Diagnosed

How can you be diagnosed with PTSD if you dont remember trauma?

Have you asked the psychiatrists who have diagnosed you to explain how you fit the criteria?

Maybe they could tell by your reactions to things they said to you?

Idk I know I get extremely uncomfortable about the topic of sexual abuse. I start not listening, I feel embarrassed etc. but I dont have nightmares. I dont remember trauma, I have anxiety around some sexual things. So I dont know how they came up with that.

After being born and rejected by birth mother. I went to adoptive mother in a state of trauma.
The tell take signis - my adoptive mother said "your father brought you home. Put you on the sofa, and that was that. You never cried for food. Infact you never cried. It like we had no baby.

T gets angry hearing that. She says you were traumatised.
It wasn't that you were a" good" baby. You were a baby in shock.
What happened to that trauma?

Well. She says, you didn't become psychotic. But you learnt to split those parts off.
But even today. All these years later. Whrn I'm triggered. I lie fetal not moving. Not able to talk or communicate. Just frozen in fear.
I live as if under constant attack because of the abuse and rape that compounded the initial trauma.

The body remembers even if the mind doesn't.
There is no me before trauma.
Even inveto there was trauma (birth mother alcoholic arrested during pregnancy)

The body remembers! The symptoms I could tick off day and night.

To me what your providers do seems very dangerous in that sense that they are basically suggesting that you had a sexual trauma, which totally might not be the case. However, it is known that it's possible to implant memories to peoples minds about events that never happened by suggestion and later it might be impossible to discriminate which memory is actually true and which is a result of therapists suggestion.

PTSD is just a label and as a label, it requires a traumatic event. However, many people also accept another label CPTSD which does not exists in diagnostic manuals and which is a fuzzy term but in general means that the trauma is complex and it might be impossible to spot any particular traumatic events, although trauma symptoms are there. For instance, emotional neglect seems produce this kind of trauma.

The things you describe that you are uncomfortable of sexual things are not proof of sexual trauma. Sexuality is one of the most intimate part of the person. If the person was not accepted and was neglected then this can give rise to general low self esteem, problems with sexuality, interpersonal problems.

My personal opinion is that your T would do you much bigger favor if she would stop looking for a sexual trauma that perhaps was never there but work with the material that is there (e.g. emotions, memories) and try to understand their meanings.

The diagnosis itself is irrelevant, this is mostly only for insurance purposes.

Yes, but it is much more complicated than that. I have had extreme anxiety about sexual things since I was 8. Someone said the word ding dong when I was 8 and I had a panic attack and nearly ended up in an orphanage because my mom couldnt handle the anxiety I was having over anything sexual that was said or seen. I have had bad impulses to touch people innapropriately since 8. I have had this idea that woman who are sexually traumatized are sexy some how since I was 8. My mom had a talk with me and my sister about sexual abuse and I had panic attacks. Much more I could tell you. If that doesn't come from sexual trauma I dont know what does. My therapist does say well so and so may be from sexual trauma. She does try to see if I can remember things through EMDR but she is much more careful not to say who she thinks it was. She had stated she thought it was my mother but she said she was sorry she mentioned it after I said there was no proof of it. She is a trauma based therapist so I am not sure she would be doing her job if she wasn't focusing on that. I am a survivor of emotional abuse but I dont understand where the sexual issues came in.

I understand what you say, but it is much more useful to focus and work on things that you can remember than ruminate over stuff you can't. For instance, why don't you focus on emotional neglect. Also, the fact that a child would almost end up in an orphanage because the mother cannot handle the child's panic attack should already give plenty of important material to work with. Why don't you work with that? Neglect such as this is already enough to produce a trauma and this is what your trauma therapist could focus on. You have better chances to find about your sexual issues when you start exploring things that you remember about rather than obsessing about potential sexual trauma that potentially never happened.

People get diagnosed (both in physical and mental health) with all sorts of things based on symptoms but not knowing the cause clearly. From your posts, it does seem like you cannot just let this whole thing go. I agree with those saying it is dangerous (also also ineffective) to push something you don't remember. Perhaps you could focus on working to ease the symptoms though? The discomfort around the sexual abuse topic. Many people with all sorts of PTSD find it helpful to develop coping strategies for the anxiety, when symptoms surface. After all, the symptoms are the problem, the original trauma was done and cannot be changed.

I had (maybe still have) classic PTSD symptoms due to a chan of interconnected traumatic events in adulthood. It led to major avoidance and the avoidance just exacerbated the problems and allowed the chain to progress for the worse. I could not do anything about the initial events in the past but could definitely step in to break the chain, face my anxiety, exposed myself to dealing with it no matter how much panic, and get out of avoidance. Not an easy task and it wasn't completely linear, but very efficient in the end. I did not use therapy for it at all.

Because I still have those same sexual issues I had as a child. That is what causes problems in my daily life. Not the fact that my mother was crappy. I go to pet the dog I have an impulse to touch it in a sexual manner, if my little cousin sits next to me same impulse, my dad sits next to me same impulse, watch Law and Order Svu impulse to press privates to chair. I go through this everyday. Not the fact that my mom stunk as a mom. Yes it hurts I dont have a good mother. Is it going to change-no. Am I going to find someone to take her place- haven't yet. We are working on the impulses themselves. Trying to figure out how to stop them. I want to know where they came from though. I want to know there was a cause and I was just not born this way. I want there to have been a sexual cause because if there wasn't and I touched animals and my younger sister when I was little. I am just a born freak.

I am not a T or psychiatrist but this does not sound like PTSD for me, more an issue with intrusive thoughts. How could you ever know where they come from though? Maybe you were indeed just born this way, for some reason your brain tends to arouse in this way. It's not evil. Why do you need to stop the thoughts at all? If they cause you anxiety, that would be a good reason but perhaps more effective to try and accept them somehow? Who knows about them anyway if you don't act out? Thoughts and feelings are not wrong on their own.

Because I dont want to have been born this way. I have acted I was under 18 but I was 16 and should have know better.

I worry that you will end up believing something that may not be true, without any solid evidence to support it, simply because you want to believe it.

I like the advice to work with the issues and memories that you do have, that you are sure about.

Also, I wonder if you have ever heard of the comedian Maria Bamford? She has some material about her experience with intrusive thoughts that might be interesting to you.

I think intrusive sexual thoughts are pretty common. I occasionally have them, but don't act on them. And I am pretty sure I was never sexually abused. I think working with your therapist on how to handle the thoughts when you have them is best.

I dont have any memories.

Were your mother or others in your childhood punitive and condemning of sexuality and sexual impulses/acts? That would explain something like your issue better than sexual assault. It sounds like your problem is feeling guilt/shame about impulses that most people have and do not feel negatively about, or not this much. As for the childhood acts of touching and curiosity, that is also very common, many kids do that and grow into perfectly healthy adults. But you seem to have so much anxiety/shame over it. I would probably try to figure out why that is rather than trying to eliminate the thoughts and impulses, which might well be an impossible endeavor and forcing might just make it worse and induce more shame.

She was but that doesnt explain the impulses themselves and why a 16 year old would feel extreme anxiety around the thought of touching a dogs mouth to there privates even though they really didn't want to but felt compelled to and did . Or having extreme anxiety while tickiling her much younger sister and an overwhelming impulse to touch her. Only by the grace of God I did not. Also other things I have done as a teenager I cant speak if it. I just dont understand why someone would have so much anxiety about committing a sexual act. Like fighting with themselves in their head. Saying that is horrible dont do that. Then they do it because the urge is overwhelming. I understand the whole treat whats going on and I am doing that. Being born that way just isn't acceptable and it's making me think of harming myself but I wont. I have identified three different components to my impulses. 1) is the out of the blue impulse- this one is just the impulse I may touch someone innapropriately because I am near them but I am not attracted to them. Like walking a blind friend to the phone. I might have a really anxiety producing thought to touch her breast. It goes away then comes back again with something else. 2) is the triggered part- if I watch Law and Order Svu and something comes on about sexual abuse. I have impulses to touch my privates to the chair. 3) the attraction part- impulse that I will touch someone that I am attracted to. I have seen at least 30 psych docs and therapists. I have been diagnosed with every single psychiatric disorder from Ocd to ptsd to DID and no one can tell me where this comes from because I don't remember anything trauma that could have set this off. I am so frustrated. I told my T i was feeling a little suicidal and she said do you need to go to the hospital I said no and that was it. She doesnt care, my family doesnt care, no one cares.

These sorts of things can come from pure biology as well, not everything is related to trauma/environment even though a lot of things are. There are also cases similar to yours (people so preoccupied and anxious about sexual impulses) where they were actually harshly reprimanded and punished, by parents or other authority figures, for touching themselves and being curious about their genitalia. Sometimes people don't remember being punished because it was so early in infancy. Of course, what can such treatment achieve? The child becoming even more curious about something forbidden and also very shameful for the interest. It can generate just more and stronger impulses because it is not accepted and they are trying to suppress it.

You still have not said anything I would consider abnormal or even unusual. I have heard similar thoughts, impulses and also experiences from countless people. Normal people who do not hurt anyone but were curious kids and are still curious and sexually responsive adults. Your impulses don't sound out of proportion to me, but the associated shame and trying to eradicate them is.

BTW, when I was a young kid, I routinely got turned on by watching crime drama on TV. I had no idea it was sexual arousal though back then, just that "weird" feeling. No one knew about it, I think this is first time I ever shared it with others because I mostly forgot a did not think it was wrong. It's interesting and am really not sure how it worked. I am very confident I did not experience sexual abuse and my family was not punitive about sexuality either. I think it is interesting, a little weird, but not wrong at all. As an adult, I sometimes have fantasies about violent sex and am not averse to watching stuff like that. I was never assaulted in that way, not even mildly, and have no interest in participating. Just thoughts and fantasies.

I don't think random sexual thoughts are uncommon. I have them too. And I am also turned on by things like SVU and stories of sexual abuse. A lot of women have fantasies about that kind of thing.

You guys dont think abusing younger children and impulses to touch animals and children is abnormal?

What do you mean by abusing younger children? You said you never did that as an adult. Kids touch each-other quite often. I did it with other kids as well, some were a bit older, others younger, and some my age. But all of them kids. Also had similar curiosity about animals, many times. So many people do - just think about all the porn created about it. Won't say about doing it but thinking it - why would it be wrong or abnormal?

I was 16 when I did those things. Not normal with younger children like 8 years difference in age.

Not in childhood, no.

I think you are obsessive about these thoughts. But no - I don't think those thoughts are terribly unusual in themselves. I think many many many people have sexual thoughts like yours.

So many many many people have sexual thoughts about many many many different things. We are sexual beings. Children are sexual beings. Part of my work is with young people and am no longer shocked by any sexual things that children do. Normal healthy well-adapted children stimulate themselves, each other, masturbate, grind themselves against tables, furniture, animals (yes! they do that!). Children are curious about adult bodies, each others bodies, their own bodies, and animals bodies too. Many children have explored sexuality with same aged peers and younger peers. It is a NORMAL part of human sexuality. The adults job is to teach children where and when those behaviors are acceptable. (ie in private)

It becomes problematic when children are taught to be ashamed of their bodies.
It becomes problematic when a much older child forces a younger child against their will.
It becomes a problem when you reach maturity and act out sexually inappropriate ways, such as breaking the laws of your country. If you are an adult filled with all kinds of impulses about sexual behavior that violates the laws of your country and you are unable to control your behavior, then you need help to develop control over those impulses. If you are an adult and haven't broken the laws of your country then you're all good.

But seriously. FORGIVE yourself for what you did when you were a child. You were a CHILD and society doesn't hold children legally accountable for actions for the simple reason that they are children. If you are an adult now your job is to not act on those impulses but to choose morally and legally acceptable behavior instead.

If you have had sexual thoughts about children but have not acted on them and have the self control to continue not act on them, then you're all good. Welcome to humanity and the world of sexual impulses.

Personally I think it is not common for someone age 16 to do that, but at the same time I think it is more common that people would suspect. Sixteen year olds are filled with hormones and their sexuality is kicking up into a different gear. At the same time sixteen year olds have undeveloped temporal lobes. Their rational thinking and self-control hasn't fully come online yet. That is precisely why many societies do not hold 16 year olds legally accountable for their actions. They are not fully developed - they are still kids.

The scenario you set - a sixteen year old driven by hormones exploring sexual behavior with an 8 year old is not the actions of a morally depraved human being but a 16 year old kid with undeveloped temporal lobes driven by hormones and lacking in self-control.

So you know... cut yourself some slack. I don't think you need to call yourself a sexual predator based on behavior from when you were a child. Besides... sexual predators don't throw themselves under the bus like this. Sexual predators do everything in their power to hide their actions and inclinations so they can continue to do them.

As I said... if you still lack the self control to not act on sexual impulses in ways that break the laws of your society as an adult, then get some help. But judge yourself of you level of self control now, and not that which you had when you were 16 years old.

One of the possible factors contributing into sexual obsessions is when a family has some hidden issues around sexuality. There might be some family secrets related to sexual behaviors that children know nothing about on a conscious level but they pick up on the parents' emotions around this issue. This could result in sexual stimulation in the early age.

Another factor that contributes is when the child is emotionally neglected and deprived of non-sexual physical closeness with the parents that provides comforting and sense of safety. When the person had experienced natural non-sexual physical closeness with the parents, especially with the mother, they could, at least, distinguish it from a sexual touch and this helps to control unwanted sexual impulses. It may be difficult to control sexual impulses if physical touch is only understood in sexual way.

Of course, I have no idea what's going on in your case. I am just thinking of different possibilities.

In terms of PTSD, I wouldn't take this label or any diagnostic label seriously. Psychiatric diagnoses aren't like medical diagnoses. There are no objective medical tests to support them and no established treatment procedures. Every behavior or state of mind could be looked at from more than one perspective and each one of them would be correct. With the current DSM version (which is the worst of all that have been published), the value of all those labels is just to file for insurance coverage.