I recently had an epiphany about my diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): I really have PTSD, and it really does affect my life. Of course, that epiphany probably warrants a big, fat, “DUH!!,” but it was a huge realization for me.
When my therapist first shared this label with me, my mouth dropped open. PTSD was serious stuff, but my abuse had not been “that bad.” Other people had it worse. My therapist had to define all of the symptoms of PTSD, which I had in spades, for me to accept that this diagnosis actually applied to me.
Of course, I have lived with the symptoms of PTSD throughout my life. Even before I started having the flashbacks, I was well acquainted with being triggered. I had no label for my seemingly out-of-proportion reactions to things that happened around me, but I was well aware of having them. I just assumed it meant that I was “crazy” like my mother.
Since receiving the diagnosis of PTSD a few years ago, I have learned all about it. I have helped myself reduce the severity of my symptoms, and I have helped numerous people along the way. But somehow, it never really hit me that I have this disorder and that my brain does not work like other people’s brains do.
I have spent my life beating myself up for having these issues. My expectation has been that I can just push through it all and be “normal,” whatever “normal” is. I have not cut myself any slack for having to deal with triggers and other issues that most people do not have to deal with.
I am beginning to accept that I actually have PTSD. Yes, I would have told you this years ago, but the gravity of me living my life with PTSD is suddenly sinking in. I am always going to react to things differently than other people do, and I am not responsible for this. Yes, I am responsible for the choices that I make, but I am not responsible for getting triggered.
What difference does this make in my life? It gives me more self-compassion.
For example, my son has been diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He is not responsible for having difficulty focusing or controlling his impulses when he is unmedicated. Yes, he is responsible for his choices, but I have to make accommodations because of his disorder. He truly cannot help feeling “wired” when his medication wears off.
In the same way, I need to give myself some accommodations. It is normal for me to feel triggered when something causes an emotional flashback. I am not “weird” because I react differently than non-traumatized people do.
Instead of getting frustrated with myself for getting triggered, I need to recognize that this is part of my disorder. I need to cut myself some slack because I cannot control getting triggered – I can only control how I react to the triggers. I am hoping that recognizing the PTSD in myself as a true disorder will help me to stop being so hard on myself.
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Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Faith,
Since I started reading your blog and the isurvive forum, I’ve had epiphanies every day! The neat thing with words such as “PTSD” or “triggers”, is that they encapsulate very complex experiences in a tidy package. I always knew that hearing “I love you” or “you are beautiful” was upsetting, and I also knew why (it reminds me of the abuse). However, it is helpful to know that “I have PTSD, and these are triggers for me”. Now that I have identified them as such, instead of thinking I’m crazy, I can accept the situation and try to do something about it.
As usual, thanks for your thought-provoking post.
Ahlize
I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD too. Before I started reading your blog, I didn’t know there was a label for how I react sometimes. I didn’t know emotional flashbacks existed. Understanding what is happening and that there is a valid reason for it should help calm some of the rage I feel sometimes. I just need to get myself trained to be aware it is happening as it is happening, before the si starts. I went off the other night on isurvive. Lori put trigger warnings on, thankfully. The next day I edited that post. I was reading it going ok, I know I posted this, its me, but thats not me. I basically had an emotional flashback to a memory piece, I think. I became violent wiht myself. I wrote about the memory and the si, but I didn’t fully grasp the connection, until just about now actually.
Thank you Faith for everything.
palucci
When my therapist first threw out the PTSD label I was completely shocked and also HORRIFIED. I knew that bad stuff had happened to me… and that I had an anxiety/panic disorder, but I wanted the two things to not be related. When I was a kid I told myself over and over “this doesn’t hurt me, they can’t affect me, I am numb to this”, etc, etc.
I wanted it to be true. I was very resistant to accepting that I had not been immune to my own suffering after all.
1 1/2 years later I am still sometimes surprised by the depths to which I was affected. The irony is, that according to what I’ve been learning about PTSD, the denial and the numbing that I did in my head as a kid are to a large extent responsible for the symptoms I suffer now…
-else
[…] Deepening Awareness of Effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) […]
I wasn’t horrified by the PTSD/C-PTSD diagnosis I got, but I’m still learning about it. Somehow I’d hoped that knowing it would help “cure” it. Drat, that was wrong. But I am learning how to live with it. Compassion for myself with it is hard to have, but I think that’s a piece I need to work on most.
my doctor just today told me to not be so hard on myself… this after saying i was sooooo tired of dealing with thoughts and memories and emotions constantly popping up triggered by something…. he said he knows i’m tired, don’t be so hard on myself, and rest… i guess we were basically talking about flashbacks and self-compassion, and then i come and read this, lol…. i need to read more on c-ptsd…
thanks for this post.
vague