ptsd

...repeated trauma in childhood forms and deforms the personality. The child trapped in an abusive environment is faced with formidable tasks of adaptation. She must find a way to preserve a sense of trust in people who are untrustworthy, safety in a situation that is unsafe, control in a situation that is terrifyingly unpredictable, power in a situation of helplessness. Unable to care for or protect herself, she must compensate for the failures of adult care and protection with the only means at her disposal, an immature system of psychological defenses.

Some survivors can be wary of most people, yet blinded by compassion toward fellow survivors or others who suffer _ or who pretend to suffer, or exaggerate their sufferings, in order to take advantage of the survivor. Some survivors overidentify with other survivors, not realizing that even if someone was traumatized or suffers in a similar way, it doesn__ necessarily mean that person is honest. Being either overly suspicious or overly trusting can create problems with a partner who is able to judge the sincerity of others more realistically.

There are edges around the black and every now and then a flash of color streaks out of the gray. But I can never really grasp any of the slivers of memories that emerge.

Imagine this garden; one you__e planted from seed, cultivated with love. When the seeds break the ground, they seek sunshine, warmth, and nutrients. The seeds have no control over the weather.They are as dependent on it as we are on our minds. You may have control over the location of your garden, the frequency with which you tend to it, and the amount of care you give it, but you can__ control the weather.It may be sunny one day, rainy the next. You prop the vines in the hopes they will flourish once the rain passes. And they may, until the next rain comes. The weather changes, sometimes without warning. Sometimes you can see it coming, much like the triggers a depressed person avoids, and you try to protect the plants before the storm. The intensity of the labor can get frustrating, especially if there is no relief in sight.One day, a tornado or hurricane passes through. Even though you see it on the horizon, you can__ stop it and you may not be able to seek shelter soon enough. The plants are torn from their roots, the garden completely destroyed. You may have thought you could protect it yourself, that the storm wouldn__ be that bad, or you simply didn__ know how or were afraid to ask for help. Your neighbors and family couldn__ help or didn__ know you needed help. The garden is gone. This is the way of depression; if you don__ have it, it__ very difficult to understand this cycle.

The next significant incident would change Steven forever: an apartment building fire. Steven and another officer arrived to the sounds of the screams of parents desperately trying to find their children. They ran inside believing there were three children trapped; they scooped them up and ran outside with a feeling of elation and relief. They had saved the children from certain death. The feeling was short lived. A frantic mother approached them, __here__ my daughter?__teven and the other officer tried to reenter the building but the fire had become too intense. All they could do was watch in horror as a partial wall of the building collapsed, revealing the child__ location. They could see and hear her, but they couldn__ save her. Her screams were mixed with the screams of her mother. Eventually her screams were silenced and she was no longer visible. Her mother continued to wail in pain, others dropped to their knees and sobbed while the first responders choked back their own tears and finished their jobs, the emotion overwhelming. Every person on the scene was altered that day. A piece of every one of them became part of the ashes.

It's safer for you to stay with the others,' he said.Safer? He didn't realize.I was already dead.

Our tears are trying to serve a purpose, but we rarely let them. I don't know how we got started with subverting that purpose.

You die a little inside every time you have joyless sex. Neurons prune back. The good in there withers. And some things never grow back.

I think the therapists around this place think that if you know yourself, then somehow you__l be better and healthier and you__l be able to leave this place and live out your days as a happy and loving human being. Happy. Loving. I hate those words. I__ supposed to like them. I__ supposed to want them. I don__. Don__ like them, don__ want them. This is the way I see it: if you get to know yourself really well, you might discover that deep down inside you__e just a dirty, disgusting, and selfish piece of shit. What if my heart is all rotted out and corrupted? What about that? What am I supposed to do with that information? Just tell me that. Most of the time I get the feeling that I__ just an animal disguised as an eighteen-year-old guy. At least I__ hoping that maybe deep down inside I__ a coyote.

For me, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is like a good friend. A necessary girlfriend, but with chronic PMS. A temperamental _ and even volatile _ friend who does not play well with others and whom I dearly love. It__ a strange relationship.

I have attempted for years to make fun of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is a dangerous game. It__ similar to poking fun at the largest, scariest bully at your school and assuming you won__ get beat up.

It fascinated me how depression and anxiety overlap with post-traumatic stress disorder. Had we been through some trauma we didn't know about? Was the noise and speed of modern life the trauma for our caveman brains? Was I that soft? Or was life a kind of war most people didn't see?

When I have flash backs from PTSD I wish my mind came with a delete key.

Physical symptoms such as muscle tension, back problems, stomach distress, constipation, diarrhea, headaches, obesity or maybe even hypertension can be caused by suppressing your emotions. Suppressed anger may also cause you to overreact to people and situations or to act inappropriately. Unexpressed anger can cause you to become irritable, irrational, and prone to emotional outbursts and episodes of depression.

I__ not flailing now, as my muscles are rigid with the tension of holding myself together. The pain over my heart returns, and from it I imagine tiny fissures spreading out into my body. Through my torso, down my arms and legs, over my face, leaving it crisscrossed with cracks. One good jolt _ and I could shatter into strange, razor-sharp shards.

Have I gone mad like Anne and no one has the heart to tell me? I wish someone would tell me, I feel crazy enough though.

I keep moving ahead, as always, knowing deep down inside that I am a good person and that I am worthy of a good life.

The prediction of false rape-related beliefs (rape myth acceptance [RMA]) was examined using the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (Payne, Lonsway, & Fitzgerald, 1999) among a nonclinical sample of 258 male and female college students. Predictor variables included measures of attitudes toward women, gender role identity (GRI), sexual trauma history, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity. Using linear regression and testing interaction effects, negative attitudes toward women significantly predicted greater RMA for individuals without a sexual trauma history.However, neither attitudes toward women nor GRI were significant predictors of RMA for individuals with a sexual trauma history."Rape Myth Acceptance, Sexual Trauma History, and Posttraumatic Stress DisorderShannon N. Baugher, PhD,Jon D. Elhai, PhD,James R. Monroe, PhD, Ruth Dakota, Matt J. Gray, PhD