The Forums › Forums › Emotional Journey › Self Medicating/Risk Taking › Name that feeling! › Re: Name that feeling!
Anonymous
memzak, comparing two people’s traumatic experiences is honestly like apples and oranges. A more shocking experience does not invalidate or change how you feel.
Just from reading your various posts, I hope that you do seek some mental health care. You don’t have to fight the world *hugs*
fyi
official diagnosis criteria of PTSD
http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/pages/dsm-iv-tr-ptsd.asp
In 2000, the American Psychiatric Association revised the PTSD diagnostic criteria in the fourth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR)(1). The diagnostic criteria (A-F) are specified below.
Diagnostic criteria for PTSD include a history of exposure to a traumatic event meeting two criteria and symptoms from each of three symptom clusters: intrusive recollections, avoidant/numbing symptoms, and hyper-arousal symptoms. A fifth criterion concerns duration of symptoms and a sixth assesses functioning.
Criterion A: stressor
The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following have been present:
The person has experienced, witnessed, or been confronted with an event or events that involve actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of oneself or others.
The person’s response involved intense fear,helplessness, or horror. Note: in children, it may be expressed instead by disorganized or agitated behavior.
Criterion B: intrusive recollection
The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced in at least one of the following ways:
Recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event, including images, thoughts, or perceptions. Note: in young children, repetitive play may occur in which themes or aspects of the trauma are expressed.
Recurrent distressing dreams of the event. Note: in children, there may be frightening dreams without recognizable content
Acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (includes a sense of reliving the experience, illusions, hallucinations, and dissociative flashback episodes,including those that occur upon awakening or when intoxicated). Note: in children, trauma-specific reenactment may occur.
Intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.
Physiologic reactivity upon exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event
Criterion C: avoidant/numbing
Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by at least three of the following:
Efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma
Efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma
Inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma
Markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities
Feeling of detachment or estrangement from others
Restricted range of affect (e.g., unable to have loving feelings)
Sense of foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage, children, or a normal life span)
Criterion hyper-arousal
Persistent symptoms of increasing arousal (not present before the trauma), indicated by at least two of the following:
Difficulty falling or staying asleep
Irritability or outbursts of anger
Difficulty concentrating
Hyper-vigilance
Exaggerated startle response
Criterion E: duration
Duration of the disturbance (symptoms in B, C, and D) is more than one month.
Criterion F: functional significance
The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
Specify if:
Acute: if duration of symptoms is less than three months
Chronic: if duration of symptoms is three months or more
Specify if:
With or Without delay onset: Onset of symptoms at least six months after the stressor
REPORT ABUSE