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.
greenfern…RIGHT! “I have voiced my frustrations in the last few times…”. And she didn’t “get it”…did she?
You owe her nothing.
You owe YOU everything. You can always find another one. As Oxy said in another place…allowing them in your life is your GIFT to them. Plus the money they get.
I went through a couple real fast, when I needed one. Then I found one who “got it” right away. He said I didn’t need him any more….but I still visit every few months…and we both learn things. Hey, he has to deal with crazy people all day…and he is well versed in Cluster B’s…I give him a needed break!
And he talked the very first time about boundaries…and I’ve ignored his advice a few times and he can laugh about it….if you find one that works, and you need them, there are a few out there…kinda like lawyers(LOL…sorry, Matt!)
Greenfern:
Good for you. Sounds like you handled it perfectly.
P.S. Don’t you love how they start “probing” and “want to listen” as you (which is code for $$) are heading out the door?
Thanks Rosa!
Yeah, it seemed like she became very attentive in this last session. She has asked more questions than over many of the previous questions.
But I have to say that she did not try to talk me into coming back. Which I can appreciate.
I also feel that perhaps I need therapy which is more cognitive oriented vs. heavily analytic. Maybe somewhere in between. But I feel that is helpful for me to learn and adopt better ways to cope with situations, rather than talk about my early traumas only. For me it really helps to rehears and practice possible scenarios while focusing on centering myself. I felt that in analysis I was not getting the benefits of the practical aspect of dealing with current situations.
I think especially in the case of PTSD it is important to achive this centering “thing” through behaviors that will improve life.
Has any of you experienced different types of therapy approaches? If so, what seemed the most helpful for your situation?
greenfern: I also think you handled it perfectly, we don’t have to tell EVERYBODY what we’re thinking or explain why we’re doing something (which is what I usually do). The graceful way out is always the best. I’ve seen some therapists I didn’t really care for, maybe I should try again also.
It had been almost a year since I saw my S. I learned that I had to be in the same room with him for a while for the beginning of our mediation and I became a nervous wreck. I actually broke out with hives the night before the mediation as well as the next morning and had to take benadryl. Last year before I left my husband, he made it obvious that he wanted me out of the picture. He had hoped to drive me to such a severe depression that I would commit suicide, or as I later found out, if that didn’t work, he would make it look that way.
I won the first round of mediations, but I know that there will be more contact. There are times when there is a simple reminder and I feel almost like I did the morning that I left him.
I think that I am getting better, then something will unnerve me.
One day, soon I hope, I will be free of him and any reminder of him.
I would like to suggest to anyone who is holding on to a belonging, a letter, etc. from your S, to discard what ever it is ASAP. Avoid contact and anything that reminds you of your S.
I am doing these things except for the legal meetings that I have to do, but one day soon, I won’t ever have to see him or have any contact with him again. That is when I believe I will begin to heal.
I know what you mean, jfog1. It is so easy for the triggers to happen. At first, I literally got the runs each time I thought of him. And it was three years of not being able to eat solids. I literally could not stomach him from the first. My body knew, it took awhile for my brain to catch up. It has now been exactly almost 2 years since I last saw him, and one and a half years since we talked and I hung up on him. I am finally feeling JUST ABOUT normal. Sometimes I think I’m all over this, POSITIVE, and then…oops, not quite.
Dr. Leedom, I’m anxious for your next blog on this!!!
jfog1…hang in there…it takes a while. Since we share a daughter, 13 going on 14, I have some contact but minimize it wherever possible. Mine showed up last November “wanting to talk”, after nearly three years. Her boyfriend had abandoned her for the weekend (she’s a high- functioning BPD, methinks). I was “out of sorts” for a day or so just being in her presence for an hour…in a restaurant. Won’t do it again if I can avoid it.
PTSD? Last day of school today…so I end up having to take a 14-year-old and 2 13-year-old teen girls (daughter and two friends) to a movie tonight…I offered to sit separate…they demanded I sit with them. Middle-school drama and chaos for sure before and after the movie…but I’ll survive.
Neat thing…one of my daughter’s friends wrote in my daughter’s yearbook she’s glad I “adopted” her as a “second daughter”…her Dad died (committed suicide) two years ago.
jfog1…you recognize what’s happening…you’re healing. Go easy on yourself…time helps. I figure I’ve got 5 to 8 more years of limited contact, then rare “social functions”.
Other than that, unless my daughter’s needs have to be discussed, the ex-tox, as Oxy says, is a “potted plant” in the room at school functions…I ignore her.
You’ll make it.
Jim – You know you’ve made it when you get an open invitation to sit WITH your teenager and her friends and it does not come with a request to put a wig on, or a bag over your head, or slide lower than the seats around you! TOWANDO!!!!!!!! Dad of the year over there in Indiana!!! And what a “Neat Thing” for sure in that year book! Makes it all the more worth it!!!! Happy for you!!
Jfog: I agree with you with one exception. Those items — letters, pictures, mementos — may be evidence. With this characters, there’s no telling what we might have to prove in the future. Better to box it up and put it somewhere that you don’t trip over it. But don’t be throwing things away, and then wishing later that you could PROVE something that was in the documentation you threw out.
Rune,
You are so right! I have kept evidence on both my ex and my soon to be (S) ex, but it is tucked away for the day that I will need it. I just meant personal items that were keep-sakes and the like that remind me of him.
He is being as devious as ever. I had won the mediation, or so I thought, but he has some tricks up his sleeve. He thinks that if the house transfer fails due to his purposely lying on the documents, ( I haven’t seen what he turned in) then he won’t have to pay me the back mortgage payments because there won’t be a mortgage. The house is up to be sold on June 23 as a foreclosure, so he did something.
He is evil. I have been physically sick since I found all of this out mostly because this means that I will have to sit with him in a room again at the courthouse. I don’t know how to stop myself from breaking out in hives and not being able to eat.
It is an involuntary reaction. I am angry and terrified at the same time.
My attorney even told me that after seeing the look on my S’s face, that he wanted to make sure that he was out of the parking lot of the courthouse before I left!
Thank you all for being here.