skeksi-

thanks much for the feedback!

i think my poor wording, or maybe the fact that i am dealing with so much cumulative and ongoing stressors, while trying to talk about it (harder with each year that passes) has given the wrong impression.

i am not `against' ptsd as a concept. clearly, people do become traumatized, regain safety, but remain affected.

what i am pointing out is that this is not true for everyone and that some of us do end up in a circularly illogical and fruitless pattern of having been so affected (ie., in my case becoming disabled, not able to afford safe or stable housing etc.) that we are `not taken seriously' about current, specific, and very real risks to safety.

for those people to be dismissed, mocked or otherwise refused `help', on the basis of previous traumatization, with no effort to verify the facts as they stand currently, is what i am suggesting is iatrogenic (trauma or injury caused by medical `treatment').

fwiw- i don't actually think that some people being comforted by the dx, has any connection with it's applicability to others. i realize there are as many experiences as there are people, and what i am `against' if anything, is using a dx so broad and assumptive to apply to everyone who has been traumatized, resulting in the ridicule of those who in that time and space DO need help with safety.

i will both try to find the article(s) i first read about this, as well as try to think of how i might rephrase more clearly, sorry if i sounded like i was seeking validation.

my main motive is to find some key that i can use that will actually result in `help' for tangible needs, not navel gazing, though that is fun. i am trying to figure out, how i might overcome the barriers of access to the more specialized neurological treatment i need and have sought literally for years.

i also am trying to figure out how not to be treated like a walking stereotype, because that is triggering me so severely, i am becoming `conditioned' to fear continuing to seek appropriate `help'.

for now, i guess the best way i could put it is that in your case (and mine at first) before the dx, one worries that they are `crazy'. i recall even asking a friend of mine if people going crazy wonder if they are going crazy, so i do follow ya there and don't disagree with your point.

i am talking about being told without verification that since you've been dx'ed with ptsd, you only `think' you are unsafe because you are `crazy'.

i suspect that while a working memory deficit is a different thing than ptsd, or `complex' ptsd, ptsd is also a type of TBI. being adequately treated for the first could well have prevented the second.

your empathy means a lot, thanks so much. i should clarify too though, that because i am unable to secure sufficient access to a safe place to heal and rebuild, i have not had treatment (beyond meds to bandaid uncontrollable biochemical symptoms) for either trauma or TBI.

one has to be safe, in fact, ie. stop the injury(ies) to begin to heal. if i hadn't learned along the way that i am not the only person this is and has happened to, i wouldn't even bring it up. indeed for years i thought that was the case, that i was just in a very rare situation.

whoops i am babbling, so sorry.

will try to put this better......

thanks again, i appreciate your comments!