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.
hey silver – i just wrote a friend i felt i owed an apology to. he, the friend above and i have been together for a few years – a little triumvirate.
i talked to him last night and i got ballistic about the third friend. and i owed him an apology. so i sent him one. he wrote me back. i wrote him back telling him what’s real for me right now. and that if he is more candid with me about what is okay for him, it would be best.
it is not my job to figure out what everyone needs. nor to stuff my difficulties. if he canna step up, he too can step out.
i can’t deal with this. if they are so limited, then no harm no foul as you say. i can’t deal with this eggshell shit, that i may offend their sensibilities. i am bleeding, and if they can’t handle that i sure as hell don’t need them around being all stiff about it.
him, i don’t want to lose. her, well….i can’t say that i get that much out of the friendship. i think she may be what is called a fair weather friend, but until the weather is rough, you don’t’ know who those folks are, do you? afraid that the stink of my hard life will rub off on her new exciting one.
i am in pain. nasty rejected abandoned pain. fark.
please talk some sense into me.
One,
I will share a letter from a friend of mine. It sounds like maybe their words will reasonate with you. I thought it was absofuckinglutelybeautiful because it sand blasted me out of my rut.
You can find companionship. You can find love. What you might not find is the “knight in shining armor who will sweep you off your feet and take you to his father’s castle where you will live happily ever after—.or words to that effect. Life is not a happily ever after experience for most of us”me included. What you have is brains. What you have is experience. What you don’t have is willingness to use them “outside” your comfort zone “box”. You refuse to get outside your box. You have lots of experience and ability but you insist you have to have someone else to do things for you. There are a butt load of women out there who “do for themselves.” Many of them are widows and have decided to go on their own. You haven’t done that yet. You yearn for the things that are not real and ignore the ones that are real.
If you want companionship, you can find it. It may not however be what you NEED. You are still waiting for the solution to come from without rather than within. I am surprised at you. You have good education, good brains and good genes,. What you don’t have is determination and self-esteem. You insist on getting those things from someone else. Balderdash!!!!
Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get out there and start over”this time with a good attitude. You refuse to do that. It’s always someone else’s responsibility to make you feel good rather than making you feel good. You aren’t taking the bull by the horns and insisting that things go your way. Until you do, you will continue to reel in self-pity and deprecation. Get over it and Get on with it. Yes, I know this note is not what you expected it to be”but then if it was it would do you NO service whatsoever. You don’t have to be a model in vogue to find a man. You need to be self reliant and self-determined. That is what attracts men in your age group. Your approach is busted.
Yes, I am being harsh, but am being honest. When you are satisfied with yourself, a man will be attracted to you. It ain’t the looks, baby, it’s the trip! Your trip is busted. Make your trip YOUR TRIP, not someone else’s. That will make them interested in you. But then you have to watch for the parasitic type. You’ll need to fight them off like the plague. They will come in droves because you offer a “good ride”. The sex is just part of that ride.
You let that bum into your life and your bed. What did he offer you besides lip service? Did he have a stable life or profession? NOPE. Did he have his own form of support? NOPE. Did he offer to be of any use to you past a few good rolls in the sack? NOPE. So what was HE good for? You don’t know because you didn’t look. You listened to a butt load of fabrication and BS but didn’t look at what he had done REALLY to be worthy of your affection.
Now it is time to leave your pity party and get serious about taking care of YOU NO ONE ELSE”
Then you can begin to help others.
silver – it’s a great letter. not much resonance though.
self deprecating – yes. possibly self pitying. def. need to stop taking care of others.
crazed, angry and feeling out of control.
At the risk of posting over, I was in a very similar state the other days. In tears. heaving. What is true, who cares how am I going to do- All of it.
My friend who has been THERE for me through this episode is wonderful. Present and real. We can talk straight and when I need to get shoved back on to the path of getting on with hit, my friend doesn’t withhold.
And yes, sometimes what he says sparks me WAY up. But, his opinion, I need the anger to get through. And sometime like this time he says its time to get over it and REALLY focus on YOU, not talk about thinking about talking about it.
And my friend calls it like it is.
I don’t share this because I want to be harsh with you, but because I hope it will do for you what it did for me-
Blast me right out of my chair and cauterize the bleeding emotions which rendered me unable to make it through the day in a productive way.
I hate the loneliness. I hate the poverty and the stuck until something breaks.
I hate the defference of the busy and the shallowness of the lets do lunch bunch.
Much better conversations with the community who shares the experience. But, WE must urge each other forward. As I so URGE you.
You need the energy to get on and get over the hurdle. Up you go!
Angry and nowhere to go?
What does the anger point you to? Where on your body do you feel it most, what causes it to rise or ebb?
What is your BODY telling you?
What I find is the emotional spasms are greatest right before something breaks through- a BLINK when all of a sudden I just GET it.
I would venture to say that you are on the way to something great.
I look forward to hearing more about it.
silver – thank you.
i feel forsaken.
i cannot live with falsehood. the unreal. others or the ones i feel i have to erect to be good enough to get a job, or to keep my friends. lose self, lose home, lose friends….it’s just built up really big. i know i have to let the pressure off. not sure how yet, but i have too. snotting on the keyboard is a start.
i agree – on cusp of something.
i miss my mom. my demented mom.
i miss comfort (not that demented mom is comforting, diff subject)
first time i have cried in a long time.
Dear Silvermoon,
I hereby award your friend the Silver Skillet Award!!!!!! for boinking you a good one! I hope you will loan us this friend any time any of us NEED SUCH A WONDERFUL AND HONEST FRIEND to tell us to get off our duffs!
Sometimes we need a “there, there, poor baby, it will get better” and sometimes we need a BIG BOINK! on top of the head! ((((hugs))))) A good friend knows when each of those things is appropriate!
i did an epona workshop yesterday. i am starting to process it.
(http://www.taoofequus.com/ws_intro_usa.html)
at the same time, some new stresors have come in to my life. i’ll have the combo plate please!
i am going t take the night off and go out and rent a movie, and have a coffee somewhere. just take it easy. i have been in an overwhelmed state for the last three days, and i need some social interaction – even if it is with strangers.
i wish you all were in my 3d life; i really hate the computer sometimes.