PTSD from years of being exposed to school firedrills.

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Hi everyone I was wondering if anyone else has a diagnosis of PTSD because of being exposed to fire alarms at school because of noncomplied IEPs regarding removal from the building prior to a school firedrill because that was in my IEP as dr's suggested this and the principal agreed but the aide/parapro decided not to comply to all of these requests and made me participate with the rest of the class just like everyone else and my anxiety got so bad i had to graduate in 10th grade because my drs and psychologists agreed it was the best thing for me?

I doubt if you "got to graduate" because of PTSD caused by fire drills.

You must have done something right in order to graduate in 10th grade.

I was never traumatized by fire drills. In fact like most students I was probably secretly hoping the school really was on fire and we'd get dent home, and maybe it would even burn to the ground.

Now those fallout drills they had in the 50's-60's? I can understand why that would induce trauma and paranoia in anyone. When I was in my early teens I saw some show whose name I can't remember, where a little girl is told by another kid at school about nukes and dying a slow, horrible death from radiation poisoning, and then she puts tinfoil all over her room and her pet guinea pig's cage because she didn't want his hair to fall out. Even worse there was an actual bomb scare, and she and her family moved into a bomb shelter. Everything turned out okay at the end, but I was very upset by this episode. Maybe I should go to Kindertrauma and post it in "Name that Trauma".

worked hard til grade 10 then my fire alarm sensitivity got worse and there was no point in keeping me in school because of my extreme problems with math, (Have a shunt) and have dyscalculalia, a disability in math so i got out of school early and started working at a sheltered workshop then volunteered for the elderly in an apartment, showing silent films and making bagged meals.

Will you be going to college/university?

kraftiekortie probably not until maybe there's a fire science camp made specifically for the sound sensitive and disabled.

I had a petit male seizure once during a fire alarm at work and now if I'm anywhere where they happen regularly I file something with HR and they have to give me warning to get out of the building. I would imagine it would be harder to pursue anything on the grounds of PTSD.

I was painfully aware that if it had been a REAL fire, I would have be left sitting there in my cube starting blankly ahead while everyone else escaped. I suppose I would have woken up in the Great Beyond.

I, for one, am glad you're still here.

Lol, thanks. Me too.

I hate fire drills too. They are pretty annoying.

PTSD was originally shell shock and described a syndrome in men home from war where they would have flashbacks and not realize where they were and what was going on. It's now to the point where we are saying that people have it from fire drills?

I guess PTSD is being changed in the DSM so that anybody who has bad memories can claim it, or people who get nervous about something because of a bad experience can claim it.

I wonder what they will come up with now to call shell shock?

It is common practice for medical technology to make leaps and strides during periods of intense warfare. Unfortunately, psychiatric conditions have languished a bit. Shell shock was first described during the great war as you suddenly had a large population of veterans who were experiencing these symptoms. It was generally untreated, and there were some soldiers who were executed for actions they took caused by shell shock. There was a general consensus that shell shock was caused by a defect in moral character. This attitude is still prevalent in society today. By world war 2 it was called combat stress reaction, and there were more steps in place to help returning veterans. Currently there are a couple different diagnoses depending on the circumstances and what phase it is at. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder seems to get the most media attention however. It has taken two world wars and a bunch of conflicts for PTSD to really be treated seriously in the veteran population. It is currently starting to be recognized in the civilian population. It is more than just 'having bad memories.'

Again, it seems to be hard for people to understand that psychiatric conditions are legitimate for some reason. Every person is different, and every person experiences the same events entirely in a unique and different way. Some people can't handle events that others crave. This isn't a defect of moral character, this is a biological consequence of the way we are made.

Yes PTSD covers more than torture and war, but when it starts being used in the vernacular as a synonym for "traumatized" and "traumatized" has already become a synonym for "very upset" then the line between dx and talk blurs. I'm not saying the medical community is diagnosing every Tom, Dick and Henrietta with it, I'm saying that many people are claiming it after reading up about it online. We are a society of medical consumers so we feel entitled to dx ourselves with things that are dx'd by talking and analyzing thoughts and feelings. Same with self dx of AS. ADHD has become a synonym for hyper kid, and every parent without a dx and a bratty kid claims it. Some of them have it, but many don't but the parents insist they do even though they haven't had them evaluated for it. In the 90s evaluated for it meant filling out a form and turning it in, because of the number of parents claiming their kids had it. I was gullible enough for that too and I do think mine had it because the meds helped. I do not have it and ADHD meds have the opposite effect on me. I'm jittery and want to move around. I may get interested in something but can't switch topics.

OCD has now become simply being very neat. Or being obsessive about things. In the vernacular it is nothing at all like the actual disorder. People claim it. Tell your boss you are taking so long on a project because you have OCD and want it perfect and he's not going to dare ask you for a dr's note saying it, he doesn't want to get sued. Even if you do have it, others who are claiming it for every little quirk are making a mockery out of it, the same as those who get upset when somethng reminds them of their past or they flinch at a sound are doing with PTSD for those who do have it.

Once it's in the vernacular as a description of common behavior, then you can forget ever knowing who has it and who doesn't and you'll find more claiming it who don't have it than those claiming it who do have it.

Thats all I'm saying. I'm not saying it's only one thing and the scope hasn't widened. I'm saying people self dx too much based on online reading and their own gut. We are supposed to take them without question because to question them would not be polite, politically correct or god forbid it might trigger them.

I understand where you're coming from and I share your frustration. I agree that there will always be that group that jumps on the medical bandwagon and claims whatever the latest is. They even have a name for it when it's pretty serious, it's called Munchausen syndrome. And when parents do it on behalf of their kids it's called Muchausen by Proxy. Usually that is only in cases when the pretending to have illnesses causes legitimate injury or even death. We'll always have the lesser version of this, no matter what. We'll get less of it when the biological basis is well understood and there are objective diagnostic tests for psychiatric issues. The problem these days is without those tests, it's very easy for someone to look at a definition with their own understanding of it and think that applies to them.

In the mean time though, being polite isn't really a bad thing, is it? I've always tried not to say anything I'd regret for longer than I took to think about it.
As for the rest of it, I don't think you need to take them without question. If someone claims a certain ailment or disorder it is appropriate for conversation in that setting, since they brought it up. As long as you're polite about it I would think you can ask any questions you want.

Not exactly, but it was incorrect to only apply it to war trauma like in the past....but its not really to the point anyone with bad memories can claim it. You have to fit a certain symptom criteria and the trauma has to be such that it makes you feel in danger and basically puts your body in fight or flight, and in some people they don't return to the base level and remain in a state of hyperarousal/being more anxious then of course there are the unpleasant flashbacks.

Also shell shock is an old term, now would be catagorized as PTSD....But part of the reason for the name change was not all trauma severe enough to cause the disorder is war/combat related whearas the term shell-shock directly refers to that kind of trauma particularly having missles fired at you while having to run into bullets during WW1 is where that term came from.

Do you have a proper high school diploma or GED?

If not, you will want to consider (1) getting treatment for your PTSD (CBT THERAPY, desensitization therapy, medication, etc can help you overcome or manage your fear of fire drills and (2) finding a smaller or online high school or GED class to attend in the meantime.

If you've graduated, then your school's careers office or a local disability services office can help you figure out what (if any) post-secondary education is needed.