I was sent to a psychiatrist to be tested for PTSD in the middle of The Hell Years*.
He said I didn't have it.
Today, I disagree with his diagnosis.
I don't think he asked questions in a manner I understood, because in all my research about personality disorders and the abuse surrounding them, I'm starting to think I do have PTSD. I'm almost positive I had it back then.
There is an online PTSD test on several big psych websites, but after answering the 22 questions it said "Print out this list and take it to your doctor to discuss your answers." Well phooey. I'm out of printer ink, I don't have medical insurance right now (Obamacare-Schmobamacare) and I have exactly $12.42 to my name until my first payday two weeks from now, so taking that test was a glorious waste of time.
Tonight, I found the same test online with scoring at the bottom. Thank God!
Here's a link to the test I found at
Heal My PTSD.
"If you have 10+ "yes" answers, you display many symptoms of PTSD," the results say.
I answered 18 out of 22 with a yes.
I think the big difference between the PsyD and the online test is my interpretation of the questions.
First of all, in the doctor's office, I was answering everything based on the medical horrors I had witnessed and managed during The Hell Years. It was a horrible time in all of our lives, but:
Did I witness or experience a traumatic event?
No. First of all, Hell wasn't an event. It was a situation that should have been routine but quickly went south, then turned into an ongoing life-threatening situation that dragged on for months. A year later we went through it all over again.
Second of all, we only discussed Hell. I wasn't aware that I'd been abused for years before Hell happened, so abuse didn't even enter the discussion. It was the farthest thing from my mind.
Do I have flashbacks of the event?
At the time I was formally tested, I think I was still in shock. My family was knee deep in the horror show and hadn't yet come up for air. I wasn't even to the point of having flashbacks yet.
(By the way, the P in PTSD means Post. It's
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, not UTYEBTSD: Up To Your Eye Balls in Trauma Stress Disorder. And also not NLATEOTTTSD: No Light At The End Of The Tunnel Traumatic Stress Disorder. Let's make sure we're clear on that.)
I also knew absolutely nothing about PTSD, so when he asked about flashbacks, I imagined Vietnam Vets having flashbacks (as demonstrated via Hollywood - my only exposure to flashbacks) and no. I didn't wake up in the middle of the night in a panic, trying to hide from or hunt the bad guys.
So I told him, "No. I don't have flashbacks."
If only he had explained what that actually meant. Now days, when I think of the abuse I endured over the past 20 years, and then the emotional isolation I felt during Hell when I had no friends to help me through it, yeah. They're not technically visual flashbacks, but the emotional pain and anguish wells up and it takes me a good hour to stop crying from thinking about it. I think I'd categorize that as a flashback. The pain is still very raw and I'm super sensitive when I think about it.
Do you have intense physical and/or emotional distress when something reminds you of the traumatic event?
Yesindeed. See above. Enough said.
Do I avoid talking about it, thinking about it, engaging in any reminders about it?
Can we change the subject?
Sometimes I wonder if that's one reason I need to get away from D. Because he reminds me of the abuse. Or if it's just because of the abuse. Maybe both, depending on how he's treating me at the time.
I don't like thinking about Hell or how horribly alone I felt during that time. I can't deal with my feelings when I do. It's too much.
Can I have a hug now?
Do you have memory gaps?
Do you have difficulty concentrating?
Are you kidding?? I lost part of my language skills during Hell. Common vocabulary words were gone. I couldn't carry on a normal conversation because too many words were missing.
"Please let the dog out," ended up sounding like, "Hey. The dog. He... wants. Uh, Dog needs... Um... potty."
I felt like I had brain damage. I told my doctors that I felt like I had brain damage. They nodded and made notes in their laptops but didn't do anything to help, except to change my antidepressant meds. I still struggle to recall and speak certain words at times. Sometimes my conversation trails off and converts to gestures because I can't pull up the next word from the depths of my brain, but it's a lot better now than it was. Crossword puzzles helped me to regain a lot of my words.
Now that I know more about abuse and isolation and PTSD, I believe I actually did suffer some brain damage during that time.
New item for my to do list after I move out: talk to a doctor or counselor about PTSD.
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*The Hell Years refers to the injuries from the accident (a freak accident - nobody's fault), the recovery, and the aftermath.
It was really awful - the shock of what happened, the shock of seemingly normal things going very wrong, the shock of being told "We don't know if our team of surgeons can save them," and the shock of seeing more of the insides of someone's body than I ever wanted to see... and exactly one year after the accident, history repeated itself almost event by event. It was bad.
(Although one good thing about the repeat trauma is we knew what to expect. Didn't make it any easier, but we were able to call 911 sooner when things started going wrong again.)
I don't want to go into specifics in case D researches anything related to it and stumbles across this blog. Just compare it to what people in the middle ages experienced when disease or warring tribes wiped out their small village. Throw in few cases of Seppuku, and that'll be comparable to what we went through.
