Can we in general stop acting like traumatized people are the same as ones with regular generalized anxiety and depression?
Like half the mental illness division on this site is probably because people act like Every Mental Illness is just anxiety/depression to begin with, but with ptsd (also usually bipolar) it is worse because usually it is full on erase the condition in favor of labeling it as depression/anxiety. I appreciate people find it relateable but it kind of sucks for example to see Every Single Post about lapis from SU calling her “depressed” when it is CANONICALLY explained as trauma and not a normal mood disorder which does not present the same way at all. It is far worse when celebrities kill themselves ans bipolar is rewitten as being depressed because you know, suicide. Only depressed people commit suicide despite there iirc, the numbers being worse for bipolar people.
Using these things interchangeably is not helpful and leads to condecending posts about how if you are not currently doing [depression treatment] for your ptsd that the treatment DOES NOT WORK ON you clearly are only interested in wallowing in your feelings and not recovery.
Like this literally makes it harder for us to get treatment, because every time you try the doctor just comes back with treatment for standard depression/anxiety issues. Because same thing right? You just need some pills and to work on those distorted thoughs about experiencing abuse. No need to look into other treatment.
I’ve been living with the effects of complex trauma for a long time, but for many years, I didn’t know what it was. Off and on throughout my life, I’ve struggled with what I thought was anxiety and depression. Or rather, In addition to being traumatized, I was anxious and depressed.
Regardless of the difference, no condition should ever be minimized. If you are feeling anxious or depressed, it’s important and urgent to find the right support for you. No one gets a prize for “worst” depression, anxiety, trauma or any other combination of terrible things to deal with, and no one should suffer alone. With that in mind, there is a difference between what someone who has Complex PTSD feels and what someone with generalized anxiety or mild to moderate depression feels.
For someone dealing with complex trauma, the anxiety they feel does not come from some mysterious unknown source or obsessing about what could happen. For many, the anxiety they feel is not rational. General anxiety can often be calmed with grounding techniques and reminders of what is real and true. Mindfulness techniques can help. Even when they feel disconnected, anxious people can often acknowledge they are loved and supported by others.
For those who have experienced trauma, anxiety comes from an automatic physiological response to what has actually, already happened. The brain and body have already lived through “worst case scenario” situations, know what it feels like and are hell-bent on never going back there again. The fight/flight/ freeze response goes into overdrive. It’s like living with a fire alarm that goes off at random intervals 24 hours a day. It is extremely difficult for the rational brain to be convinced “that won’t happen,” because it already knows that it has happened, and it was horrific.
Those living with generalized anxiety often live in fear of the future. Those with complex trauma fear the future becauseof the past.
The remedy for both anxiety and trauma is to pull one’s awareness back into the present. For a traumatized person who has experienced abuse, there are a variety of factors that make this difficult. First and foremost, a traumatized person must be living in a situation which is 100 percent safe before they can even begin to process the tsunami of anger, grief and despair that has been locked inside of them, causing their hypervigilance and other anxious symptoms. That usually means no one who abused them or enabled abuse in the past can be allowed to take up space in their life. It also means eliminating any other people who mirror the same abusive or enabling patterns.
Unfortunately for many, creating a 100 percent abuser-free environment is not possible, even for those who set up good boundaries and are wary of the signs. That means that being present in the moment for a complex trauma survivor is not fail-proof, especially in a stressful event. They can be triggered into an emotional flashback by anything in their present environment.
It is possible (and likely) that someone suffering from the effects of complex trauma is also feeling anxious and depressed, but there is a difference to the root cause. Many effective strategies that treat anxiety and depression don’t work for trauma survivors. Meditation and mindfulness techniques that make one more aware of their environment sometimes can produce an opposite effect on a trauma survivor. Trauma survivors often don’t need more awareness. They need to feel safe and secure in spite of what their awareness is telling them.
At the first sign of anxiety or depression, traumatized people will spiral into toxic shame. Depending on the wounding messages they received from their abusers, they will not only feel the effects of anxiety and depression, but also a deep shame for being “defective” or “not good enough.” Many survivors were emotionally and/or physically abandoned, and have a deep rooted knowledge of the fact that they were insufficiently loved. They live with a constant reminder that their brains and bodies were deprived of a basic human right. Even present-day situations where they are receiving love from a safe person can trigger the awareness and subsequent grief of knowing how unloved they were by comparison.
Anxiety and depression are considered commonplace, but I suspect many of those who consider themselves anxious or depressed are actually experiencing the fallout of trauma. Most therapists are not well trained to handle trauma, especially the complex kind that stems from prolonged exposure to abuse. Unless they are specially certified, they might have had a few hours in graduate school on Cluster B personality disorders, and even fewer hours on helping their survivors. Many survivors of complex trauma are often misdiagnosed as having borderline personality disorder (BPD) or bipolar disorder. Anyone who has sought treatment for generalized anxiety or depression owes themselves a deeper look at whether trauma plays a role.
first of all how dare you
Also this should be obvious, but it is a SPECIAL KIND OF AWFUL to shame people who are STILL IN THE BAD ENVIRONMENT for not being able to improve.
Like obviously there is no 100% safe enviorment but even then it assumes at least a MOSTLY safe enviorment. This is a very bad assumption ESPECIALLY if we are taking dealing with kids with trauma who are the most likely to still be in the abusive situation, and often the therapist is employed by their abuser.
Like if you are still experiencing the thing that traumatized you people telling you it will be ok and that won’t happen actively becomes dismissal and gaslighting and reinforcing that that person should never ask for help because people will just blame them for not being able to drop hypervigilance they are literally still using to survive. It’s the equivalent of giving a solider therapy for trauma when they are still actively deployed and will have to go back to that as soon as they leave the office. It isn’t helping anyone.
Also important: boy there are like no resources for actually getting people out of environments like that so the solution is just sending people to therapy that can never actually help them. Hmm maybe we should alot funds to THAT not just generic anxiety treatment that might actually make things worse because it generally involves denying that anything is wrong in the present, just the past.
I’ve been living with the effects of complex trauma for a long time, but for many years, I didn’t know what it was. Off and on throughout my life, I’ve struggled with what I thought was anxiety and depression. Or rather, In addition to being traumatized, I was anxious and depressed.
Regardless of the difference, no condition should ever be minimized. If you are feeling anxious or depressed, it’s important and urgent to find the right support for you. No one gets a prize for “worst” depression, anxiety, trauma or any other combination of terrible things to deal with, and no one should suffer alone. With that in mind, there is a difference between what someone who has Complex PTSD feels and what someone with generalized anxiety or mild to moderate depression feels.
For someone dealing with complex trauma, the anxiety they feel does not come from some mysterious unknown source or obsessing about what could happen. For many, the anxiety they feel is not rational. General anxiety can often be calmed with grounding techniques and reminders of what is real and true. Mindfulness techniques can help. Even when they feel disconnected, anxious people can often acknowledge they are loved and supported by others.
For those who have experienced trauma, anxiety comes from an automatic physiological response to what has actually, already happened. The brain and body have already lived through “worst case scenario” situations, know what it feels like and are hell-bent on never going back there again. The fight/flight/ freeze response goes into overdrive. It’s like living with a fire alarm that goes off at random intervals 24 hours a day. It is extremely difficult for the rational brain to be convinced “that won’t happen,” because it already knows that it has happened, and it was horrific.
Those living with generalized anxiety often live in fear of the future. Those with complex trauma fear the future becauseof the past.
The remedy for both anxiety and trauma is to pull one’s awareness back into the present. For a traumatized person who has experienced abuse, there are a variety of factors that make this difficult. First and foremost, a traumatized person must be living in a situation which is 100 percent safe before they can even begin to process the tsunami of anger, grief and despair that has been locked inside of them, causing their hypervigilance and other anxious symptoms. That usually means no one who abused them or enabled abuse in the past can be allowed to take up space in their life. It also means eliminating any other people who mirror the same abusive or enabling patterns.
Unfortunately for many, creating a 100 percent abuser-free environment is not possible, even for those who set up good boundaries and are wary of the signs. That means that being present in the moment for a complex trauma survivor is not fail-proof, especially in a stressful event. They can be triggered into an emotional flashback by anything in their present environment.
It is possible (and likely) that someone suffering from the effects of complex trauma is also feeling anxious and depressed, but there is a difference to the root cause. Many effective strategies that treat anxiety and depression don’t work for trauma survivors. Meditation and mindfulness techniques that make one more aware of their environment sometimes can produce an opposite effect on a trauma survivor. Trauma survivors often don’t need more awareness. They need to feel safe and secure in spite of what their awareness is telling them.
At the first sign of anxiety or depression, traumatized people will spiral into toxic shame. Depending on the wounding messages they received from their abusers, they will not only feel the effects of anxiety and depression, but also a deep shame for being “defective” or “not good enough.” Many survivors were emotionally and/or physically abandoned, and have a deep rooted knowledge of the fact that they were insufficiently loved. They live with a constant reminder that their brains and bodies were deprived of a basic human right. Even present-day situations where they are receiving love from a safe person can trigger the awareness and subsequent grief of knowing how unloved they were by comparison.
Anxiety and depression are considered commonplace, but I suspect many of those who consider themselves anxious or depressed are actually experiencing the fallout of trauma. Most therapists are not well trained to handle trauma, especially the complex kind that stems from prolonged exposure to abuse. Unless they are specially certified, they might have had a few hours in graduate school on Cluster B personality disorders, and even fewer hours on helping their survivors. Many survivors of complex trauma are often misdiagnosed as having borderline personality disorder (BPD) or bipolar disorder. Anyone who has sought treatment for generalized anxiety or depression owes themselves a deeper look at whether trauma plays a role.
that all people who experience a traumatic event do not end up receiving a diagnosis of ptsd does not demonstrate or prove in any way that people who are traumatized have some “innate” biological/hereditary “weakness” and that trauma merely brought this pre-existing “weakness” to the forefront
people respond to trauma in different ways. ptsd is a specific diagnosis that grew out a specific psychiatric and cultural context that referred to specific behaviours of specific people with specific traumas who responded to them in a specific way
ptsd does not equal “truama” or “traumatized”, it is one way of classifying one type of response to trauma
not everyone who experiences even the same type of trauma exhibits the same response. not everyone who is sexually assaulted has nightmares and flashbacks to the assault
say person A has flashbacks and nightmares and a startle response when touched, and remembers the assault and names it as such and connects the experiences to the assault. person A would likely receive a diagnosis of ptsd
say person B experienced a similar assault, but they have trouble naming what happened to them as assault and in fact don’t like to talk about it all, and they don’t have nightmares and their flashbacks are experienced more as a disembodied voice telling them things the person who assaulted them said. person B becomes frightened and unsure about the source of the voice and develops a number of theories others find implausible. instead of having a startle response when touched, they fear all people generally and worry that someone else will assault them. Person B is likely to be diagnosed with some type of psychosis, and not have their trauma acknowledged at all
say person C experienced an also similar assault, and they cope by self harming through sex, drinking, cutting, and dangerous impulsivity. they have trouble trusting people and having healthy relationships because of their trauma. person C would likely be diagnosed with bpd, or something similar, and if their trauma is acknowledged, they would be told the origin of their bpd is that they had an innately sensitive temperament which reacted with an invalidating environment to create their bpd, which is a different thing than being told “this is how you responded to trauma”
now person D, they experienced a similar assault like all the previous examples. but the way they cope is just trying not to think about it. they remember it, but they do not name it as an assault. they have none of the experiences listed above, instead coping through perfectionism, repressing their feelings and overworking themselves. because their desire to succeed at their job is a socially acceptable way of coping and they have no desire to label their experiences as an assault or find different ways of coping, and because, even though they are self harming through overwork and perfectionism, this is seen as admirable behaviour and not Crazy behaviour or dangerous behaviour, they have no contact with psychiatry and receive no diagnosis. they are considered to not be traumatized even though the trauma has affected them
in conclusion,1) ptsd is a label that gets applied to some traumatized people, not all, 2) it is not a defintive marker of who is actually traumatized, 3) trauma is an environmental problem, not an individual problem. it is caused by the trauma happening to someone. how someone responds to trauma and whether or not they respond in a way that is labelled a disorder is determined by individual factors, as well as environmental factors, but 4) this does not mean that “only people develop ptsd/are traumatized” or whatever other hyper-intellectualized versions of that idea are being churned out by asshole doctors
They may also present less passively and will instead: *fly off into angry rages when something mildly irritating happens *refuse to self care and instead force themselves to do everything without complaint *constantly expect others to treat them the same shitty way and cut peole out before it can happen
Intersex people are born with chromosomal, hormonal, gonadal, or
genital variations that differ from social expectations of what male and
female bodies should be like. Even as we begin or continue to challenge
binary understandings of gender and sexuality in the anti-violence
movements, many of us have not stopped to question the assumption that
there are only two biological sexes – and anything else is not “normal”
or acceptable. Social discomfort with this aspect of human diversity has
resulted in discrimination and marginalization of intersex people,
including medically unnecessary surgeries that they have not consented
to.
While there has been a shift away from seeing intersex conditions as a
problem to be dealt with medically (a practice that became popular in
the medical community in the 1960s), these types of unwanted
“corrective” surgeries do continue today. Adults who have experienced
these medically unnecessary surgeries, also known as Intersex Genital
Mutilation (IGM), experience trauma common to many adult survivors of
child sexual abuse. The impact of such surgery includes shame,
stigmatization, physical harm, and emotional distress. Anti-violence
advocates should be prepared to provide trauma-informed care to those
who have experienced trauma surrounding IGM.
As you reflect during Pride Month
on your efforts to reach out to LGBTQ+ communities, consider ways you
can increase your capacity to meet the needs of intersex individuals who
may be dealing with trauma related to IGM.
There is great diversity of experience in the intersex community, and
diverse ways intersex individuals think about community, activism,
needs, and goals. There is also a wide-ranging response to whether or not intersex people should inherently be considered part of the LGBTQ+ communities. One reason
that someone might take the position that intersex identity is not part
of LGBTQ+ communities may be the opinion that LGBTQ+ movements have, at
least in recent history, been primarily concerned with relationship
recognition and concerns around identity, and not as much with bodily
autonomy.
On the other hand, including intersex as part of LGBTQ+ communities
can lead to more visibility of intersex experiences, and can address a
common root cause of discrimination: harmful adherence to the gender
binary and related gender norms. Writer and intersex advocate Hida
Viloria makes this case in the article The Forgotten Vowel: How Intersex Liberation Benefits the Entire LGBTQIA Community:
“When we recognize the rights of intersex people to have their
identities recognized, we dismantle the very foundation of the binary
sex and gender system which has harmed LGBTQIA people for centuries.”
Note the distinction between being transgender and being intersex. Being transgender
has to do with having an internal understanding of one’s gender that is
different than what was assigned at birth. This assignment typically
has to do with the external anatomy – babies with a vagina are assigned
female at birth and babies with a penis are assigned male. A transgender
person has a gender identity that is different from that assignment, whether female, male, non-binary, or other genders.
Intersex people of color are disproportionately impacted by physical,
psychological, and medical violence. Historically, people of color have
faced unspeakable atrocities including exploitation at the hands of the
medical industrial complex. Activist Sean Saifa Wall reflected on these
intersecting identities in a recent interview with NBC:
“I draw a very distinct parallel between how the medical
community has inflicted violence on intersex people by violating their
bodily integrity, and how state violence violates the bodily integrity
of Black people… My desire for intersex liberation is totally [entwined]
with Black liberation. They cannot be teased apart.” (2016)
Additionally, intersex activists and survivors of color are marginalized within the intersex movement itself
– facing underrepresentation in leadership roles, lack of visibility
and voice in public spaces, and limited opportunity to engage with other
intersex people of color.
To explore what intersex advocates are saying about intersex genital mutilation, check out this video from Teen Vogue in
which three intersex advocates address what some forms of IGM
specifically entail, and how they’re unnecessary and nonconsensual.
One of the advocates in the video, Pigeon Pagonis, discloses the
experience of having the clitoris removed, and later having a
vaginoplasty at age 11. Pagonis makes the connection that one of the
underlying reasons for these operations was to make the vagina “more
accommodating to my future husband’s penis” – underscoring one example
of how harmful societal assumptions about what male and female bodies
should look like (and how sex should happen between men and women) forms
justification for these invasive medical surgeries. One of the other
advocates in this video, Hanne Gaby Odiele, helps make the connection to
trauma, by claiming, “Those surgeries need to stop because they bring
so much more complications and traumas.”
A
2017 report from Human Rights Watch called “I Want to Be Like Nature
Made Me”: Medically Unnecessary Surgeries on Intersex Children in the US
contains information on the history and impact of IGM, including
insight into the trauma mentioned by Odiele in the video. In one
testimonial from an adult survivor of intersex genital mutilation, Ruth,
age 60, shares: “I developed PTSD and dissociative states to protect
myself while they treated me like a lab rat, semi-annually putting me in
a room full of white-coated male doctors, some of whom took photos of
me when I was naked.” The report goes on to illustrate forms of
psychological harm and emotional distress that adult survivors of
intersex genital mutilation may experience.
When working with a survivor of intersex genital mutilation, consider
that control was taken away from the survivor in the nonconsensual,
medically unnecessary surgery. These surgeries may receive legitimacy
simply because they take place in a medical context, which we tend to
view as being associated with consent and authority. But the root of the
perceived “need” for this surgery is embedded in social standards about
what male and female bodies should look like, not medical need. We need
to move away from the notion that there might be an underlying medical
justification for this abusive touching (Tosh, 2013).
Shifting Our Culture
Working to end false binaries of sex, gender, and sexuality can be an
important first step in preventing IGM and many forms of violence.
Developing an understanding of intersex peoples’ experiences by reading
intersex history and listening to intersex people share their stories
when offered can deepen your understanding of who is part of our
communities and how we can provide trauma-informed care to everyone who
needs our services. A first step can be to become familiar with intersex
organizations like Intersex Society of North America, interACT, and Intersex Campaign for Equality.
Another can be to educate colleagues on trauma related to IGM, and to
make efforts to directly engage the community in which your agency wants
to provide welcoming and relevant services to intersex people. Shifting
our culture to end the shame, secrecy, exploitation, and abuse of
intersex people will require broad level systemic change driven by all
of us.
What can you do to positively impact the lives of intersex survivors in your community?
Tosh, J. (2013). The (In)visibility of Childhood Sexual Abuse:
Psychiatric Theorizing of Transgenderism and Intersexuality.
Intersectionalities: A Global Journal of Social Work Analysis, Research,
Polity, and Practice. Retrieved from http://journals.library.mun.ca/ojs/index.php/IJ/article/view/739/743
Here I am, a person with Real Actual PTSD who has been professionally diagnosed for 19 years and got that diagnosis re-confirmed by a different professional 3 years ago, telling you that:
Self-diagnosis is valid.
It doesn’t matter if it was “just” bullying or “just” emotional abuse or “only” mild physical abuse or “not that bad” of an accident or “not that dangerous” of a situation. All of those things can cause PTSD, even if it wasn’t as severe as what other people have gone through.
Your triggers are not stupid or exaggerated or made up.
Your triggers don’t have to cause a full-blown panic attack or flashback to be real.
Your flashbacks don’t have to be vivid visual hallucinations of a past event to be real.
You are not too young to have PTSD. Trauma doesn’t card you. Your age doesn’t make your experience invalid.
You matter.
And as somebody who has been through bullying, sexual, physical, and emotional abuse pretty much nonstop throughout their life and had the police involved many times… You’re not taking anything away from people with “severe” PTSD (there’s no such thing as severe PTSD, every experience is relative and will affect everyone differently). Despite having been diagnosed with PTSD by every professional I’ve ever been to, I still doubt my struggles because I wasn’t beaten every day or I haven’t been to war. It doesn’t matter how “big” or how “small” the thing/things are. You matter.
Whether it is directly perpetuating abuse and violence, enabling it, or failing to recognize the abuse and trauma, it is a failure of adults in their lives. You know what else is a parental and societal failure? Filming kids at their most vulnerable as a way to showcase how “challenging” it is.
You know what’s really important?
Not, as the NAMI spokesperson in the NPR article implies, framing it as a choice between psychiatric beds and intractable violence at home. Because it does not surprise me and my friends that one of the kids’ behavior “didn’t improve” when he got home from inpatient. Because we have witnessed the violence and hostility of inpatient institutions.
Maybe a focus on trauma-informed care and removing sources of abuse and violence in the kid’s life. Maybe that’s also important. Maybe it’s important to fight for community-based services and training providers need instead of more psych beds.
It’s possible to advocate for struggling children with dignity.
You don’t have to be grateful that it isn’t worse.
read that.
read it again, and again, and again.
somebody, somewhere, always has it worse than you. there is one person on this planet that has it the worst of all, and that person is NOT the only person allowed to be unhappy with their lot.
if things are bad for you, they are bad for you. period.
This goes for trauma as well. A lot of times survivors get trapped in a cycle of minimizing/diminishing their trauma because “other people have it worse” – but there is no hierarchy of trauma. There is no ranking system for which traumas are “better” or “worse.” Your trauma is valid. Period.
IMPORTANT TRUTHS.
As a therapist, lemme just say: almost every trauma survivor I’ve ever had has at some point said “But I didn’t have it as bad as some people” and then talked about how other types of trauma are worse. Even my most-traumatized, most-abused, most psychologically-injured clients say this.
The ones who were cheated on, abandoned, and neglected say this. The ones who were in dangerous accidents/disasters say this. The ones who were horrifyingly sexually abused say this. The ones who were brutally beaten say this. The ones who were psychologically tortured for decades say this. What does that tell you? That one of the typicalside-effects of trauma is to make you believe that you are unworthy of care.
Don’t buy into it, because it’s nonsense. It doesn’t matter if someone else had it “worse.” Every person who experiences a trauma deserves to get the attention and care they need to heal from it.
“one of the typicalside-effects of trauma is to make you believe that you are unworthy of care.”
SO true.
just because someone broke their arm doesn’t mean you have to deal with wrist pain
just because someone broke their arm doesn’t mean you have to deal with wrist pain
I drew this comic about a year ago. Looking back on it, (because I’m a student/learning artist,) there’s a lot of nitpicky drawing-related things I would change, if I could do this again. For whatever reason, this comic seems to have struck a chord with a lot of people. As I type this, this comic has over 21,000 notes, and counting. The goal of my work is mostly to make people happy, but I felt like doing a slightly more serious comic this time, just to see if I could. When I drew this, I was still recovering from an abusive relationship I had left 2 years prior, and had frequent night terrors related to it. A lot of the notes on this thing are from people who say this comic has helped them deal with similar issues. I’m glad I was able to use my own pain as a way to help someone else through theirs.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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