PTSD overdiagnosed?

[Grimreapers]

I read this article recently
www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/835551#:~:text=Misdiagnosis%20with%20PTSD%20also%20risks,protective%20social%20factors%2C%20they%20warn.

It just got me thinking, how people feel about the diagnosis? Do you feel people throw it around too easily nowadays? Do you feel people self diagnose when in reality although their feelings are valid it's not PTSD.

I just worry it's being diluted, and people won't take it as seriously as it should be taken.

The opposite, it causes oppression.

Labels are only given if they are helpful. Self-understanding is a huge step towards acceptance and recovery.

I've seen great support given to people. I'm encouraged by the expansion of the biopsychosocial model in use that takes a more holistic view and approach. I'm encouraged that society is becoming gradually more inclusive. I'm encouraged by the field of epigenetics.

You obviously have your own experience and I don't want to negate that. Obviously some people have negative experiences.

So State sanctioned murder is preferable? And not a form of oppression?

They aren't helpful if they are made up. I mean wandering womb syndrome is a crock of shite but we still use it to this day! I don't have any negative experiences of mental health support, I have trauma responses to my own experiences but have no mental health issues just responses that are normal to the situation I was in.

Apparently that is ok now and is making a good old comeback under the name MAID. We just use another name for it now instead of firing squad we call it euthanasia - state supported of course.

wandering womb syndrome is a crock of shite but we still use it to this day!
Who does? I've only ever seen it mentioned as historically used, and essentially described as bollocks.

I've never heard anyone use wandering womb these days. Where do they use it?

Speaking personally, I have one situation that people occasionally encounter that I used to have no problem with. If I encounter it since a specific event, I have a huge emotional panicky meltdown and just can't do it. That's not normal. That is PTSD. Why my brain has chosen that particular aspect to latch on to, I can only guess. It helps me to know that there is a reason for this reaction (how my brain has responded to trauma/PTSD). Maybe you would say that's normal considering what I've been through, and there could be a fair argument made for that. But it's quite inconvenient whatever way you want to go. PTSD (or however you want to frame it) is maybe a normal reaction. The functioning issue is maybe not so 'normal' though.

It has a new name - BPD. Same shit, different name.

Christ on a bike.. this thread is so odd

How the fuck do men get diagnosed with BPD then?

Anyone who talks about BPD uses it. Same thing.

I would say it is normal in the same way that if a deer ran away from a fox I would say that is a normal response because it once almost cost it it's life. Why do we not diagnose the deer that runs away but we do in humans?

Because it is only due to oppression that the actual 'condition' exists. The majority of BPD are for women still to this day and still used as a tool to oppress - it has exactly the same diagnostic criteria for wandering womb than BPD. They just renamed it.

I think that anyone diagnosed with BPD should consider if they are actually autistic. Especially women.

I would agree that there are often other reasons for behaviour. I think we should look at what is hurting that person and also who is pushing for the diagnosis. Often women get it when they report abuse and cases go to the family court as it discredits their account of things.

@WeeWillyWinkie9
Im wondering if you are seeing diagnosis and diagnostic tools as oppressive because of the history of how and why people used those tools, as opposed to how they currently are. Either that, or it’s an issue with nomenclature- sadness is sadness because we say it is. A disorder is a disorder because we say it is..
The second issue is a bit of a red herring because it’s either the case that a condition or response or feeling “is” or it “isn’t”.
But if you like what is described as a “normal” or let’s say “usual” response to trauma depends on the nomenclature of words like normal or usual or response.
A laboratory raised beagle has a different response to walking around than a regular home living or hunting beagle.
We respond to experiences differently.
When someone gets trapped in PTSD it’s not farcical to say their response is not different to others’ responses to similar circumstances because the factors that make each person who they are will alter that response.. not every deer runs, done freeze etc etc.
Naming a particular set of responses as “PTSD” or behaviours as bipolar disorder isn’t “false”. It’s a tool we use to try to help people- at least nowadays

I'm seeing it as the same. It hasn't changed. But the thing is we can't predict human behaviour to a situation so if one person behaves in one way and one person behaves in another way - both are trauma responses to the same thing but not a different disorder at all, just a normal response. To label is to stigmatise. If we want to end the stigma, we must end the labels. People shouldn't need a label. We should just have responses that we are compassionate towards people about.

Well @WeeWillyWinkie9 i don’t feel stigmatised because the symptoms I experienced, described as PTSD, are so “labelled”.
What is enabled me to do was EMDR therapy which wouldn’t be suitable if I hadn’t scored highly against the set of measures you find objectionable.
It took time, but it changed my life (the EMDR therapy and the trauma CBT I did with the same therapist).
I don’t have any outward markers of my “label” so unless I inform people that I had or have (I think it’s “had” PTSD in my case) they wouldn’t know. Like I don’t have a big red X on my head if you see what I mean.
Similarly to having 2 c-section scars. I’m not stigmatised by those scars.
And only my DH sees that scar, so as with diagnoses, unless you show them they don’t appear.
Obviously that will be different if the diagnosis in question were, like my daughter’s diagnosis (although she only has a “working diagnosis”) of neurogenic Arthrogryposis. Most people see a severely disabled child. And she is. If she never gets a label firmly stuck she’ll still be disabled. Before I had a label for ptsd I still had it…

@WeeWillyWinkie9 just to give you a different perspective.. my label has absolutely freed me. I completely understand now why I behave the way I do, having spent the whole of my adult life thinking I'm some sort of weirdo. I had no clue that the relentless hyper vigilance of my childhood had actually re formulated my brain. I feel SO much better for understanding now and am honestly completely and utterly grateful for the label.

It helps me. People understand when I say, "I'm sorry, I can't go to ... because I have PTSD around that." Better and more relationship preserving than, "Because I can't."

When something traumatic happens the human mind does the same thing as it does with everything we encounter in life; it tries to understand it - in the case of trauma it does this in order to avoid it ever happening again.

Sometimes it's very easy to understand the event, sometimes it's impossible. Take a fatal car accident, for example.

If you were in a car accident which resulted in the death of the other driver and it was established beyond doubt how the accident happened (black ice, tyre blowout, the other driver being drunk, etc) then the mind has it's answers and you would be very unlikely to suffer PTSD as a result. If, however, there was no sense to explain what happened - it was 'just' a random accident - your mind would keep trying to find a satisfactory answer; reliving the event constantly, asking all the "what if" questions, because if it can't figure it out, how can it stop it happening again?

The worst question the mind will keep ruminating on is often "was it my fault?" so adding guilt and shame to confusion. This is often the case with children who can become convinced that something they did (or didn't do) caused the events that led to their trauma.

I've successfully worked with several people who've suffered from trauma/PTSD - some decades old. Once the part of the mind that's obsessing with the cause is told that it can stop now because it's not doing any good, it will. Sounds simple but it works.

It's the OCD aspect that's crippling

No that is what the link talked about that was posted as proof. I know that isn't the case. For me I don't think there are any such things as mental health disorders at all.

Why are you on the mental health page then?

You don't understand what 'mental health' means. Mental health, like physical heath, is a state of being. Sometimes you're in good health, sometimes poor.

You talking about Canada? Yes I agree they are regressive in that respect. I am against any euthanasia legalisation because it is invariably abused and vulnerable people end up being murdered.

But BPD is a real disorder. There is real suffering there. It doesn’t matter that it’s caused by oppression, the mental and psychic agony is real and debilitating in men and women with BPD. They have the highest suicide rate of all mental conditions.

I agree there is stigma around it because BPD isn’t an easy condition to help and it was poorly understood and there was a lot of victim blaming.

But the answer isn’t to just erase it because there is stigma. The answer is to fight the stigma and help the sufferers living with BPD.