Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello,
Recently I have come to accept that I probably have complex PTSD. I currently have an excellent therapist that helps me and I have a formal diagnosis of Autism, ADhD, depression, anxiety and severe panic disorder (would like to add self diagnosis is just as valid!!!). I’m already on antidepressants and ADHD meds. I am aware of pros and cons of getting a formal diagnosis. I’m worried if I get a formal diagnosis for PTSD, it may be a barrrier for things in the future, such as I would love to adopt or foster in the future. But having a formal diagnosis may also help me have a bigger picture and understanding of myself and how to grow and heal. I was wondering if anyone has had experiences either way of choosing to peruse a formal diagnosis or not and how they found it?
Or any thought/advice/experiances of how PTSD and Autism interact.
Thank you guys.
I have PTSD and autism, but not ADHD. I was diagnosed with PTSD first, in terms of how it would effect the future I think it could be seen as a positive as many children will have it too.
I think a PTSD diagnosis helped me understand more about myself and how I react to certain circumstances. There are some techniques for dealing with flashbacks etc, I guess it will depend on how it manifests in you, despite what people think it is different in each of us, although it does have some common features. Complex PTSD is a very different beast to to that suffered by say, a soldier or first repsonder, I have talked to an ex soldier about PTSD and we found some things the same and some things different, I think it also depends on where you are in your journey with it.
I've not found much "official" help with it, I was offered EMDR but after talking about it with the therapist, who was a zealot about it, I did some additional research and realised that it would of made me worse. One of the things a lot of therapists don't like to consider is symptom substitution, where you get treatment for one thing only for the anxiety and symptoms to pop up somewhere else. Therapies like EMDR almost try and build a bypass around an event, an event or series of events that caused the PTSD, only with CPTSD there is often no originating trauma or if there is it is way back beyond concious memory and the ability for abstract thinking. It has tentacles in every area of life from a very young age, this is why attempting to build a bypass around it can be difficult, because it was normality for so long, rather than an episode like being a soldier in a war.
I think there are some anti-anxiety meds that work better for PTSD than others, if you're having frequent flashbacks etc then it may be worth a diagnosis, but in my experience help is limited and you will still need all the therapy that you're already having.
I'm sorry if this isn't as helpful as you'd hoped, but there is life alongside cPTSD and it does lessen after time and lots of therapy. I found not fighting it helped, when in a safe place, just let the flashbacks come, it's horrible, but afterwards you can start the process of reminding yourself that you survived and grounding yourself in the here and now.
Thank you so much for sharing your experiance that is so helpful.