Your parent's generation followed the idea that the man is the ruler of the family and home. From what you have discribed of your father, he needed to have you and your siblings behave and look good for "him". A lot of children were taught to "fear" the father and don't do anything to upset him, even the wife was often "afraid". It was often the father that handed out punishments to the children too. However, a male child will get to a point where it is understood that he will begin to form his own opinions and be his own man.

Your core emotional settings are set up based on how your parents told you to feel and that is how a lot of people are set up in a deep subconscious level. However, children also get added messeges from their exposure to stories in books and the movies they see too. I can tell by the way you love music and different movies/stories you describe, that you used that as a source of "comfort" because you did not experience that from your parents. Well, a lot of children have done that, yet that has been practiced consistently throughout human history too. It got to be more so when children were taught to be more literate too.

The emotional reaction that you experienced when you were "labeled" was handed to you, and what you are doing now is realizing how very much you accepted certain emotional messages. When someone struggles with complex PTSD, they become very sensitive and experience a lot of emotional disturbance and these emotions are "magnified" and often happen without any conscious decision "to feel".

As you have noticed, it is quite the inner battle when PTSD takes place and so much of that battle is "what to do with or how to stop the emotions that take place" when the person wants to "just" not feel, ignore, not dwell, get over.

What is "good" about your recent revelations Mowtown is that your conscious mind is really starting to recognize this challenge on a different level. What takes place when a person develops PTSD is that "first" they are just "emotionally" overwhelmed and are extremely "sensitive". When that is not recognized properly right away and the person comforted correctly, they can get "suicidal" and begin to feel extreme "shame". It is a very big challenge that in itself is "traumatic".

The main reason you are so angry about being "labeled" incorrectly, is really not the label at all, it is because you are becoming more aware that ifhow the PTSD emotional challenge was attended to correctly and validated, you would not have "suffered" in confusion the way you did.

My therapist told me that it is important for a therapist to listen calmly at a distance even if the patient is talking gibberish. The reason "why" that is so important is that a patient's gibberish does mean something to them, but often the patient is struggling so much emotionally that they can't verbalize it well enough "yet". This is especially true for PTSD. And yet, sometimes the patient is adament about their needs too and has a tremendous need to be heard and validated, that is an important symptom for a professional to recognize and make it a point to "listen and validate" because if they do not do that, it really does "add" to the trauma. I have talked about how that happened to me, and I have noticed that other members have also expressed that same "invalidation" and even "cold invalidating" experience they had in that crucial period of post traumatic stress.

When the symptoms of PTSD are described every symptom has a "reason" and the person who is struggling is "feeling" every one of these symptoms. The problem is, the person struggling has a very hard time "articulating" these "feelings". Mowtown, when you read the information I presented, you were so relieved and thankful, remember? Well, when I found that information, that is how I felt too.

It was really never about the label of "bipolar" for you at all. It was the confusion you were in that needed to be recognized and treated correctly "immediately". When an "adult" is not respected and correctly treated, that is going to disturb the mind so much that if there is any "history" where that "need went unmet", that will surface only adding to the confusion. The average person doesn't get that and tends to react to the person struggling with PTSD in "unsupportive and damaging dismissive ways". If there "is" any history of this "neglect" that will surface in the PTSD patient too. That is going to confuse the patient even more so it is "crucial" that the right treatment and support be in place. If the patient suffered "emotional abuse" in their family, that is the "last" place to put that person, that is the same as putting a very abused child under the care of the very person that "abused the child" again. No one in their right mind would do that would they?

If an abused neglected traumatized animal is rescued, would sending them back under the care of the person who abused and neglected that animal ever be considered?

Well, human beings are sent messages constantly "not to tell" and "to pretend or to put on a public pretend face". If this is deeply instilled in a person and that person develops PTSD and struggles profoundly emotionally, how is further treating that person like they are "wrong to feel" and "invalidating" them going to help? This is "stigmatizing", this is how society causes "further harm".

Mowtown, it is "not" a label, it is and has long been how badly that label has been stigmatized and treated that is the problem.