According to the National Institutes of Health website “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. Traumatic events that may trigger PTSD include violent personal assaults, natural or human-caused disasters, accidents, or military combat.”
Signs and Symptoms of PTSD are grouped into three categories:
1. Re-experiencing symptoms:
• Flashbacks—reliving the trauma over and over, including physical symptoms like a racing heart or sweating
• Bad dreams
• Frightening thoughts.
Re-experiencing symptoms may cause problems in a person’s everyday routine. They can start from the person’s own thoughts and feelings. Words, objects, or situations that are reminders of the event can also trigger re-experiencing.
2. Avoidance symptoms:
• Staying away from places, events, or objects that are reminders of the experience
• Feeling emotionally numb
• Feeling strong guilt, depression, or worry
• Losing interest in activities that were enjoyable in the past
• Having trouble remembering the dangerous event.
Things that remind a person of the traumatic event can trigger avoidance symptoms. These symptoms may cause a person to change his or her personal routine. For example, after a bad car accident, a person who usually drives may avoid driving or riding in a car.
3. Hyperarousal symptoms:
• Being easily startled
• Feeling tense or “on edge”
• Having difficulty sleeping, and/or having angry outbursts.
Hyperarousal symptoms are usually constant, instead of being triggered by things that remind one of the traumatic event. They can make the person feel stressed and angry. These symptoms may make it hard to do daily tasks, such as sleeping, eating, or concentrating.
Unfortunately whenever a psychological experience is dubbed “a disorder” people get the impression that the person who has this experience is “defective” or “crazy” or of poor character. The thought that PTSD symptoms are related to some core defect in character/personality serves to further increase the sufferer’s anxiety and level of symptoms. Not wanting to consider any predisposing factors to these symptoms may also prevent a person from doing real soul searching.
There is one main reason to emphasize that PTSD symptoms constitute a disorder. That is that the symptoms greatly impair a person’s ability to function. They also rob people of love and well-being. Overwhelming anxiety is not conducive to well-being or loving relationships.
Because PTSD symptoms are debilitating we have to address them, face them and ultimately conquer them. That means acknowledging the other fears/concerns that go along with having these symptoms:
1. Am I crazy?
2. Am I defective?
3. Will I ever be normal again?
4. Why did this happen to me?
5. How can I prevent this from happening again?
6. Can I trust myself?
To start to recover, notice that if you reduce PTSD down to its core essence it is simply difficulty processing that the trauma was then and today is now. For people whose PTSD is related to an experience with a sociopath, the problem is that the sociopath may not be gone. The then and now is blurred. The worst things done by the sociopath are in the past and there may be protections in place but the sociopath is still around. Sometimes that source of trauma is the other parent of beloved children.
Recovery in such a context means having a clear head to really sort out what was then and what is now. Next week we will consider other roadblocks to distinguishing then from now.
ANewLily
Oh, I think I need to ask forgiveness if any of what I wrote while I was “out of the sorts” yesterday offended anyone. I sure didn’t mean to offend!!
Ox Drover
Dear Lily,
Sweetie, we all get triggered sometimes, I think, and I know I sure do, and it can make you go from 0 to 60 in a milisecond, from OK to very angry! I had an episode last week where I was triggered and I immediately became very very angry. It wasn’t a big deal, and I wasn’t reacting to the present, but to the past.
I figured it out though, and got control of myself pretty soon, but it happens, so don’t beat yourself up over it.
I know what you mean about the PT episode and that sort of thing is very RARE here as Donna runs a tight ship where flaming is concerned and I am so grateful that she does. Most people who come here who are looking for an argument don’t get to stay long. To disagree respectfully or to stat6e your opinion is fine, but not in an aggressive way. None of us need to deal with aggression here on LF, and I am glad that Donna takes care of that sort of thing promptly.
KATYA
RESEARCH DATA FOR ANEWLILLY (and those interested):
hello, ALL. I just got home and did not read the posts, but the one in the morning asked me to find information to back up my statement about US and Psychopaths. Being so conscientious (probably, ridiculous is more like it) I have now found at least one reference: Page 134-135 of “the Sociopath Next Door” by Stout: “it is entirely possible that the environmental influences on soicopathy are more reliably linked with broad cultural characteristics than with any particular child – rearing factors… Though sociopathy seems to be universal and timeless, there is credible evidence that some cultures contain fewer sociopaths than do other cultures. Intriguingly, sociopathy would appear to be relatively rare in East Asian Countries , notably Japan and China… Taiwan have ranging from 0.03 t% to 0.14% which is not none but iis impressively less than the Western world’s approximate average of 4%, which translates into one in 25 people…. The 1991 Epidemiological Catchment Area study sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health reported that in teh fifteen years preceding the study, the prevelance of antisocial personality disorder had NEARLY DOUBLED AMONG THE YOUNG IN AMERICA”….
KATYA
Dear All,
You are wonderful people and I did not mean to offend others. I perhaps, should keep my comments to myself though, because it seems I am not very clear of my intentions and attitude when posting. I am a very direct honest person, and I never sugar coat things. In life before and especially after the P people seem to have strong opinions about me: either deep liking or intense disliking. I have gotten used to it, but P showed me “Real Love”. Now that I am gripping to learn what is real and what is not, I too face what Jill seems to go through: very temperamental hyper vigilance. Don’t judge me harshly. I will try to keep my comments either to self or presented in a more palatable form (perhaps, I will learn, LOL).
RE: PTSD – I just learned that an office toilet was leaking on Friday. No one told me. They took care of it independently and did not even mention it to me. This is precisely what I hoped to see: staff independently making choices and decisions. But, it felt very sad right now. I know WHY they did not tell me. They see how overwhelmed I’ve become and they are protecting me in every way possible. I love the people I work with. I wish I could change to be more available to them and their needs. I hope they feel this somehow…
ANewLily
Thanks, Ox, I appreciate your care and concern.
More than anything I think I am disgusted with myself. Dumb, I know.
I read over the article again and picked out Dr. Leedom’s last three points: 4. Why did this happen to me? 5. How can I prevent this from happening again? and 6. Can I trust myself?
I also read over all the poster’s replies and feel empathy for each of them but can’t personally identify really so I have no “advice.”
Anyway, I report that I spent the last few hours finding answers to those three points above and found suitable answers for the first two. As far as the last one, Can I trust myself, I’ll have to think some more. Years ago, I had been diagnosed with an overbearing conscience and somehow that diagnosis seems worth trying to achieve a “normal” conscience rather than an “overbearing” one. Don’t know why I didn’t “see” that before!
Blessings to all as you conquer your PTSD symptoms and challenges. For me, this pyscially painful “flashback” was brand new to me. I think it frightened me.
I feel much better now.
ANewLily
Thanks, Katya, I hope you didn’t do that research for just my benefit! In my severe dis-ease with the “flashback” of my Ex’s conversations of years and years ago, I just babbled on as a distraction to my unfamiliar physical unrest I think.
Your research did intrigue me — and when I recover more fully — I’ll probably try to look back to the source of the info about Ss (or was it Ns?) being 4-5% of the whole world’s population. I remember being startled with that statistic since I have traveled in many countries and have taught students from over 200 different countries — and more language groups than that. Of course, when I was traveling and teaching I was dealing with the toxic but unknown nature of my Ex so I probably had different filters. Then, too, considering that I have always assumed the best of people I never saw any non-normal characteristics.
BTW, I have never read “The Sociopath Next Door” or any of Stout’s books so I was ignorant of her research. Sorry!!
For the record, I sure don’t “dislike” you!! Be sure of that!
KATYA
Thank you for your kind words, ANewLily! Intrigued myself, I continued some on-line research. I hope I won’t bore others with some of what I found:
This is an interesting link and an insert copy/pasted from the article: http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/official_culture.htm
Linda Mealey of the Department of Psychology at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota, has recently proposed certain ideas in her paper: The Sociobiology of Sociopathy: An Integrated Evolutionary Model. These ideas address the increase in psychopathy in American culture by suggesting that in a competitive society – capitalism, for example – psychopathy is adaptive and likely to increase. She writes:
I have thus far argued that some individuals seem to have a genotype that disposes them to [psychopathy].
[Psychopathy describes] frequency-dependent, genetically based, individual differences in employment of life strategies. [Psychopaths] always appear in every culture, no matter what the socio-cultural conditions. […]
Competition increases the use of antisocial and Machiavellian strategies and can counteract pro-social behavior”
Some cultures encourage competitiveness more than others and these differences in social values vary both temporally and cross-culturally. […] Across both dimensions, high levels of competitiveness are associated with high crime rates and Machiavellianism.
High populaton density, an indirect form of competition, is also associated with reduced pro-social behavior and increased anti-social behavior. […] [Mealey, op. cit.]
The conclusion is that the American way of life has optimized the survival of psychopaths with the consequence that it is an adaptive “life strategy” that is extremely successful in American society, and thus has increased in the population in strictly genetic terms. What is more, as a consequence of a society that is adaptive for psychopathy, many individuals who are NOT genetic psychopaths have similarly adapted, becoming “effective” psychopaths, or “secondary sociopaths.”
Knowledge is our best weapon. Visibility is another. Be well, you are a wonderful human being!
KATYA
Stout’s book was the first one I read. I recommend it highly. I even had my teenager read it to help her deal with the trauma he’s inflicted. I find a lot of comfort knowing I am not alone. Sure, you too will find your X in her chapters …
I was actually stupid enough to buy the book for him, and insist that he gets treatment. Now, I am being punished and paying dear price…
KATYA
what did you teach? may I ask?
ANewLily
I don’t know why I think this is important to add — but I have only had one “known” encounter with a sociopath/psychopath/narcissist individual in my life, the controlling one I was “married” to for over 46 years.