[Trace14]

Just re-took the Sanity Score test and my results were 156, which is not too bad considering the top score is 288.
But....my results back in July 2015 were 135. So it does support the feeling I was having about not feeling better, maybe even worse.

Anyone else taken this test? How do you feel about it being accurate?

[Open Eyes]

Be careful with that test, especially with the complex PTSD because often one can struggle more in becoming "more" aware of the challenge and working through their past traumas.

[Trace14]

Originally Posted by Open Eyes

Be careful with that test, especially with the complex PTSD because often one can struggle more in becoming "more" aware of the challenge and working through their past traumas.

Can you explain this a little more? You think knowing the results of the test will make it harder?

[Trace14]

Here's the break down of the test results:

1. Dissociation 92
2. Anxiety 91
3. Posttraumatic Stress 83
4. Technology Issues 81
5. Depression 78
6. Smoking Issues 75
7. General Coping 71
8. Obsessions/Compulsions 69
9. Phobias 67
10. Relationship Issues 63
11. Borderline Traits 63
12. Self-Esteem 50
13. Physical Issues 50
14. Life Events 47
15. Mania 45
16. Eating Disorders 25
17. Sexual Issues 13
18. Drugs 8
19. Schizophrenia 0
20. Alcohol 0
21. Gambling Issues 0

[Trace14]

Originally Posted by Open Eyes

Be careful with that test, especially with the complex PTSD because often one can struggle more in becoming "more" aware of the challenge and working through their past traumas.

I don't take these tests too serious. 156 out of a possible 288 can't be all that bad anyway. But it does confirm a little bit what I was feeling about some areas getting worse, others changing (neither good or bad) or maybe I'm just becoming more aware of some of the structure points of CPTSD.

[Parva]

Originally Posted by Trace14

Can you explain this a little more? You think knowing the results of the test will make it harder?

On a similar note, what if the scores on the test don't match your experiences in life? For example, I'm supposed to have DDNOS, but the test says my dissociation is low. That would be a huge problem for me. Huge. Or, as our president-elect might say, "...a YUGE problem. Horrible. FAKE DIAGNOSIS!" Do I need a trigger warning with that?

[Open Eyes]

Well, if you think about experiencing a bad physical injury there is pain and confusion as well because an injury hurts if we do anything that aggravates it. A "bad" physical injury completely changes how a person does things physically. When a person is hurt badly and it changes how they can do things physically which that person quickly learns because of physical pain, and even being physically tired, that person will dissociate. You know, we don't think about that, but if you were to focus just on that and then visit a hospital where a lot of individuals suffer from physical injuries of all kinds, you would be able to see these patients sitting expressionless in dissociation.

With a physical injury people around us are not going to ask us to do anything we can't do because they can clearly see we can't because we have a physical injury. Also, because we have a physical injury and quickly learn how it limits us, we are certainly not going to hop on a bike and ride it around the neighborhood. Depression? Well, that can happen with a bad physical injury as well. It doesn't take long to recognize how the world around you is busy and active and you are not because of your limitations with a bad physical injury.

Actually, if you look at that list the same numbers can pop up with a bad physical injury too.

I experienced my appendix rupture but it did not burst and the pain I felt was not the clear signs I was dealing with an appendix problem. There was a bad flu bug going around and I thought that is what I had. I had solid pain in my back and my stomach and as days passed it got worse. This happened 10 days after I had surgery on my achilles tendon and I had to wear a special boot and be very careful with that leg.

By the 4th day I was extremely ill and extremely weak and called out to my husband to call for an ambulance. The EMT came up to my room and put me on a board to carry me down the stairs and out the front door to the ambulance. When they moved me onto that board the pain was unbelievable and I moaned. The male EMT yelled at me to shut the hell up and if I didn't no doctor would want to see me. Can you imagine? Especially since my reality was that I was dying. The next thing I knew I was on an operating table being prepped for surgery and the nurse who was trying to put in a cathrader was having a hissy fit because she could not find my urethra. So that is the last thing I remember going under, feeling bad and extremely embarrassed. Well, that could have been my very last experiences in my life, having others express anger towards me.

I was in surgery for a long time because the surgeon had to completely open me up because I had leaked toxins into my body cavity. He had to move all my organs around carefully and irrigate the toxic fluids that was all around my organs. When I finally came to I was about to experience wrapping my mind around the physical changes to my body and the pain, because that was most definitely still a challenge. My stomach was horrible looking, like Frankenstein with all these staples. I did not even want to look at it because it frightened me so what did I do instead? Dissociate. And I had help with that because I had morphine and I had a button I could push that gave me more of it as needed. Dissociating is not something bad, it helps us when we can't process "trauma".

I did not know that the surgeon did not know if I would recover either. I was hooked up and became a human pin cushion. But at least I had my mother there who stayed with me and slept in my room. The nurses were not very friendly and pretty much acted like I was an imposition. They wanted to stay "detached" and I did not know that, yes, after a while nurses get so they are detached and get numb to dealing with patients.

There were so many things I could not do. I could not eat, get up, go to the bathroom and just moving was a big deal because of this horrible invasion that cut through all my muscles and left me with an injury that most definitely limited me in every way. And this was so ugly and scary looking that I did not even want to look at it.

Moving forward with healing was very hard too. What made it even harder was when I had to start getting up and going to the bathroom and doing that required a nurse to come and take off the these things that kept my blood circulating in my legs and also put on my boot. The nurses ALWAYS acted like I was such an imposition too. Then when I reached the toilet, it was set so low I could not really sit down on it and I finally decided "WTF" and positioned myself over it and just peed and made a mess. Thinking back on that what they really should have done is set up a potty chair (something they did have) next to my bed so it would not be so hard and such a major production to get up and pee.

Then the day came where I was going to get my button taken from me where I could push it when the pain got so bad. It would have been nice if they at least warned about that. Then I was put on pain medication every four hours and this medication definitely did not last four hours. Anger? Oh, when you have to endure horrible pain and every minute that passes is horrible, the last thing one needs is the nurse to happen by "late" and act mean when you are angry. You think to yourself, "wish these grumpy nurses could feel what I am going through then maybe they would not be so "mean"".

Trace, let me tell you something, the next phase was bad too. I had to start walking because I had to wake up my digestive tract and also get the air that was trapped in my body to come out. What a lot of people don't know, what I did not know myself is that when you are opened up like I was "air" gets trapped in your body. I could actually feel and see air bubbles. I don't know how it works, but what I learned is that after walking I would feel pain and it felt like I had to go number two and only air came out and it "hurt". I dissociated a lot during this part too tbh. I would have most definitely lost track of time, but the only reason I didn't was because of how the pain would clearly remind me that I needed more pain medication.

What I did not know all that time was that it was still unknown if I would make it out "alive". And the next challenge was about giving me enemas in an effort to encourage my digestive tract to function again.

I must have looked awful too because I had no sponge baths or a shower. I am sure my hair looked awful too, and you know what? I don't remember and I am sure I subconsciously avoided looking into any mirror. I did not want any visitors either, and looking back on that experience "avoidance and dissociation" can be valuable tools. Actually, sensitivity has a value too, because being sensitive is crucial to survival as well.

I got so I wanted to get out of that hospital, I wanted to be home, in my own bed and away from that environment. I washed my hair in the sink in the bathroom, it took a lot of effort, and I blow dried it and for the first time looked in the mirror and put on some makeup. I was EXHAUSTED doing that. I remember looking at the surgeon and saying to him in my strong desire to go home, "If I can do this I should be able to go home". I remember him looking at me in shock, I truly was transformed, kind of like one of those "extreme makeovers" . Well, considering how long it had really been since I showered and washed my hair, as I had not done that the four days when I first became ill, I probably really did look like a very different person. I don't even think my hair had even seen a brush or comb all that time either.

I finally got my wish, I got to go home, but I was still far from better and had a lot of healing ahead of me. My husband had to tend to changing the bandage where the large opening on my stomach had a drain. I still could not look at it, and I cried and was so embarrassed at him seeing how horrible my stomach looked. I was not "me" anymore, instead I had this horrible, horrible ugly stomach. I did not want to think about it until I had no choice because of how I had to be helped with changing the dressing. You know what? People don't know what that feels like, not unless they experience it first hand. And when they tell you to "just" ignore it or "don't allow" it to bother you? It doesn't help. Why do people even say that? Do they really think it helps?

Well, at least people "can" see a physical trauma. And I can tell you that looking at that list, there were a lot of things I experienced in dealing with the physical trauma. I had to "learn" how to slowly heal both physically and mentally. And that experience changed me. There were things I had to grieve, and these things were mine alone to grieve too.

Trauma presents "changes" and these changes can be hard to sort through. I did survive, and I can sit here and tell my story about it too. When we experience a trauma that is significant enough, that causes a deep psychological injury, that is actually a lot like a bad physical injury, only it can affect us psychologically on a level that can be extremely confusing. Trauma does "change" us and it can be so hard to explain how much it changes us. The list of symptoms you have posted are all the symptoms that this kind of injury presents. We don't "know" how to "just" or "don't allow", this is something that can take a lot of time to work through and yes, it can present a lot of other "fears" and challenges we had in our past too. Yes, that list can actually get more challenging, just like the pain I suffered got more challenging when they took away that button and everything became a lot harder for me. That one injury affected everything I was used to doing with my own body that I did not give much thought to. A trauma called PTSD is the same. And when PTSD becomes "complex PTSD", what that means is that a person has experienced other traumas, felt fear and anxiety at other times, and while they may have survived a lot of these traumas, something that happened triggered them to feeling not only the current trauma, but many other times in their past where they faced traumatic life challenges.

What I have noticed about this challenge myself is that it is just as tiring as when I endured that major physical trauma. There were things I most certainly could not "just" do when it came to the physical trauma. The same is true for PTSD, only it's not an injury others can see where they know you can't "just". From what I have experienced myself, the way things from my past began to come forward really confused me. The ptsd itself "scared me" tbh. I have also recognized that this healing journey is hard even when I began to learn more about it. I did not even know what "trigger" meant, yet I was experiencing them and still experience them.

What I have learned though is how much I have to be "patient" with this challenge and this kind of patience is not something the average person understands. I have also become very aware of being "sensitive" and again, this is something others around me don't understand either. It's ok if you disassociate too. What I have learned from my own healing journey is that when I do that I am just not ready to articulate whatever I am being asked to articulate. I guess a way to describe it is that if you go to a grocery store over a long period and you get so you know where everything you need is located and then one day you walk into that store and everything has been changed, what do you do? Well, most people stand there confused and basically stare not knowing where to even begin their shopping. Also, there is a stress, anger, anxiety and uncomfortable feeling at the thought of having to "think" about where everything is all over again.

[Trace14]

Originally Posted by Open Eyes

Well, if you think about experiencing a bad physical injury there is pain and confusion as well because an injury hurts if we do anything that aggravates it. A "bad" physical injury completely changes how a person does things physically. When a person is hurt badly and it changes how they can do things physically which that person quickly learns because of physical pain, and even being physically tired, that person will dissociate. You know, we don't think about that, but if you were to focus just on that and then visit a hospital where a lot of individuals suffer from physical injuries of all kinds, you would be able to see these patients sitting expressionless in dissociation.

With a physical injury people around us are not going to ask us to do anything we can't do because they can clearly see we can't because we have a physical injury. Also, because we have a physical injury and quickly learn how it limits us, we are certainly not going to hop on a bike and ride it around the neighborhood. Depression? Well, that can happen with a bad physical injury as well. It doesn't take long to recognize how the world around you is busy and active and you are not because of your limitations with a bad physical injury.

Actually, if you look at that list the same numbers can pop up with a bad physical injury too.

I experienced my appendix rupture but it did not burst and the pain I felt was not the clear signs I was dealing with an appendix problem. There was a bad flu bug going around and I thought that is what I had. I had solid pain in my back and my stomach and as days passed it got worse. This happened 10 days after I had surgery on my achilles tendon and I had to wear a special boot and be very careful with that leg.

By the 4th day I was extremely ill and extremely weak and called out to my husband to call for an ambulance. The EMT came up to my room and put me on a board to carry me down the stairs and out the front door to the ambulance. When they moved me onto that board the pain was unbelievable and I moaned. The male EMT yelled at me to shut the hell up and if I didn't no doctor would want to see me. Can you imagine? Especially since my reality was that I was dying. The next thing I knew I was on an operating table being prepped for surgery and the nurse who was trying to put in a cathrader was having a hissy fit because she could not find my urethra. So that is the last thing I remember going under, feeling bad and extremely embarrassed. Well, that could have been my very last experiences in my life, having others express anger towards me.

I was in surgery for a long time because the surgeon had to completely open me up because I had leaked toxins into my body cavity. He had to move all my organs around carefully and irrigate the toxic fluids that was all around my organs. When I finally came to I was about to experience wrapping my mind around the physical changes to my body and the pain, because that was most definitely still a challenge. My stomach was horrible looking, like Frankenstein with all these staples. I did not even want to look at it because it frightened me so what did I do instead? Dissociate. And I had help with that because I had morphine and I had a button I could push that gave me more of it as needed. Dissociating is not something bad, it helps us when we can't process "trauma".

I did not know that the surgeon did not know if I would recover either. I was hooked up and became a human pin cushion. But at least I had my mother there who stayed with me and slept in my room. The nurses were not very friendly and pretty much acted like I was an imposition. They wanted to stay "detached" and I did not know that, yes, after a while nurses get so they are detached and get numb to dealing with patients.

There were so many things I could not do. I could not eat, get up, go to the bathroom and just moving was a big deal because of this horrible invasion that cut through all my muscles and left me with an injury that most definitely limited me in every way. And this was so ugly and scary looking that I did not even want to look at it.

Moving forward with healing was very hard too. What made it even harder was when I had to start getting up and going to the bathroom and doing that required a nurse to come and take off the these things that kept my blood circulating in my legs and also put on my boot. The nurses ALWAYS acted like I was such an imposition too. Then when I reached the toilet, it was set so low I could not really sit down on it and I finally decided "WTF" and positioned myself over it and just peed and made a mess. Thinking back on that what they really should have done is set up a potty chair (something they did have) next to my bed so it would not be so hard and such a major production to get up and pee.

Then the day came where I was going to get my button taken from me where I could push it when the pain got so bad. It would have been nice if they at least warned about that. Then I was put on pain medication every four hours and this medication definitely did not last four hours. Anger? Oh, when you have to endure horrible pain and every minute that passes is horrible, the last thing one needs is the nurse to happen by "late" and act mean when you are angry. You think to yourself, "wish these grumpy nurses could feel what I am going through then maybe they would not be so "mean"".

Trace, let me tell you something, the next phase was bad too. I had to start walking because I had to wake up my digestive tract and also get the air that was trapped in my body to come out. What a lot of people don't know, what I did not know myself is that when you are opened up like I was "air" gets trapped in your body. I could actually feel and see air bubbles. I don't know how it works, but what I learned is that after walking I would feel pain and it felt like I had to go number two and only air came out and it "hurt". I dissociated a lot during this part too tbh. I would have most definitely lost track of time, but the only reason I didn't was because of how the pain would clearly remind me that I needed more pain medication.

What I did not know all that time was that it was still unknown if I would make it out "alive". And the next challenge was about giving me enemas in an effort to encourage my digestive tract to function again.

I must have looked awful too because I had no sponge baths or a shower. I am sure my hair looked awful too, and you know what? I don't remember and I am sure I subconsciously avoided looking into any mirror. I did not want any visitors either, and looking back on that experience "avoidance and dissociation" can be valuable tools. Actually, sensitivity has a value too, because being sensitive is crucial to survival as well.

I got so I wanted to get out of that hospital, I wanted to be home, in my own bed and away from that environment. I washed my hair in the sink in the bathroom, it took a lot of effort, and I blow dried it and for the first time looked in the mirror and put on some makeup. I was EXHAUSTED doing that. I remember looking at the surgeon and saying to him in my strong desire to go home, "If I can do this I should be able to go home". I remember him looking at me in shock, I truly was transformed, kind of like one of those "extreme makeovers" . Well, considering how long it had really been since I showered and washed my hair, as I had not done that the four days when I first became ill, I probably really did look like a very different person. I don't even think my hair had even seen a brush or comb all that time either.

I finally got my wish, I got to go home, but I was still far from better and had a lot of healing ahead of me. My husband had to tend to changing the bandage where the large opening on my stomach had a drain. I still could not look at it, and I cried and was so embarrassed at him seeing how horrible my stomach looked. I was not "me" anymore, instead I had this horrible, horrible ugly stomach. I did not want to think about it until I had no choice because of how I had to be helped with changing the dressing. You know what? People don't know what that feels like, not unless they experience it first hand. And when they tell you to "just" ignore it or "don't allow" it to bother you? It doesn't help. Why do people even say that? Do they really think it helps?

Well, at least people "can" see a physical trauma. And I can tell you that looking at that list, there were a lot of things I experienced in dealing with the physical trauma. I had to "learn" how to slowly heal both physically and mentally. And that experience changed me. There were things I had to grieve, and these things were mine alone to grieve too.

Trauma presents "changes" and these changes can be hard to sort through. I did survive, and I can sit here and tell my story about it too. When we experience a trauma that is significant enough, that causes a deep psychological injury, that is actually a lot like a bad physical injury, only it can affect us psychologically on a level that can be extremely confusing. Trauma does "change" us and it can be so hard to explain how much it changes us. The list of symptoms you have posted are all the symptoms that this kind of injury presents. We don't "know" how to "just" or "don't allow", this is something that can take a lot of time to work through and yes, it can present a lot of other "fears" and challenges we had in our past too. Yes, that list can actually get more challenging, just like the pain I suffered got more challenging when they took away that button and everything became a lot harder for me. That one injury affected everything I was used to doing with my own body that I did not give much thought to. A trauma called PTSD is the same. And when PTSD becomes "complex PTSD", what that means is that a person has experienced other traumas, felt fear and anxiety at other times, and while they may have survived a lot of these traumas, something that happened triggered them to feeling not only the current trauma, but many other times in their past where they faced traumatic life challenges.

What I have noticed about this challenge myself is that it is just as tiring as when I endured that major physical trauma. There were things I most certainly could not "just" do when it came to the physical trauma. The same is true for PTSD, only it's not an injury others can see where they know you can't "just". From what I have experienced myself, the way things from my past began to come forward really confused me. The ptsd itself "scared me" tbh. I have also recognized that this healing journey is hard even when I began to learn more about it. I did not even know what "trigger" meant, yet I was experiencing them and still experience them.

What I have learned though is how much I have to be "patient" with this challenge and this kind of patience is not something the average person understands. I have also become very aware of being "sensitive" and again, this is something others around me don't understand either. It's ok if you disassociate too. What I have learned from my own healing journey is that when I do that I am just not ready to articulate whatever I am being asked to articulate. I guess a way to describe it is that if you go to a grocery store over a long period and you get so you know where everything you need is located and then one day you walk into that store and everything has been changed, what do you do? Well, most people stand there confused and basically stare not knowing where to even begin their shopping. Also, there is a stress, anger, anxiety and uncomfortable feeling at the thought of having to "think" about where everything is all over again.

Wow that was a horrible experience with the appendix. Sadly a lot of hospitals operate the same way. Since I did work in the hospital for a while I now have a better understanding of why those things happen. Lack of staff, too many patients for one nurse, etc. It is horrible for them too. They want to take care of their patients, not let something happen to them and loose their license, but mostly have to live with something that happened to your patient because you were to stretched out with all the other patients. New admissions, discharges, complicated patients (a lot going on with them) getting meds, making sure they got food and were able to eat, not to mention the tremendous amount of documentation you have to do on each patient. So I understood a little more as to why my own hospital experience was so bad and understood more why the nurses were so stressed out. But anyway, just wanted to let you know that's still going on. Hospital admins. keep getting the big paychecks and bonuses and the nurses and other staff are getting jobs cut, no pay raises, more responsibility, with less help. Again sorry it happened to you though. If someone is in the hospital someone needs to be with them 24/7 until they leave, just to watch out for and help the patient when staff is unavailable. JMHO
Now about the test. I really don't see it as a diagnosis for anything. Just highlights areas where things could be troubling me more. I know I dissociate a lot and I'm okay with that. Mainly because I have no where to go, people to deal with, etc. My only responsibility right now is to feed and care for the cats that are left and try to get out of the house at least once a week to get cat food and groceries. Otherwise I'm inside, watching tv or on the computer or reading something, or sleeping. The only time dissociating is an issue is when I get into bed and wonder if I showered today, or did I take my meds, what day is it? Did I pay my bills? Have things I need to do for days and just can't get them done.
So the test may be something I could give to the MH provider but as far as getting caught up with the specifics ....it just looks normal to me. There were no numbers that were really surprising to me, and it wasn't surprising that the values went up because that was how I was feeling anyway.
Thanks for sharing your story and responding back on this.

[Trace14]

Originally Posted by Parva

On a similar note, what if the scores on the test don't match your experiences in life? For example, I'm supposed to have DDNOS, but the test says my dissociation is low. That would be a huge problem for me. Huge. Or, as our president-elect might say, "...a YUGE problem. Horrible. FAKE DIAGNOSIS!" Do I need a trigger warning with that?

LOL I'm not a "snowflake" I can deal with it LOL
I think we have to remember that this test is not a diagnostic tool, to say what specific disorder you have. It just highlights what issues you are dealing with, when you took the test, and which ones may be more of an issue for you right now. I plan on taking a copy of mine to the Counselor next time and let her look at it, though she's a new counselor so she really wouldn't know whether it applies to me or not. Another reason for taking this test, and saving it on your PC account, is that you can retake and see if the numbers change and in what direction. Like my first test was over a year ago, a 135 and now this one is 156. I compared them and the same issues were highlighted with lower values. So there's about 11 issues that are always higher than the others and I believe those values to be correct. Just don't "overthink" any of these online tests and if you are concerned talk to you MH provider and maybe they can explain the results a little better.

Doc John wrote some info on this test in the Sanity Score forum that explains it a little better.

[Psychochick]

I just took this test for the umpteenth time and this time I scored 172. Except for General Coping (a whopping 100!), moderate to severe (major) depression, moderate to high anxiety, phobias, poor self-esteem (another 100!), eating disorders, drug issues (yep--100 again), "Internet Addiction", OCD, PTSD, and a high chance of having Borderline PD (already one of my dx's)--well, aside from all that, I'm perfectly okay---muahahahahaha! (They'll soon be fitting me for my very own straitjacket lol!)

[Trace14]

Originally Posted by Psychochick

I just took this test for the umpteenth time and this time I scored 172. Except for General Coping (a whopping 100!), moderate to severe (major) depression, moderate to high anxiety, phobias, poor self-esteem (another 100!), eating disorders, drug issues (yep--100 again), "Internet Addiction", OCD, PTSD, and a high chance of having Borderline PD (already one of my dx's)--well, aside from all that, I'm perfectly okay---muahahahahaha! (They'll soon be fitting me for my very own straitjacket lol!)

Does your test number remain the same when you retake it? Do you feel this is an accurate test for your conditions?

[Psychochick]

Actually, Trace, my scores do vary--but not by a lot. As for accuracy--I wouldn't use them to diagnose myself (or anyone else), but I do think they reflect my overall issues pretty well.

[Trace14]

Originally Posted by Psychochick

Actually, Trace, my scores do vary--but not by a lot. As for accuracy--I wouldn't use them to diagnose myself (or anyone else), but I do think they reflect my overall issues pretty well.

I agree, I think they express my issues , at that moment, pretty well. Since healing is more of an up and down progress it makes sense that the scores would pretty much be different each time. Thanks for responding back.