My T has hinted at the fact that I might have PTSD. I was quite surprised, as I don't see it at all. I do dissociate allot but now adays, i figure who doesnt? Does high dissociation=PTSD? I don't have flashbacks in the way I think others experience flash backs. I just have this inner glimpse of something icky, i blink my eyes until its gone and move on. I guess what I am wondering is whether PTSD starts to be used as a catch-all?

[Perna]

Post Traumatic Stress is just that; still having trouble with significant trauma(s) that happened in the past. I don't think one has to experience flashbacks, the trauma can be more
"diffuse" than a single event. Being in a bad car wreck can get you flashbacks but abuse over quite a few years, there's no "one" thing to flashback to?

PTSD has degrees, too, like depression, anxiety or most other disorders. I use to get anxious eating ice cream cones (not something that usually makes someone anxious :-) and finally had a sense/flashback to my stepmother constantly scolding me for getting "dirty" and letting it drip on me, etc. I was too young to be able to eat an ice cream in one sitting without getting it all over me but my brother was a couple years older so he could. I'd be compared to him but there was nothing I could "do" about it. Having forgotten all about that, I was worried I wouldn't be able to eat my ice cream "fast enough" and would get in trouble. . . in my 40s :-) LOL

Now that I know what was causing my anxiety, I "practice" getting messy (don't like submarine sandwiches either because one gets mayonaise, etc. all over one's self :-) deliberately because I'm a grown up now and it "doesn't matter." My stepmother can't unlove me anymore, be dangerously angry or just make me feel anxious in general.

I think with dissociation, there's something "there" causing the dissociation so that's a traumatic stress if one is reacting to whatever it is in such a manner. It doesn't really change anything; I guess I'd personally feel better with a diagnosis of traumatic stress disorder instead of dissociative identity disorder especially if I didn't have a couple three identities well established. Traumatic stress just gives a locus of where the problems are probably coming from; outside one's self rather than from inside (which dissociation sounds like to me)? Dissociation, yes, everyone does it but it's a symptom, not an actual disorder; it can be part of PTSD.

[lemmkins]

excellent post. very informative Perna.

lemmkins

[(JD)]

I don't think dissociation = PTSD... but ptsd does have a component of dissociative aspects...such as flash backs. Be ok with this, and see if the T can help you figure it out

[MissCharlotte]

I agree with all of the above. Dissociation can be a symptom of PTSD but does not define it. Did you ask your T why she said that? I don't have flashbacks either, but know I experienced a lot of trauma. Often people feel only a glimpse of what may have happened sometimes accompanied with anxiety. It sounds like you are making progress in therapy, Just keep chugging....(oh, and be good to yourself)

Thank you all.. these past few weeks have been hard, so sorry for not responding.

[Samanthaq]

Regrettably I have both, and for different, but some similar reasons. I'm highly dissociative, and actually used to be worse. Right now my dissociative tendencies are limited to colocation, and vanishing into my head. Sometimes at the same time, of late at exactly the same time.

When I was younger, because I was NEVER, EVER, EVER good enough, smart enough, fast enough, or anything I created this person. HE was the boy I thought my father wanted. HE was an officer and a gentleman, highly logical, emotionless, brilliant, fast, basically a super hero that was indestructible I hid behind.

Wow, that was a while ago and to be honest I kinda miss him.

Me, I have flashbacks, nightmares and the whole nine yards. I regrettably have multiple primary PTSD causes, or traumas as well as years of abuse when I was a child, and as an adult. Because I didn't learn anything as a child about love, relationships, domestic violence and so forth, I had to learn as an adult. I married someone exactly like my father. Attitudes, behavior, mindset, everything.

Wow, what a mistake that was.

Now, I'm burned out. Pressure just turns me into a sobbing wretch. In fact pretty much anything does, I have triggers for days, and without meds, nightmares so bad that I've had some in the past that had me wake up wanting to end my life so that I'd never have to have another nightmare like that again.

While they can be coupled, can be 'co morbid' conditions, they are regrettably, quite different in so many ways.

One of the "sub classes" for PTSD, one I'm terribly familiar with, is "Prison Camp Survivor." I kid you not. It is typically a "diffuse" event that happens over a period of time, like many years of abuse. There is also traumatic event PTSD, like the first time my husband raped me. Yes, it does happen. Somewhere around here a couple years back I put a piece I wrote about it up. Even something as strange as coming as close to taking your own life as I did can leave you haunted for many years to come and is a form of PTSD. You don't want it, I know I don't! Can I give it back?

Anyway, it is a mess, and I'm not even sure I know where I was going with this other than to say, yeah, two different things.

> Does high dissociation=PTSD?

depends on your theory of each of those terms. according to some theorists they are intimately related, yeah. some theorists think that one dissociates from stuff that is traumatic. i guess the reliving of trauma (through flashbacks and the like) could be seen as dissociating from present circumstances, too.

> I guess what I am wondering is whether PTSD starts to be used as a catch-all?

you and the health insurers lol.

PTSD was originally included in the DSM in response to lobby group pressure from vietnam war vets.

a category that was initially meant to be for people who had suffered from 'objective' and verified traumas (horrifying death of comrades, natural disaster and the like) has been extended considerably (to child abuse or to stimuli that exceed coping abilities etc).

I spent a lot of time during my childhood in a dissociated state.....although I have only learnt what it actually was during the last 2 years. During therapy I easily slip into that state when talking about childhood traumas. My eyes mist over, my ears ring and I feel "unreal" or in a dreamlike state. My "official diagnosis is Complex PTSD, so I guess they do go together. I wonder about the overuse of this word myself. I still don't know why I suddenly suffered a huge meltdown 2 years ago, and since then have been slowly healing my traumatic childhood.....I guess I'll never know, but sometimes I honestly wish I had never taken the lid off the box....if you know what I mean!!!

[Samanthaq]

Three weeks ago my therapist of two years asked me a question. I instantly lost it, broke down crying, doubled over in the chair in pain crying. Took a while to compose myself. You know I still don't even REMEMBER what the question was.

Wish I hadn't taken the lid off the box Alexandra? Wow Girl, you said a mouthful of truth there. So much I just wish I didn't know right now. I need time to rest, heal and grow in a world where weakness = death. Kek, one word for both things. I know I'm not going to be able to do much of anything, be any use to anyone, even myself if I don't focus on myself on my needs, on healing and growth. Seems it just isn't allowed.

Bend till you break then when you know to much and say "Wait, WHAT?" they throw you away like yesterdays garbage.

Yeah, I wish I didn't know the things I do. I also wish I didn't have PTSD or anything else, but I do and I have to figure out how to live with it somehow. The knowing, gods that is for me the hardest part. I know the lid is off the box and I want nothing more than to put it back on and bury it under a ton of lead and concrete, but that's so not going to happen.

So Alexandra you're not alone. I hope it helps, I know it helps me some, but I wish no one else, not you, not anyone had to go through this.

(((((((((((((samantha and kindergirl))))))))))))

[Fuzzybear]

(((((((((( esthersvirtue ))))))))))

awwwww tks fuzzy.. i've been needing one of those.. I miss hugs irl... or online for that matter. I wish my T was one that hugged but with the topic of our recent sessions... i doubt she would even if she was a hugger... but shes not.. im dying for some physical contact. i hurt inside. I have been in a trance this last week.. session was hard last week andmom was here visiting. it made it worse.

(((((((((((((((((((((ev)))))))))))))))))))))))))

Heres another one just for you

<font color="#000088">I have PTSD,and when I have flashbacks,I actually Dissociate back to the time when the abuse accured that the flashback is coming from.It gets pretty scary at times,and sometimes it can last for hours,it depends on which flashback I'm having.
So it's not uncommon,it happens to more people than you'ld think.Sometimes I dissociate if my stress is getting to high and I can't handle whats going on,I'll just go into a different world of my own,and it's almost impossible for anyone to reach me when I'm there.It's like I'm there physically,but mentally I'm completely somewhere else.I pretty much go into a catatonic state. Until my mind feels like it can handle coming back.But that bad of a dissociative state doesn't happen very often with me,usually I've already been hospitalized before those occur,because of things getting so bad with me. </font>