PTSD inho is not a mental illness

I believe that professionals need to stop calling PTSD a mental illness. Its not unusual for someone who has been hurt to reac this way.

(((minime))) Want to share more about your thoughts on this?

PTSD is listed as an anxiety disorder, and yes there are physical responses that add to the psychological ones, it is made better (life can be) through psychological intents. Many mental disorders result in a poor reactions to some element of life.

I think that people with PTSD are unable to process the trauma. They are unable to do this because of undeveloped emotional skills. Without the trauma they would have been "limping" along and would have had anxiety or depression maybe.

Yes, people without help usually don't process their trauma effectively. However, "perfectly normal humans" can have their lives turned upside down because of a traumatic experience. Not everyone who experiences trauma develops PTSD. They really aren't sure about why some do and some don't, though there are suppositions, but one doesn't have to be already suffering to do so.

Sannah,

I disagree.

I think when you go through a trauma where your life is in danger or someone else close to you, whether you have a mental illness or not, it's not easy to deal with it.

It doesn't depend if the person has a mental illness or not to developed PTSD. A person with a perfectly normal physical and mental health can developed PTSD.

What I think is that ptsd is just the bodys way of protecting itself from further trauma. In my case alot of different traumas and many many moves in foster homes, my brain was "trained" to act and think a certain way. People move to fast and i flinch ect. But its trained in me. Whne people dont have history like mine and they are essentially normal they too can get ptsd. Its not an illness.Im not sure if I am right here, I just think Im tired of being considered mentally ill. Im not ill. The world is ill and i am just a product of it.

maybe the word mentally ill is being used too much nowadays. If that were the case, I would have been mentally ill for 41 years, which really isn't accurate. But I have suffered, on and off, with anxiety, not PTSD, for many years. Over the years I've also learned a great deal about how to cope with life's struggles,. MINIME, I don't think you're necessarily mentally ill, but then again , there's really nothing "wrong" with having anxiety or mental health problem. It doesn't have anything to do with the quality of a person that you are.

I think most all that is labelled "mental illness" is a form of PTSD. It's just that the profession has, for the most part, not recognized it as such, being focussed on the details of the symptoms that people present.

I just googled "Personality Development and PTSD" and many studies found a connection. In order to process a trauma a person needs to have certain psychological and emotional skills. I am not saying that most people would find it easy processing the trauma. Many people would have quite a challenge processing it. If you are diagnosed with PTSD this means that you couldn't process it and move on.

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MINIME said:
In my case alot of different traumas and many many moves in foster homes,

my brain was "trained" to act and think a certain way. People move to fast and i flinch ect. But its trained in me.

I just think Im tired of being considered mentally ill. Im not ill.

The world is ill and i am just a product of it.

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I agree with you Minime. All of us were "trained" while growing up. Some lucky folks get trained in healthy behaviors. Us unlucky ones got trained in unhealthy behaviors. As an adult I trained myself in healthy behaviors and threw out all my unhealthy ones. Getting to know yourself really well and how you react to your environment is how you do this.

You are also correct when you say that your environment was ill for you and it affected and produced what you have to deal with now. Couldn't agree with you more. The result, however, is that this environment gave you some behaviors which are now making your life difficult and making it hard for you to function. I guess this is what people look at and label as mentally ill. I had all sorts of these and they made my life difficult. I now describe myself as having mental health and look back on myself and describe myself at that time as not having mental health. I never described myself as being mentally ill, though, just that I didn't have mental health.

Thanks sannah that was a great post. A couple of months ago at the buidling where i go for therapy had a sign said mental illness is treatable. I was like offended by this sign. Im not sure why but it just seems like being labled mentally ill is a stigma and the people that caused us the "mental illness" have isolated us into a group. Then the other day the tyra banks show which I hate had a person on their who said 50 percent of the us has a mental illness so that means half of every one we know is crazy and people laughed. I would love for this man to have to experience everything i did and then we can see what his smug condensending mouth would say.

I also think I am sick and tired of professionals who study and write about this "disorder". They write from the safety of their life and experiences. These are abnormal reactions they say...treat them like this they say. UGGGGG. To them i say: Please dont treat me like I am a disease. Listen to me hear me and help me feel safe again. dont treat me like a child with a behavior problem. Dont judge me or talk down to me. Love me for the person I am and be a witness to my "trauma" help me put it in words. Help me learn that people are safe by showing me not telling me. I fought to stay alive and now i am fighting to live.

A thought
I have had PTSD for 7 going on 8 years. My Dr was the one who knew what I was going threw
I was so blessed to have him.
I do not treat it like a illness I treat it as part of me now.
As it is. It does get better over time. I am not saying I do not get triggered cause I do.
I was this weekend. I try my hardest to work threw it ((as I know you all do)) did not mean it to sound like you were not. Sorry if it came out that way.
SOmetimes I just freeze. Till it passes. SOmetimes I need to talk. And i pray really hard theres someone to listen.Sometimes other ppl are not in a good place of thier own to listen ((which is ok))
Other times just writting it out helps so much.
The one thing I do know it is real. Its part of me. With me it happened with to much loss all at one time. And seeing it happen.
To me I treat it as just part of my being now. There are tools I have learned to use to work with it. sometimes every once in awhile I freeze instead.
Not sure if this helped.
To me I do not care what they call it.
It makes me who I am now.
ty
muffy

Hi minime,

i have to say that for me personally, i don't really care what a problem is classified as so long as the help is there to help treat it.

hope you're not offended by this opinion.

peace & love,
roz
xx

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MINIME said:
Please dont treat me like I am a disease. Listen to me hear me and help me feel safe again. dont treat me like a child with a behavior problem. Dont judge me or talk down to me. Love me for the person I am and be a witness to my "trauma" help me put it in words. Help me learn that people are safe by showing me not telling me. I fought to stay alive and now i am fighting to live.

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Minime, you are a very wise young person, a survivor! You sound like you have good insight and you can identify what you need and you know who you are. These are the skills you need to get better!

I couldn't agree with you more. I think many in the helping professions do not really connect with their clients and this is really a shame. Connecting is half if not more of the helping! I think that a lot of them aren't connected with themselves so this is why they cannot connect with others.

I am so glad that I met you here! You are very special. I feel a connection with you already!

Just a little about my background. I did child protection for a year and a half after I finished my Master of Social Work. I was an ongoing case worker who was assigned the foster children. I loved these children! I stopped working when I had my first child and I have been a stay-home mom now for about a decade. I volunteer in the school system and my heart still goes out to young people because I feel that the childhood is so darn important (mine was very lacking so I know what it feels like!)

I tend to approach my mental health from a position of HEALTH rather than pathology. This is helpful to me. My therapist is the same way and has never told me I am ill. I think he sees me as healthy and normal, with some problems he can help me work out. There was one time he told me about a certain client, as an example, and he added, "but he was mentally ill," and I took that to mean something very different than most of the clients he works with, including myself. I currently have or have experienced depression, anxiety, and PTSD. But I have never been mentally ill.

What is most important to me is that I have this outlook, rather than other people.

well.. i just HAD to respond to this one.....

there are a lot of physiologic changes that occur in the body that create PTSD. One thing that happens in a very stressful situation is the amount of hormones in your body (specifically norepinephrine and epinephrine) increase dramtically as part of the 'fight or flight' complex of self-defense/preservation. its a NATURAL thing than happens in every animal on God's green earth.

blood in the extremities (arms/legs) is squeezed back so the organs and brain have enough oxygen and blood in order to respond to physical and mental stress.

other things happen - your kidneys almost completey stop making urine to stay hydrated. all food digestion nearly ceases. heart rate increases causing increased cardiac oxygen consumption and increase breathing effort. this is only the start and things increase as the stress levels increase.

simultaneously the vagus nerve which travels along the spine/aorta is sending LOADS of information back to the brain about stressed organs. the increased breathing effort helps calm the vagal nerve with constant massage through the diaphragms breathing motion.

there is a theory that when an individual is subjected to high stress levels that the norepi/epi levels in your brain have a direct role in memory retention related to the significant event. your brain is on overdrive trying to process all that is going on and is EXTREMELY focused in all the little details going on. this is why people who have traumatic experience have such an easy time recalling such small details about their event compared to the individual who is completely relaxed has such little retention about common everyday events.

PTSD can be triggered through similar high stress events that trigger SIMILAR circumstances. i will give this personal example to illustrate:

i was on a mission while deployed to iraq with my platoon to recover a downed civilian helicopter. no survivors were found as the helicopter was shot down with an RPG and crashed on impact. anyone who did live by jumping out was shot and burned. being a medic i was on the detail to recover all the bodies from the crash site as a security perimeter was established.

after the mission, and for some time afterwards, i couldnt go near a barbeque for the smell would put me in severe convulsions, throwing up uncontrollably until the smell was gone. even driving by someplace and having a smell was horrible. it took months for it to go away.

THAT is PTSD in a nutshell. sometimes its a day to day thing. sometimes its not. it all depends on the situation and how it reflects on the person. TBI (traumatic brain injury) can also play a SIGNIFICANT role in a persons behavior and is often confused with PTSD. bomb blasts and other significant forms of consussion makes physical changes in the brain and changes a persons behavior.

i hope this helps.

((( desertnurse1977 )))

I'm sorry you went through that. Thanks for sharing.

((( Everyone else ))) HUGS if okay.

I now recognize my first experience with PTSD (that I can remember -- memories before age 8 do not exist) when I was nine-years-old.

The sexual and/or violent death traumas continued to pile up daily for another ten years until I was finally removed from the situation. It was around then that it went into semi-retirement. (Meaning it only knocked me on my *** when something extremely stressful happened, not everyday.)

I thought I was tough as nails fighting it. In retrospect, I would've been "tougher" had I dealt with it then.

In 1991 it came back pretty bad, but I rose up and fought it with all my might. In 1996 it finally won and I fell on my *** hard. Even now I find that I stand up, dust myself off and BAM, the beast knocks me down again.

There were/are times when I would consider my PTSD to be a mental illness due to some of the symptoms I suffer/ed. But there are also times when I guess I could call it a psychiatric injury.

For me, both titles have the same consequences and both pack the same wallop, so again, for me, it doesn't really matter what you call it. Emotional trauma is fine with me also.

Here is some info off of a website that strongly feels PTSD is not an illness.

* * * * * *

Differences between mental illness and psychiatric injury.

The differences between hypervigilance and paranoia make a good starting point for identifying the differences between mental illness and psychiatric injury.

Paranoia is a form of mental illness; the cause is thought to be internal, eg a minor variation in the balance of brain chemistry.

Hypervigilance is a response to an external event (violence, accident, disaster, violation, intrusion, bullying, etc) and therefore an injury.

The paranoiac will not admit to feeling paranoid, as they cannot see their paranoia.

The hypervigilant person is acutely aware of their hypervigilance, and will easily articulate their fear, albeit using the incorrect but popularised word "paranoia."

The paranoiac often has delusions of grandeur; the delusional aspects of paranoia feature in other forms of mental illness, such as schizophrenia.

The hypervigilant person often has a diminished sense of self-worth, sometimes dramatically so.

The paranoiac is convinced of their self-importance.

The hypervigilant person is often convinced of their worthlessness and will often deny their value to others.

Paranoia is often seen in conjunction with other symptoms of mental illness, but not in conjunction with symptoms of PTSD.

Hypervigilance is seen in conjunction with other symptoms of PTSD, but not in conjunction with symptoms of mental illness.

The paranoiac is convinced of their plausibility.

The hypervigilant person is aware of how implausible their experience sounds and often doesn't want to believe it themselves (disbelief and denial).

The paranoiac feels persecuted by a person or persons unknown (eg "they're out to get me").

The hypervigilant person is hypersensitized but is often aware of the inappropriateness of their heightened sensitivity, and can identify the person/s responsible for their psychiatric injury.

The paranoiac is on constant alert because they "know" someone is out to get them.

The hypervigilant person is on alert in case there is danger.


Other differences between mental illness and psychiatric injury include:

Read More Here...

Dessert Nurse,

I am glad you posted this, because it is more than just choosing to" live a healthy way "

Anyone can get PTSD, no matter how mentally healthy they are or not. or what kind of past they have or not have.
Now your past and current mental health might determine how easily or hard you can recover from it. or you recover at all. But it isn't like, okay, today I will be live mentally healthy. I wish it was that easy. If you ever had one of my flashbacks or nightmares (which you can't control), you would then know a little how it feels. You can't control the automatic responses to triggers, where you body is ready to fight or flight. You can't just say, okay, now let me act mentally healthy.

This myth reminds me of the one who tells depressed people to just get over it and quite being lazy.

I think there is a significant difference between PTSD and Complex PTSD -- in fact some professionals recognize that. Complex PTSD typically results from prolonged trauma, usually in childhood.

Here is what Wikipedia has to say:

"A differentiation between the diagnostic categorizations of C-PTSD and that of Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been suggested, as C-PTSD better describes the pervasive negative impact of chronic trauma than does PTSD alone.

"As a descriptor, PTSD fails to capture some of the core characteristics of C-PTSD. These elements include psychological fragmentation, the loss of a sense of safety, trust, and self-worth, as well as the tendency to be revictimized, and, most importantly, the loss of a coherent sense of self. It is this loss of a coherent sense of self, and the ensuing symptom profile, that most pointedly differentiates C-PTSD from PTSD."

I also think this statement is not always true:

"this is why people who have traumatic experience have such an easy time recalling such small details about their event..."

because some victims can recall few or no details of their traumas -- due to the fact that the original stress can be so great that a young brain simply cannot handle it any other way than to blank it out, to make it "go away" or "unhappen" it mentally. I know this from personal experience.

The definition of PTSD does include much of that. (One reason I don't rely upon wiki )

I don't like the term mental illness. Mental unwellness, mental disorder.. those are quite correct though imo.

If thinking about this upsets anyone further (their having a mental illness) then don't think about it. Terms are useful to psychologists for plotting a course for healing, and for getting paid by the insurance companies for that course of therapy.

Its not possiable to just not think about it. If something upsets me I think that trying to find out what other people think their ideas and tell people what I think is healthy. I never meant for this to be a she is wrong he is right kinda post. No one will always agree on everything that would be impossiable. I am glad every one who wanted to responsed with their honest thoughts, I just no longe will be thinking of myself as mentally ill. I also think that therapists should be carfeul that they dont just start throwing schools of therapy at a person with ptsd until they both agree that the client has been heard and treated with love and compassion first. Thats what really helped me, I have been in good therapy for 6 months. My therapists listen to me hear what I have to say and let me breath. They have not tried to change me unless its self destructive stuff, they listen to me and talk to me and really care about me. One treid some DBT mindfulness and when it was not helping she stopped and just kept listening. They treat me as a person not as a dx.
I understand that insurance needs lables, but those lables really can hurt. When I stopped looking at myself as sick or ill and just as a person who has had severe trauma, and is reacting normally becasue of it I feal more at peace with my feelings and reactions. I dont have to fix something that is broken I have to understand it accept it and talk about it and trough love and understanding from good therapists I am healing. I dont think I am a stupid stagnated person any more. Im not a victem or a survivor I am just me, and thats ok. This is just what works for me. Other people may need different things. Please lets just enjoy that we have this place to share our opinions and feelings and take what we can from each other and leave what doesnt help.

> The definition of PTSD does include much of that. (One reason I don't rely upon wiki )

Do a Google search on Complex PTSD. You will find a number of items. There is a reason why the term Complex was added to just PTSD -- it is not identical.

i don't have much to add to this...except that the symptoms suck (sorry) and it seems so unfair that the persons who have caused my ptsd seem to be so unscathed... lyn