AIBU to ask what having PTSD is like for you?

[Unconquerable]

Do not have ptsd, life with a man with ptsd but he cannot really describe it. Says he is lost for words.
I post here for traffic and because I know there are many individuals with ptsd on this board.

To put it another way: I know several people with ptsd but think it is inappropriate to ask them and my guy cannot really talk about it, says it’s like a strange land and there are no words, you loose your ability to speak.

Is the question inappropriate?

I don't think your question is inappropriate at all. It depends a little on the reasons for the PTSD but for me, it was like being continually trapped in the worst five minutes of my life with the same thing happening over and over again (both when I was awake and asleep). I didn't want to leave the house in case I saw something that reminded me of the event and I was anxious and jumpy the whole time. I remember being on holiday when it was bad and having to look up after every paragraph of my book to check that I was still safe because I couldn't go for that long without checking. When it's at is worst, I'm too scared to close my eyes because I think something will happen if I do. I read a really good book called Overcoming Traumatic Stress which explained how I was feeling very well.

Are you asking what he may be experiencing? It varies by person of course. Flashbacks, anxiety, constantly being jittery and 'on edge', triggered by certain noises/words/sights/smells/
places/people/events. Unable to 'process' what happened and move it into long-term memory. Unable to concentrate on anything else. Potential impacts on sleep, sex, appetite etc. Possibly not able to talk about what happened as every attempt at doing so means re-visiting it and re-living it to some extent.

I have a diagnosis of PTSD. It's difficult to talk about the illness without talking about the trauma itself, and talking about the trauma can bring on PTSD symptoms so I can understand why your DP is reluctant.

Some days I feel ok. Some days I feel angry, sad, scared, ashamed...
all at once and it's completely overwhelming. It's not just the obvious symptoms like the flashbacks (although they are awful), it's the constant, low level feeling that something terrible is about to happen that I find really exhausting. I never feel safe, even when I am, so I never really relax. I do the best I can to try not to let it interfere with my day to day life. It's just something I live with.

@jgjgjgjgjg Yes, that was my question.
He says it’s like there is a land of shadows where things have no name, like a terror with no name and while he felt like it was only somewhere else for a while now he feels like nobody is safe anymore. Not sure if I really understand what it is like.

Search for a book "The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma"

This book is widely considered to be an excellent reference.

It is widely read/praised by survivors of trauma including war, rape, etc. It help me understand a lot.

Hey experience a very minor version which was as a result of a traumatic experience.
Have you ever experienced a moment of sheer panic or terror. Every day for months after the event I would become stuck in that moment again, not so much reliving it but I would be going about my business and this wave of panic would just wash over me, my breathing would become fast, I’d start to sweat, I would try completely freeze as if moving would somehow intensify the situation. Then once the panic subsided I would slowly go back to normal. This would only last a few mins but totally wiped me, felt exhausted afterwards. It still happens but now only once every few mths thankfully.
My experience was only a ‘minor’ event, it wasn’t any type of long drawn out experience.
Phew even thinking about it now leads to a rush of emotions but not in a panicked way.

I have it and take medication for it (more so after my baby's birth) I have flash backs all the time and when it's bad I get "manic", also nearly on a daily basis I have audio and visual hallucinations they get worse the more stressed I am. The doctors thought I had psychosis and schizophrenia for a while but said there's a big difference as I understand the voices aren't real, and psychosis is a detachment from real life. (so not understanding the voices aren't real) I am hyper vigilant all the time from crossing the road to anyone looking after my baby I think everyone's out to get me (kill me or take my baby away, I feel like there's always an ulterior motive for everything) I also have high anxiety and agrophobia and this causes my depression. When I'm manic I have panic attacks in the street and my hands bend inwards because of lack of oxygen to to my body because of the panic and I HAVE to go home no matter where I am. It's pretty fucked up tbh, I feel sorry for anyone with any type of PTSD. I feel inadequate most days in all honesty and I feel sorry for my son having to grow up with me as his mum

at long last i have got a name for the problems caused when i was abused as a child and its PTSD. that is what has ruined my adult life led me to make stupid dangerous and unwise choices; destroyed my adult life and affected my children who had to go to a foster mum. i wish i had been diagnosed years ago had treatment and had had a better adult life

EMDR therapy has changed my life. CBT provides a toolkit for addressing the issue as it arises. According to my therapist, it was designed for use in closed, controlled environments and never intended to be a 'catch-all' treatment for trauma. Yet this is still the 'go to' NHS therapy, and it isn't always effective in the longterm (not to denigrate those who have used it and found it beneficial. My DH has - but he isn't traumatised).

There does appear to be evidence that EMDR doesn't just address the symptoms, it actually gets rid of the condition. (Unless, of course, you face further trauma and leave this unaddressed by therapy, in which case it could come back). I concluded 18 months' therapy about 3 years ago, and I'm convinced that although it's early days (I've had cPTSD possibly for nearly all my life) it's gone. Gone completely, so that I have to do or say nothing to keep it under control.

My symptoms: it took years to recognise that what I was experiencing were in fact flashbacks: a feeling of being immersed in the emotion, sight, sounds and smells of the traumatic situation. It wasn't like seeing a montage of pictures unfold in my head, which is what I'd previously (and naively) imagined a flashback to be.

I had a good many symptoms but the most frightening of all was severe short-term memory loss. I spent half my life stressing myself turning the house upside down for misplaced items, I'd have to grope for words, and I'd lose my thread of a sentence halfway through speaking it. I thought I had dementia or was going completely crazy.

The symptoms were apparently happening for no reason. I had no idea I was so traumatised. I had a lightbulb moment when #MeToo happened and I realised I was getting sick in response to very specific triggers. When that word occurred to me, it dawned on me as to what the root of my problems might be.

EMDR can't take away painful memories, but it does strip the emotion out and enables a real objectivity and a clarity of vision I'd never previously thought possible. It also brought about other incidental benefits: I genuinely don't care what others think of me (I thought I didn't before, but really did) and I am no longer a people-pleaser. I had no idea I was this before, either, and would have been amazed to be told it. But I was. I can also now forcefully say 'no' and mean it. As well as this, I had no 'gut instinct'. When you live in a traumatic situation as a child, you can't stay on heightened alert all the time, so your mind switches those instincts off. I couldn't understand why, when I was younger, I put myself in the kinds of dangerous situations I did or trusted some of the people I trusted. Now, therapy having concluded, I have a 'gut instinct' for the first time in my life. It's been a revelation, let me tell you.

According to my therapist, when you're getting as ill as I was for no apparent reason (I'd been triggered by sexual harrassment in the workplace but this had [I thought] been concluded), there is no detectable physical cause, and you've no idea what is happening to you or why, a very likely suspect is childhood trauma.

All experiences with this condition are different and will manifest slightly differently, but PTSD/cPTSD is a textbook human response to trauma. It IS eminently treatable. My diagnosis felt as though I'd been thrown a lifebelt. I feel as though - albeit I had no idea my sense of 'normal' was ever anything but - I've been given my life back.

If you have seen the film Sixth Sense that is what it was like for me (luckily it appears to have been successfully treated). You can be in a Normal situation but something might trigger a flashback and you have a whole separate second reality overlaid on top of where you actually are. One no one else can see.

You never know when it will strike so you end up in constant fight or flight mode. It’s absolutely exhausting.

Hyper vigilance means you are constantly scanning your surroundings for threats and escape routes. In loud environments such as open plan offices, shopping centres etc it’s overwhelming- you are looking at what everyone is doing and saying, it’s impossible to focus on anything - people talking to you are often ignored as it interferes with your threat scanning.

You are so overloaded with stimuli that’s it doesn’t take much to push you over the edge, snapping at others or being totally disinterested in life, it’s simply because your mind is so full there’s no room for anything else.

Oh and I will add that after successful treatment I am happier, more positive and more settled than ever before - it is so so frightening whilst you are going through it, but the opportunity for a very much improved life after is there.

I have PTSD and the above description is exactly what it is. For me the triggers are music, family members, photos and any in depth conversation about the past. At the moment of panic shall we say, the feeling is very real to the person, as if it were happening at that moment. Panic attacks can be frequent. As the poster above said, scanning the crowd, highly vigilant x

I have been diagnosed with PTSD and am struggling to accept the diagnosis really, I find it hard to reconcile my preconceptions of the diagnosis (soldiers or medics) with my own experience (losing my DH). But on a practical level for me, the hardest things are the loss of confidence, no memory retention apart from constant dwelling on the last few days of DH's life and extremely vivid flashbacks which intrude without warning and without any real prompting. I can be in a meeting at work and all of a sudden I am back in that hospital room when the nurses were struggling to sedate him and he was really distressed. My performance at work has really dipped and its the unpredictability that is the main problem for me.

Mine is like a constant replaying of everything that happened, just to the side of my mind, all day every day.
Hyper vigilance in public.
Flashbacks from certain music or smells.
Sadness that never goes away and anger.

YANBU, it's probably easier to discuss online with strangers than it is to describe it in person for some of us. While I don't know him and understand each case is individual and there are differences between types, what he said sounds familiar to me (I have Childhood C-PTSD).

I experience flashbacks, for me it's reliving the emotional and sometimes also the auditory experiences. The older I get the less this is an issue - I both experience it less often, am more aware of my triggers, and am better at coping with it during and after - but the more my 'on edge' is an issue - to me, that sounds more like what he is describing.

Sometimes, there will just be something in the environment that sets me on edge - really irritable and just waiting for something to happen. I won't know what, I won't be able to name anything specific, any attempts with be grasping at straw because I want it to be rational. Sometimes that will be another person. I struggle to read other people and find it difficult to trust. Once my trust has been broken, it's very difficult to rebuild.

I also experience a lot of brain fog and bouncing around when in my worse periods - sometimes it's a struggle to form any thoughts and other times it feels like I'm just having one after the other and lose most. Memory issues are also a problem, I have large gaps in my long-term memory and my short-term memory is shot, I literally lose what I was talking about with the slightest subject change some days. I have to write down things a lot. I've also had my migraines and digestive issues connected to it, and been told my chronic hypotension which causes muscle weakness and dizziness has been said to be exasperated by it. I used to be very emotionally volatile, but I've improved that greatly - though still feel it sometimes. Feeling only happy feels stark and weird sometimes.

@AndNoneForGretchenWieners so sorry for your loss. One of the problems with ptsd is that it is usually portrayed as a soldiers disease. I’ve even had some service personnel get very defensive over “their” disorder. The media don’t tend to widen out and show the wide variety of sufferers. Everyone of these sufferers is as deserving of treatment as anyone else. It doesn’t matter how you cake to have PTSD - the living hell is experienced by all sufferers.

Recognising what you have enables you to access the most appropriate treatment. This treatment can be so effective, my life is inrecogisable from just two years ago. In fact my life is better than it ever has been. Spending time in yourself which is required to get better gives you the opportunity and insight to make your life what it should be.

Wishing you all the best for the future, it can be a lot better than you think and everything you deserve.

lifeisgenerallyfun thank you for such a thoughtful post. I hadn't really thought of it like that, it just seemed a bit of a dramatic diagnosis but what you say around treatment is right. I just wish there was treatment easily accessible on the NHS - all I've been offered is CBT which I had before for anxiety and it was limited in its effectiveness. I have heard good things about EMDR therapy but wouldn't know how to access it.

Hi AndNoneForGretchenWieners sorry I can't contribute properly to this thread as no experience of PTSD but a close family member (teenager) had EDMR therapy a few years ago and it worked incredibly well. To the point we look back and think 'did that really happen?!' it was so effective. If you're in NW England I can let you know who we saw and perhaps take it from there. All the very best.

Sorry I mean I can tell you anyway, wherever you are! I mean the therapist was in the NW, just so you know.

I'd describe it as never being able to relax, I'm always on edge, anxiety buzzing. I struggle in social situations because people discuss my triggers all the time (traumatic childbirth) and I'm on edge knowing it will come up. I have flashbacks often, usually at night. I don't sleep well, I wake up with a jump even when my DD is still asleep. I have some short term memory loss and I get confused easily. I used to suffer with anxiety but this is even more debilitating. I'm lucky to have a lot of support and my DD is, despite all that, by far the best thing that's happened to me.

I have heard good things about EMDR therapy but wouldn't know how to access it.

EMDR therapy is available on the NHS but you do have to ask for it. Otherwise CBT is their 'go-to'.

@AndNoneForGretchenWieners - many condolences. What a devastating experience.

I also had PTSD down as a veterans' condition and found it hard to reconcile that with my own situation. If I hadn't had that misconception, I might have recognised it and had it treated much sooner. As it happens, it's incredibly common in victims of sexual abuse and/or child abuse like me, or those bereaved in tragic circumstances, like you. Traumatic labour is another known trigger. It's something anyone can have if they're unfortunate enough to experience extreme trauma. It's also not a mental illness as such, but a psychological injury.

I hope everyone on this thread finds the help and treatment you deserve. It's truly, truly horrible. But there can be light at the end of the tunnel