To not understand PTSD

[Wtfptsd]

I was diagnosed with this during childhood and had some years of therapy which didn't help although my therapist was lovely.
I have had therapy a few times in adulthood and the most recent bout was the one that really helped.

I can clearly see how it affected me throughout my childhood and early adulthood and was quite a volatile person during those years.
It affected me in different ways as I got older but thankfully in a less volatile way so it did not affect those around me.

So although I see how it affected me I still don't understand why
Many people have been through similar and many have been through worse - there are children living in warzones fgs what I went through was not nice but nothing in comparison to them. They don't all end up as the bad child in school as I did or end up quick to fight as I did or avoid public spaces as I did. I saw a documentary on some Syrian children who managed to get themselves out to see fireworks despite the bangs reminding them of bombs.

Most recent therapist said I should stop trying to find a way to make it somehow disappear and instead learn to deal with the symptoms. Which I did and it helped massively.

However I still don't understand why this happens. Does it change something in the way your brain thinks? If so shouldn't you be able to rewire something there and change your way of thinking?
Well done if you managed to read all the way through.

tldr; what exactly does PTSD do to your brain or thought process to continue affecting somebody so many years after the events?
Why are some people so affected whilst others manage to somehow find a way to live at least a somewhat decent life? Is it to do with personality type or something more?

Suggest you read The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der kolk

gives the best understanding of ptsd I’ve read anywhere

Ok so it’s basically a memory filing error? So your brains struggled to process something that was traumatic to you, and it’s this filing error that keeps flagging up

I have complex PTSD as a result of years of ongoing trauma from my delightful ex husband 💀

I suppose there's a lot we don't understand about how memory works and why some memories don't get processed properly. I've also had therapy for PTSD and for me the triggering event although nasty and involving fear for my life was definitely not the worst thing that ever happened to me - it was just the one that created the problematic memory. I don't know why - maybe it set off some association via sound/smell etc to something else that had happened previously, maybe I was just paying more attention to what was going on that day - who knows?

My therapist said that it's pretty common - you can get eg people who have had the most awful experiences and been fine but then one day they're walking down the street and witness a road accident and that'll be the thing that becomes a traumatic memory.

It is interesting to speculate but overall I agree with your therapist that the most important thing is to get to the stage where you can manage it and wish you all the best in doing so.

The people affected less by trauma usually grew up with a good enough "safe base" which buffers them to an extent. Those who had shakier childhood foundations don't have that protection.

Part of the brain is particularly affected by trauma (amygdala I think) and this causes the brain to become hyper-vigilant, which triggers anxiety.

Its a bugger living with this innit OP, but accepting it is the way forward I suspect

Thank you for the suggestion. I've found it on Amazon and ordered one.

This is what I thought but then wondered why we can't just "re file" it, if you will. We also have so many memories we would probably love to remember but wouldn't remember even if reminded but somehow these memories- even if you manage to forget the finer details at times, continue to affect everything in life.

Yes it's really strange when you think about it. Somebody can go through something unimaginable and manage to live but then they can have a one off bad event and it affects them forever.

i think because it’s this filing error, when your brain tries to re file it, it can’t, and that’s when you get flashbacks and nightmares? And when you get triggers as well, it’s your brain saying ‘this bloody file again!!’

EMDR therapy is fab for this btw.

I’ve had about £700 of it 🤣

This makes a lot of sense. There was no safe space at home either so there was no "time off" to decompress or talk through things.

A few years ago I would never have agreed that accepting it would be best but I see it is now. I didn't really live before, I just existed. I've wasted half my life but now that I have accepted it I feel somehow more free than I ever have. It's amazing once you accept it isn't it?

Like a computer error that can't be fixed until you deal with the virus or file affecting the whole unit. This makes so much sense.

as @Hagbard says, some people have a stronger safe base before they start. They grew up in a home where they learned about relationships, about protecting themselves, about resilience. They has at least one strong secure place or person of safety.

Others don’t- maybe a hospital stay, or unreliable erratic parents, or other negative experiences prevented them building that safe mechanism. Then when adversity strikes the brain doesn’t have resilience, or a healthful pattern, of how to process it.

The brain is a phenomenal complex and delicate organism. It’s more amazing that it ever runs well rather than throwing up glitches!

I just googled this. It sounds quite good, they say it reprograms the memories which I think is what is really needed!

Trauma causes developmental delays and disorders. It's essentially a kind of brain damage. You can definitely learn to deal with your symptoms but unfortunately you can't go back and have a better childhood so you will always have some struggles.

Cptsd and adhd are very difficult to distinguish from one another and it's thought that in some cases adhd may be caused by childhood trauma. If that helps to give you a sense of what has happened to your brain.

Survival mechanism is the equivalent of a system running with lots of bits shut off. It’s effective at basic routines, but inadequate for running higher level stuff. You need to fix the fuses, clear out the blockages, do the work, to let the system reboot.

For some reason I am lost in images of space ships drifting through space while the crew track down the glitches and sort them out…

Gosh. This goes to show that sometimes parents can do everything "right"- whatever that is, yet sometimes something entirely out of their control like a hospital stay can affect it all. Scary to think that but also strangely comforting for some reason.

Agree the brain is amazing. Too complex though. One day when they manage to crack it it will be amazing. I'm picturing a Men In Black memory eraser type device that you can use after trauma 😂

Your post on memories struck a chord with me. I have very few. An abusive father and MH difficulties a few years later. The brain can really play tricks on us. But it can get better.

That's really interesting because over the years many people have suggested I have ADHD but after reading others experiences and symptoms I am quite clear that I do not have ADHD. This is good to know though as I now have an answer to some difficulties.

That makes the autopilot thing a lot of people do make more sense too. You just run on autopilot, sort of just floating through life until you manage to find the error and begin to work on that error.

Childhood trauma mimics neurodiversity.

And misunderstood neurodiversity can result in childhood trauma. I don’t think my grandparents would have been kind to a neurodiverse child- fussy eater, doesn’t listen, stubborn etc.

My DM was pretty unpleasant withDS1 who turned out to be neurodiverse.

There is interesting research about how people’s ability to do maths plummets with stress. The people who most need to manage money well- those who don’t have enough- have the least ability to do so.

A psychiatrist once told me my memory was fine but I was using too much of my brain on beating myself up so didn’t have enough spare capacity for remembering stuff! Amazing man. Turned my life around.

I've just googled this. What a revelation. So much makes sense now in terms of my own behaviour and social skills.

I do sometimes think of ND and what they must have had to deal with in the past when nobody either understood or accepted these things and can absolutely see how it would cause trauma. Similar to when people say arfid didn't exist in the past- it did, those children just died or were malnourished with a diagnosis of failure to thrive! Or ADHD and autism didn't exist- again it did but they were just labelled as bad and ostracised!

Exactly this!

A psychiatrist once told me my memory was fine but I was using too much of my brain on beating myself up so didn’t have enough spare capacity for remembering stuff!

Brilliant, that's a good tip.

I also find that if I think to myself "I will remember this nice event/day" then I do, without further effort. I've started doing that more often to build up nice memories rather than allow my brain to doomscroll through its endless vault of shit/embarrassing things I've done. It'll probably be a lifelong project but that's ok!

Honestly, it saved my life. I cried for a week straight after my first session, it’s amazing.

i still have nightmares but they’re a lot less than they used to be, and I can process them better now