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.
Something I am curious about is the trauma bond and if it always remains with a particular person. I mean, say you don’t see the person for years, and your ptsd gets under control, but for some reason you have unavoidable contact with the person. If you behaved in a somewhat robotic fashion with them previously not acting in your own best interest , would the bond still be there so that you would tend to react that way to them again, or does it finally go away entirely. Has anyone read anything on that?
Rosa-
I assume the child has had a professional evaluation, that being said here is what I suggest, there as a chapter in Just Like His Father? on “Guiding your child in the midst of tragedy”.
Next week on the blog here I will discuss the meaning of identity and how that relates to victimization. First and foremost children are at risk to define themselves in terms of their victim status. Parents should help them not do this by focusing positive attention on the strengths of the child.
Positive emotions are important for well-being, so parents should help their children experience them by doing fun things together and giving lots of love and affection.
Children who have been sexually victimized are at risk to become hypersexual later on and to have impuylse control issues. It is important to teach impulse control techniques to traumatized children in an age appropriate manner.
Parents who over focus on the trauma and who don’t try to move on and live a “normal life” can impair a child’s function. Kids that do best are kids whose parent’s say, “This is something that happened, it is in the past, now let’s move on with the business of living healthy fulfilling lives.”
Dr. Leedom:
No, she has NOT had a professional evaluation. This is not my child. It is my brother’s child, and his wife is the abuser.
She starts kindergarten in the fall. If I notify the school of this situation. Will they give her an evaluation at school, without mother’s knowledge or permission?
Dr. Leedom:
What if I have people that will testify on my behalf that she is a child abuser? What if I have documentation and photos of abuse? Then will they give this child a confidential evaluation?
P.S. Is your book available in all book stores?
Rosa, it is available in the lovefraud bookstore, you can click on it here on LF.
For what it is worth, I encourage you to continue to document, both photographically and video or audio, whatever the child says about “mommie hitting me” or whatever. since her mother is an RN, though, it makes it doubly difficult to get a court to see that SHE CAN BE AN ABUSER, also the old “unify the family” crap that is “politically correct” today will (I have seen) MANY TIMES give back a child to a parent that has STARVED them, beathen them, used drugs, manufactured drugs around them, been in prison, etc.—it is very very frustrating. Why the courts think (it seems any way) that a blood connection is more important than the child’s PHYSICAL SAFETY to say nothing of emotional safety, is beyond me. Sorry for the soap box, but I think you can tell I don’t trust the family courts to do what is RIGHT!
Oxy:
I don’t trust anyone, either. That is why I have not come forward.
Rosa:
I have plenty of evidence to proove it is unsafe to trust the family courts in our patriarchal society. Years ago, in South Australia, there was a pedophile ring known as “The Family”. All of its members were high ranking officials in parliament and corrupt police and government/member workers. There were so many unsolved missing children directly related to this pedaphile ring that it became infamous. It is still a cold case.
I have been in my own personal fight through the family court where I had to go to ridiculous extremes to get my youngest child protected from the N/P. They ALWAYS believed the P’s lies and not me, without exception. It took me seven years of hell and fifty grand to eventually protect my child.
The P got two days a year of supervised access . The P manipulated the supervision to be by a mutual female “friend”. I finally got a male friend to dress up in a suit and pretend to record the psychopaths tantrums at these two horrific events per year, before the P lost interest. I introduced the “male friend ” to the P as a “court official” and he never questioned it. And never turned up again. I guess it was the wrong audience for him.
Tilly:
I know. Going to the authorities is such a “Pandora’s Box” when dealing with a P.
I stumbled onto this website while researching ‘child abuse’ online.
I was dangerously close to packing a bunch of food & clothes in my car, putting my niece in the back seat, and driving to Canada.
You all would have seen it on the Evening News. I would have been the one in the “Amber Alert”.
But, then my better sense prevailed. I realized I would probably be apprehended by the authorities and thrown in jail. Then I would definitely lose contact with my niece.
So, I decided an “abduction” is not the way to go. But, it has crossed my mind many times.
P.S. See the crazy thoughts these P’s can put into your head?
Rosa:
I reckon! But lucky we have got each other to bounce off…why is it I can’t kill my ex p again ???(I keep forgetting). Oh thats right, I’ve given myself up.. here on love fraud.
Great article. I am very interested in victims of trauma and PTSD.
The article defines PTSD as having been exposed to something terrifying event or ordeal.. blahblah.
The thing is Bad Man was definately an ordeal. There were a few moments where I was in fact, scared of him. But the ordeal was more mental than anything else.
But I do believe I had PTSD. I noticed that any thoughts that were distressing or movie plots that were too familiar would cause my throat to constrict with a coughing/chocking effect. A distressing thought could be as simple as realizing that someone was trying to manipulate me during a conversation (this scenario caused a fainting spell once that produced a cartoon like lump on the side of my head followed by a bald spot.. the hair fell out where the cartoon lump had been… I think it’s funny now but it’s been a long time).
Anyway, I haven’t seen any descriptions of PTSD include psychological trauma as a cause.
BTW… I am much better now but it’s been quite awhile. I have been dealing with feeling emotionally numb and not sure why. I pour my heart into the youths I work with rather than in a man.
:o)