Struggling to accept my PTSD diagnosis

Almost the exact same thing happened to me, my psychiatrist believes that I thought it was normal and not really all that traumatic because I had to deal with it by myself for so long and the only way my brain could deal with it is making it seem less bad, this also kinda happens with something called “blanketing” , your brain blocks out the worst parts of those traumatic memories to protect you.

Yeah that’s how it was for me too

I thought my PTSD diagnosis was a cop out dx until I started getting better and then I realized what I had experienced was, in fact, wildly abnormal, and my responses to those experiences were understandable, but not healthy or sustainable long-term. Kind of like how people say you never know what you have until it's gone, but in a good way this time

Ok, what you described isn’t normal by any means & I would assume that you could easily have PTSD. I went through much less & was diagnosed with it after my diagnosis of fibromyalgia. My sister has also spent time in psych wards & was misdiagnosed as having bipolar disorder, etc. but the whole time it was trauma. It really messes up your brain & trauma affects everyone differently. Some people can’t cope well early on & other like me blocked it out & pressed on with life until I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Your brain doesn’t forget & trauma manifests in different was like anxiety, depression, chronic pain, etc.

So the diagnosis was first brought up last year when I ended up in a psych ward (fun times!) and it was a topic that would be talked among doctors but I was not properly tested. And then I started seeing my new therapist around a month ago and she concluded yesterday that I do in fact have it. You know how to be considered for having it you have to score 21 points? Well I scored 37 lmao. And then there’s not one set thing that happened, like if we start early on, my dad is a colonel in my country and abused his power to persecute my mom (abused of my mom as well), my mom and grandma had cancer at the same time (I was around 4) my grandma died, I was sexually abused by two different people, one of them being in my family (it started when I was 6-10 y/o) terrible car accident, gun held to my face, protests/war where my mom and sisters got hurt because of the police (I come from one of the most dangerous countries in the world -Vzla) physical punishments (being hit with a broom, chair, the metal part of the belt, thrown hot coffee to my face, slapped, twisting my skin in my arms, pulled hair, pushed me, thrown stuff at me, my dog lmao she really threw my dog at me cause she couldn’t find anything else to throw, etc) being persecuted many times like in car, by foot, anywhere, they were always following, and then moving here to the US because we were being now persecuted by the government,(they would leave pictures of saints, white tissue, leaves in a specific position, dead white rats in front of the house which would mark the house that was next) and because of that we had to leave everything behind and couldn’t say goodbye since it had to be kept secret. And then I moved here and boom racism and xenophobia exists, which I don’t usually mind (like I don’t give them the satisfaction to think I care) except when is the doctors who don’t believe I have physical pain/ won’t treat me, specially after I went to the ER before I ended up in the psych ward. Oh and somebody poisoned my first cat >:( which that one I do accept was traumatic. So yeah I mean everybody in my country pretty much went through that (and worse) so that’s why it just seems normal to me

I did not see it as trama but new it had efected me how ever i picked to do my own thing over follow a therapist tbh .

Why don’t you think you have it & what do you think you have? What happened exactly or what did you go through in a nutshell?

i definitely felt in utter shock but it did make lots of sense due to what i experience. i was diagnosed over the summer and actually since the diagnose i can say it doesnt get easier without help :( at least for me. theres only so much i have been able to do

Hi! I actually didn’t even remember what happened that was a main trigger for my PTSD until I was talking to my therapist. Something made me remember. I knew what happened was wrong but I wasn’t sure how to handle it, and I thought things were getting better. Do you mind me asking how long ago you were diagnosed? It can take a while to really understand that what happened isn’t normal.