Dealing With PTSD

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Hello everybody. It's been a long time since I've been on here. I think it was like September or something. Anyways, if you haven't read any of my other blog posts (or specifically my last couple), I basically start complaining about how depressed I am and so on so forth. One of the posts talks about my mother and some very scary things she's done. She ran around the and threatened to kill me and locked me outside while she went to her doctor's appointment. A couple of months later, she abandoned my family for a couple of days then came back like nothing happened. That's a summary of a really long post I did.
Anyways, getting to the point, I think I have PTSD. Here are the reasons I think why:
- Whenever my parents even have a minor little fight, I get these vivid flashbacks, immediately have a panic attack and spend the rest of the day being hyper-vigilant. It must be sort of funny from another persons point of view, me sitting in a corner hyperventilating.
- I have flashbacks all the time, randomly. During these flashbacks, I feel intense fear. It's nothing you could really tell from looking at me. My heart rate speeds up and a get a little pump of adrenaline as if something bad is happening, even though my mom is in a perfectly good mood.
- I had untreated insomnia for a couple of months, but that was treated by melatonin, which seems to work perfectly fine.
- I have constant anxiety. Most of the time, it's not towards any specific subject or idea, just plain old anxiety.
- I used to constantly misbehave in school, which I think was misdirected rage towards the teachers about my mother. I seem to be doing better in school. This is because I'm taking to anti-anxiety meds. These are buspirone and fluvoxamine. I tried lorazepam for two days but it had the opposite effect. It made me really aggressive. I think the fluvoxamine is the most helpful.
As you can see the meds are helping the anxiety, slightly. This is majorly at school though. I've educated myself about PTSD, but I couldn't really find out whether it goes away within time.
Here are my official diagnoses:
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder
- Obssesive Compulsive Disorder
- Aspergers Syndrome
- Macrocephaly(which basically means big head )
- Asthma
- Tourettes

So, with the combination of all of these anxiety disorders, it's still pretty hard. I also probably have depression, but I'm not officially diagnosed. Anyways, getting to the questions:

- What are some good ways of dealing with PTSD and other anxiety disorders?
- Does PTSD diminish with time? (It's been almost a year since the traumatizing events)
- Does it seem like AS is really playing a role in this?
Any answer would be appreciated, thanks!

I have Asperger's and PTSD. I can tell you for starters, it doesn't go away with time.

GAD and OCD can cover pretty much your symptoms that you listed. Please talk to your doctor about an appropriate evaluation before assuming you have PTSD. It is a very serious condition, not something you should be trying to self-dx or self-treat.

First, my heart breaks for you in what you have gone through, unfortunately it is all too common. My son (13) and daughter (12) were abused by their father when they were much younger. My daughter probably exeriences clasic P.T.S.D. symptoms which seemed to be very similar to what you have, hers have been ongoing for the last 7 years. However over time the flashbacks which are horrendous slowly eased, she had what really amounted to 'talk' therapy or psychotherapy and I found it limited it what it could do or how useful it was for her. Initially her symptoms were so extreme that she couldn't hear what I was saying and the best thing was when she started on fluvoxamine, then for the first time she started to calm down and was able to hear what I was saying. I have worked with her mostly so each time she would experience flashbacks etc. I would hold her until it passed and then when we could we talked about what she had experienced and if any thoughts had triggered it specifically. We have worked with a child psychiarist but really that was only for regulating meds. She recommended C.B.T. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy but my daughter did not feel like she could cope with seeing any more professionals at the time.

She eventually was unable to cope with attending school she was on the verge of what seemed like a breakdown, I took both children out of school (my son had different issues but just as debilitating) and have home schooled them since, which has helped them not feel 'on stage' all the time and trying to cope in front of their peers.

As time has passed things have eased with not many symptoms, however in 2010 my daughter took up therapeutic horse riding and it was going well until a fall from her horse brought back symptoms again, the worst one being the hypervilligance. Although she got back on again to ride and I thought she was coping well until I noticed she was not focused on the horse but was scanning all around her anticipating that something bad was going to happen at any minute. As the weeks went by matters got worse and she was getting more and more anxious and eventually she was so alarmed by her surroundings and the fact that she couldn't control anything or what other people were doing, even people just watching she was worried about. Her last lesson I thought she was going to past out or throw-up or both she stopped riding at that point. She is now working on a special way of working with horses and training them to try to get her confidence back and perhaps be able to ride again one day.

The psychiarist said most people with P.T.S.D. would not have got back on the horse given her background of trauma. I suspect realisticly your symptoms will ease with time but you may have something else in your life that comes along, something accidental, that triggers the hypervilligance for example.

You should not be dealing with this on your own, who do you have around you that you can seek help from? I don't know what professionals you see but can someone else go with you and explain what is going on, or do you have a school counsellor that you could trust to talk to. I don't know if you want your mom knowing, if she is better herself then maybe she could accept what her behavour did to you. It really doesn't sound like you have the support you need. I think someone needs to be there to help you work through this. Is your dad on the scene, perhaps he could help and get you into C.B.T. therapy which would be your best option.

PM me if you need to if I can make anything else clearer and send me some links to your other blogs.

I wish you well.

Lorraine

I meant to say too that the P.T.S.D. from the abuse masked underlying symptoms that my son had of Asperger's, which clearly has been present all along but the professionals we dealt with believed that his issues were all because of the abuse and only recently have they accepted that this is not the case. It is my understand also the P.T.S.D. can also be part of the symptoms or a co-morbid with Asperger's for those who have been bullied and this too would also fit as my son was pretty much bullied everyday he was in school.

I am glad to hear that you have a therapist. She hopefully will be in the best position to decide if you have P.T.S.D. based on what you have told her and she should be able to answer your questions and concerns. She may not give an official diagnoses though based on her qualifications as you have to be a psychiarist or psychologist in Canada to do that. We did psychotherapy before this so the therapist would only give his opinion saying my daughter showed signs of P.T.S.D. until a psychiarist eventually diagnosed her.

I am a veteran with PTSD and Veteran Affairs is the leading authority on PTSD in the world just because they deal with it in more volume and severity then any other organization in the world.

Here is there screening with some helpful notes in PDF form
PTSD SCREEN

My PTSD got worse before it got better, the only thing that helped was talking to others about it and sharing my stories with other veterans with PTSD. I couldn't sleep or walk the streets. I refused to go out at night for almost a year. That same year I was never more then an arm's reach from a weapon I could defend myself with. My psychiatrist who first diagnosed me with PTSD said my childhood set me up for severe PTSD. My parents yelled, smashed things and my mom got smacked around sometimes. After they divorced my mother was insane and I was the verbal punching bag and she was relentless. After 6 years away from home I am staying with her for a month and she is the same person. She has a bad day at work and just starts yelling at me for no reason and makes up new reasons to yell that have nothing to do with what she is talking about. I tell her please calm down, stop yelling, but she gets worse.

Right now I am sitting next to my taser because I won't feel safe enough to breath otherwise. I will sleep with it tonight too. Does PTSD ever get better? No but hopefully you have good days with the bad days. If your not lucky and it is really bad you just have bad days. Why do you think there are so many drunk homeless veterans? They drink to pass out so they don't remember their nightmares.

I don't know you well but you are young and I don't think you are near that far gone, just work on it, talk about it with people who know what you are going through and it will get better. When you get triggers you will feel it again, sometimes like it was happening all over again. Other people with PTSD will help you more then professionals but don't stop seeing them! medication can help too.

I forgot to include one key sentence:

After the first traumatic event, something clicked in my brain. Now I'm always stressed. Before that event, I was a completely normal person and was perfectly happy with my life.