#PTSD thoughts

[starfishinthedistance]

I talk to many people who say things like "oh I have trauma but I don't have PTSD", but then when I talk to them a little more I realize that they most likely do, they just can't recognize it as such due to how lacking PTSD awareness is, even beyond the whole "it's not just a veteran's disorder" thing.

The main reason they think they don't have PTSD usually has to do with flashbacks and nightmares, either they have one but not the other or have neither. But here's the thing, those are only two symptoms out of the 23-odd recognized symptoms. Flashbacks and nightmares are two of the five symptoms under Criterion B (Intrusion), which you only need one of for a diagnosis. The other three symptoms are unwanted upsetting memories, emotional distress after being reminded of trauma and physical reactivity after being reminded of trauma (i.e. shaking, sweating, heart racing, feeling sick, nauseous or faint, etc). Therefore you can have both flashbacks and nightmares, one but not the other, or neither and still have PTSD.

In fact, a lot of the reasons people give me for why they don't think they have PTSD are literally a part of the diagnostic criteria.

"Oh, I can barely remember most parts of my trauma anyway." Criterion D (Negative Alterations in Cognition and Mood) includes inability to recall key features of the trauma.

"Oh but I don't get upset about my trauma that often because I avoid thinking of it or being around things that remind me of it most of the time." Criterion C (Avoidance) includes avoiding trauma-related thoughts or feelings and avoiding trauma-related external reminders, and you literally cannot get diagnosed if you don't have at least one of those two symptoms.

"Oh I just have trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep, but I don't have nightmares." Criterion E (Alterations in Arousal and Reactivity) includes difficulting sleeping outside of nightmares.

"But I didn't have many/any trauma symptoms until a long time after the trauma happened." There's literally an entire specification for that.

Really it just shows how despite being one of the most well-known mental illnesses, people really don't know much about PTSD. If you have trauma, I ask you to at least look at the criteria before you decide you don't have PTSD. Hell, even if you don't have trauma, look at the criteria anyway because there are so many symptoms in there that just are not talked about.

PTSD awareness is not just about flashbacks and nightmares.

[borderlineangel222]

i never felt loved by my family which is why i always searched for it in the worst places because when you’re about to die of thirst, even a drop of poison tastes like heaven.

[psychocitysblog]

I really want to kill what’s inside of my head. I hate living like this day after day. Just kill me instead.

[punkstylerecovery]

Something I've learned about triggers is that's they really vary so much depending on the person. Not just as in what triggers you but how you're triggered as well. Yes, some people experience visual flashbacks. But some of us only FEEL as if we are back in an extremely traumatic moment, which can make it harder to recognise as a flashback. Some of us experience hallucinations, like hearing parts of the event/s, or smelling something that you smelled when it occurred. Some of us will get headaches or stomach aches when we're triggered. They're a lot of different reactions you can have to triggers and a lot of them aren't even recognized as flashbacks or a result of being triggered, even when they are.

Which is why, as someone with PTSD who has a bucketload of different responses to being triggered, I have to ask myself "when did x symptom start? was I triggered?" a LOT because I usually don't immediately recognize I've been triggered. Sometimes I merely find myself feeling ill with no idea why at all until I realize I've stumbled upon a trigger. A lot of us do because the way that triggers are talked about is extremely watered down and simplified for the convenience of others, despite how difficult it can make it for some of us with triggers to recognize them.

But in case any of y'all are wondering: hallucinations (visual, auditory, tactile and more) can be a sign you've been triggered, same as nausea, headaches, seemingly random waves of emotion (that don't seem to match your current activity) and a lot of other things as well. And plenty of times you're not going to realize you've been triggered, which is why it's a good thing to ask yourself questions when things like these "randomly" pop up.

Ask yourself when the symptom started, what were you doing, who was around, until you can get a feel for the situation. Sometimes it can take several times before you recognize what's causing it and sometimes you don't figure it out at all but it's always better to ask yourself these questions than not because even if you don't figure it out, it helps make you more aware of yourself and your surroundings and how they interact with your mind and body.

[brokenfrombirth]

🎶 I just wanna thank you for beating me down, for messing me up, for making me feel like I’m not enough 🎶

[red-umbrella-811]

This one’s for all my friends on here with problems.

If you’re having a trauma or anxiety episode, if you’re thinking about killing yourself, you just need to make it through tonight. The morning won’t make everything good, but things will be better.

Do what you need to do. If you’re struggling to make it through this moment, there are things like exercise for anxiety, cold water on the face for anxiety or flashbacks, other distress tolerance skills. Use your skills, white knuckle it. Don’t use substances or behaviors. Surf the urge.

Try to get some sleep. It’ll be better if you do, but the morning will still be better than the night if you don’t. If you can’t sleep, see if you can lie down and listen to or watch something comforting, maybe with your eyes closed.

If you can’t do that, see if you can be kind to yourself. Maybe that feels natural right now, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe you don’t deserve it. Try it anyway. If there’s some cosmic (or literal) debt to be paid for it, you can pay it in the morning.

Try to be kind. If you can eat, eat something comforting. If you’re in a bed or couch, maybe curl up with a soft blanket or stuffed animal. Smell something that smells like home.

This isn’t about solving the problem, this is about getting you to a place where solving the problem might be possible. It’ll probably take more than a night. But right now, we’re just making it through to see the sun again.

[satansetherealmoon]

welp

[spookietrex]

Here's the thing with my trauma: yeah, it's uncomfortable. Most adults that survived horribly abusive childhoods have uncomfortable stories. My therapist and I regularly comment that my life could have been a true crime documentary with all the crimes and victimization that happened to me. But just because I get graphic with the details and they make you uncomfortable or you don't believe that someone would do something as fucked up as what I'm telling you, you don't get to tell me it didn't happen. Because guess what it did. I did live in a house that was worse than most of the houses on Hoarders where there was regular animal feces. I did live in a house where my mother regularly physically abused me AND gaslit me into thinking I couldn't do anything about it. I was severely sexually abused in a number of vile and disgusting ways. Just because your mind can't imagine the depravity that someone else has been through doesn't mean you get to deny their existence.

Especially if I've already been diagnosed by multiple mental health professionals with PTSD. You don't get to say that my trauma isn't real or it didn't happen because it was just another Tuesday for you.

[apathetic-outsider]

Ptsd (post-traumatic stress disorder) : feels like every age you look back on was linked to a piece of major trauma.

[starfishinthedistance]

My last post on PTSD being more than flashbacks and nightmares kinda took off, so I wanted to talk about something many people mentioned in the reblogs: flashbacks are probably not what you think they are.

The depiction you see in movies where someone is suddenly thrust into this vivid hallucination where they see everything in extreme detail and completely forget where they are is possible, but certainly uncommon.

For a lot of people, it's kind of like a mental image. Like your brain just involuntarily starts strongly daydreaming the trauma, and you're seeing it in the back of your mind. Sometime it's an "I close my eyes and see it again" that kind of thing. But there's also other kinds than visual.

There's auditory, but that can happen without a visual component. And it can feel like a hallucination, but again it can feel like your brain is playing the audio from the back on your mind, like a vivid daydream.

There's also somatic (sometimes called tactile or physical) flashbacks, which is where you physically feel yourself being touch like how you were again (very common in assualt and physical/sexual abuse survivors), sometimes as a hallucination, sometimes as the same sort of back of the mind daydream thing.

And then there's emotional flashbacks, really common in abuse survivors and C-PTSD, where you feel like you're emotionally back where you were when the trauma happened. You're feeling what you felt when the trauma happened vidily enough for it to feel like you're back there. This is different from emotional reactivity after being reminded of trauma, because it's this exact sort of re-experiencing of the emotions you felt. Emotional flashbacks actually feel like you're back there, emotional reactivity doesn't, it feels like you're reacting to it but it's not happening again.

All of these can occur together in the same flashbacks, or separately. So you can have an auditory-somatic flashback or just an emotional one, etc.

People also said this is similar with nightmares, but I don't experience them myself so I can't say (people with PTSD nightmares feel free to share your experiences!)

[skin-slave]

Camp Cretaceous is PTSD/trauma reaction visibility. It's not perfect. Nothing ever is. But listen.

S1 Darius, having dreams linking losing Ben to losing his Dad. Trauma dredges up trauma. The fact that he becomes kinda obsessed with getting everyone home, to the point that he regularly puts himself in danger. Hyperfocus on preventing Bad Thing from happening again.

Everyone's reactions after Ben falls. Kenji obsessed with finding Bumpy, and keeping his fanny pack from then on. Sammy bursting into tears, while everyone else seems shocked. Brooklyn has an angry outburst. Everyone reacts differently. As the story moves on, they're all mourning, but they react to references to Ben in their own ways.

Ben himself. His changes are framed as positive, but that's some serious exposure therapy. He becomes angry and reactive, focuses on being strong and able to endure. And when he's taken out of his element, he has a crisis. Even later, when it seems resolved, he's stubborn about his relationship with Bumpy. She's an extension of his strength, and anything that seems to lessen that is a threat.

The Long Run, with Yaz talking to herself, reliving moments of her relationship with Sammy. Kenji afraid to approach while Brooklyn is hands-on. Darius has to move, go, do something. Ben assuming she's dead when they all get back. Begging, bargaining, addressing one another

S4 Yaz with her vivid nightmares. The sensory overload when triggered. Lightheadedness, racing heart, shortness of breath. Freezing. Hitting her leg when extremely triggered. (It doesn't address whether she's trying to wake herself or if it's a kind of reflex that she's developing, but either would be appropriate.) The fear of never being "normal" again.

The fact that not everyone is affected equally. Even tho most of the kids have nightmares, their responses are different. Darius's sense of responsibility for everyone else doesn't go away when he finds out Ben is alive. Yaz doesn't start freezing until they're away from Nublar, and talking about it doesn't "fix" her. It's not formulaic. And it's not resolved at the end. There's no message that everyone is all better. They're all changed. But life goes on.

[psychocitysblog]

Why does depression have to take over my body? I feel so dead.

[punkstylerecovery]

I love how dealing with my trauma always seems to come with the side-dish of remembering all the bits and pieces of it that I’d shoved into the dark recesses of my mind so that I wouldn’t have to remember them. because why fucking not, why fucking not. 

[miausoninhos]

I just want to stop feeling tired, I want to be taken care of without third party interests, I want pure love

[stumbling-after-happiness]

TW (CSA)

A hard thing for me about being a CSA survivor/victim is that it can be like living a double life.

I’ll stand in the supermarket check out line like I didn’t have a seriously effed up childhood, holding some discounted fruit. And no one around me knows that I’m trying to cope with the earth-shattering knowledge that my own mother and father were my abusers. And most other people seem to be waiting in line with their supplies as though they have no idea the pain that someone can inflict on another.

Some people sadly probably do know about this deep pain. However, we just wait there with our waiting faces, trying to get our food and go.

It’s like I’ve just survived a horrendous ship wreck and I’ve pulled myself to shore. My hair is matted, clothes hanging off, pale skin, dirty nails, shivering, no shoes, and a wild desperation in my eyes. And the people around me are just walking past.

The invisibility I feel as a survivor is no one’s fault, however it’s so strange living in a world where many others have no idea of the suffering I’ve experienced.

And the expectation is there that I should be a fully functioning adult with a job, neat little life, and average levels of happiness. When I’m still coming to terms with what I lost in a storm.

[cassettoicecream]

In his rooms, where none is watching, the apparently impassive general can let go himself and his fears.  During his duties he seems so confident, but it's just because he is very good to hidden what haunt him from his childhood