traumatised us or not. Surely if it has and one looks at resilience factors etc then it should be evident from the start. How on earth can we seem to be affected by it in one way only to have trauma symptoms arise later? I don't get it. I keep thinking the coping would or should be about if one has managed to avoid being traumatised or not and shouldn't be about being able to avoid the reality. It makes me really wonder of the complexities of what goes on in the mind.

I really truly seemed unaffected by some of the stuff that happened before. Yes I was dealing with affects in a general sense but I detected no emotion whatsoever to do the subject of the trauma and it was sectioned off and packed away completely. I now don't trust my feelings about other things that happened to me. It's hard ever being able to trust anything my mind tells me after how things changed. It fries my brain when I think about it too much. :O_o::wacky: Thanks to others for sharing.

 

[RussH]

Sometimes emotional wounds will scar over, but not heal. Then something comes around (a trigger) that causes the emotional scar to rupture, so the original unhealed insult is exposed. It is the minds way of trying to heal.

When we have suffered trauma, we will attempt to bury it, and forget it. However the mind will not let us do that, and that trauma will keep manifesting itself until we deal with it.

 

[Lionheart]

Thank you @RussH !!!

I believe that explains it well!!! I will use this as my explaination to my special friend, because it is so true. If you have ground up glass in a wound, the wound sometimes scars over but, never really heals and this was true for me.

As time went on my coping methods no longer worked and I was left with an abcessed wound.

Things are becoming much clearer to me now and I appreciate everyone for their replies!!!

Peace,
Lion