Newly diagnosed & having a hard time understanding how this is different from having trauma unspecified (TW: Traumatic Events Explained)
Hi, so this is very new for me.
I’m just gonna list out what happened to me as a child first and then I’m going to go into the adult years. I just want to reach out to other people who have had this diagnosis for longer. I’m kind of struggling to wrap my head around it because I always knew I had trauma, but I don’t really fully understand what it means to have posttraumatic stress as a full-blown disorder.
As a child, I had two liver transplants before the age of three years old. My father was mentally emotional emotionally, physically, and sexually abusive. My mother was from a foreign country who met my father while in college, and my mother got stuck in this country because the court decided that she could not take me home. I grew up very afraid in general of strangers, of public spaces. I would genuinely hide away or find somewhere that was away from other people.
My mother was also extremely poor when I was growing up. My mother would suffer depression and hold very maladaptive coping skills. I often wondered if my mother had posttraumatic stress from being around my father and from me being sick as a baby…
I primarily lived with my mother, thank goodness. My father ended up finding someone else to replace my mother when I was five years old. Two years later, I would end up having a little sister. My father would tell me things like I no longer needed his attention because I was going to be an older sibling and I needed to be like an adult. My father would tell me I was dramatic, invalidate the fact that I had very heightened and intense emotional responses. I also obviously had emotional reactivity. I also obviously had emotional dysregulation. I would say severely.
Between 3 to 5 years old, when my father did not have a woman in his life, I would almost replace that and I sort of knew that as a child. You can infer what I’m trying to say.
I grow up bullied by other kids for being different because I needed speech therapy, physical therapy. I think my peers could definitely tell that I was as they would put it weird. I just remember being bullied a lot, and it was really bad.
As I became an adult, my mother actually had to file bankruptcy. This would’ve been when I was 19. At this point I was an adult but I think from 17 to 19 we were struggling so much that I was starting to take things from the Lost and Found at my high school just so I would have clothes.
I remember becoming incredibly depressed myself after high school just very anxious. I would try to work a job and every single time I would try to work a job I would feel so afraid of other people that I would start crying while working. I honestly feel like this should’ve been addressed well before.
I always remember feeling like I had depression, but not in the same way that other people who have major depression experience it. I essentially remember like thinking I just feel very disconnected from other people. I feel very afraid I am like hypervigilant. I’m on guard. I need to protect myself. I remember telling myself things like you can’t trust other people. This hindered my ability to try to make interpersonal connections at all.
I was diagnosed with a developmental delay as a child. This is probably because of the transplants in which I was actually tested for autism and ADHD at the age of 12, but they had argued that I did not have that. They did note that when I was twelve, I had low self-esteem really bad.
I have basically been in school from the age of 19 - 26. I am about to graduate in about 11 weeks. I am going to have to go out and get a job and I’m very afraid. I tend to be very jumpy and to feel like I’m almost like in flight all of the time because I’m so restless it actually to me does feel like how people describe ADHD restlessness.
My grandparents both died when I was 21. They both unfortunately I believe caught chest infections or what I believe is Covid.
At 22, My mother actually had become incredibly suicidal and lost her job. This left me very afraid again. I was afraid of losing her and I was also afraid of how in the world where my mother and I supposed to survive if she’s not working.
My mother actually went back to her home country when I was 23 because I did get married. I got married to a man that I met funnily enough while I was taking a walk outside. I truly did just fall in love with him and want to have a future with him.
I did work for DoorDash when I was 24 and within a year, I had been hit over the head by a trash truck lowering a recycling bin in which I got a horrendous concussion. I of course, had to go to the vestibular therapy and back to the normal psychological therapy. It was after I got hit over the head that I actually just stopped trying to work at all even though I was job hopping a lot because I was so scared of other people.
I finally had gone through of course a few different therapists from the age of 24 to now and I’m going to turn 26 very soon. I’ve worked with her for about six months and I’ve had previous therapist. Tell me they thought I was bipolar because they didn’t really I think you know what they were looking at. I highly disagree with bipolar because I in my opinion, didn’t have any symptoms of bipolar. The only thing that I ever had that seemed like bipolar was the restlessness, the tearfulness, and the sleep disruptions. I also now feel like I understand what trauma mood dysregulation is and I feel like that is way more aligned to what I have struggled with.
My therapist had finally said I have a diagnosis for you. I think you have posttraumatic stress disorder. We had talked a lot about how I have intrusive thoughts, and I have like emotional flashbacks randomly of things. My father had done. I don’t really understand how this is any different from just having trauma.
I don’t know if this information is all relevant. I just really want to look for people who might understand what it feels like one. And I also feel like I just want to understand this more.
All I know is that I am restless a lot I can go into hysterical panic, and anxiety attacks, I am hyper aware of noise, and I believe I have tinnitus because I hear beeping sometimes when there isn’t any. I have actually had this checked out professionally as well and they don’t think it’s anything too bad. I’ve also had an MRI so I’ve definitely been checked out and the doctor believes it’s tinnitus as well. I disassociate a lot. I cry a lot. I can sometimes become a irrationally irritable and very angry. I feel very ashamed and very guilty. I struggle with headaches, almost every single day of my life. I struggle with back pain. Sometimes I have neck pain.
I can hyper fixate on something if I feel like my life is in danger. I will relive things I have very intrusive thoughts. I am obviously afraid of other people. I’m always on guard. I’m always scanning for the threat when there sometimes isn’t any. I sometimes notice that the way that I perceive a situation is almost exaggerated, but it truly is the way that I’m experiencing it. I often will feel hopeless or just very classic like depressive symptoms, but I never fall into depression where I can’t get out of bed.
I can always get my stuff that I need to get done finished like my schoolwork so it’s just very interesting to hear this information. If you got to the end of this, I commend you, and if you’ve ever experienced something the same like please like write it out because I truly feel kind of alone and I’m a little scared now I have like a formal understanding that there has been something going on for probably years. It’s just very lonely.