(1) efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma
For me, I disassociate when someone tells an incest joke.


(2) efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma

In my case, I refuse to go to the VA hospital because that's where I was sexually assaulted, and the perp still works there.

(3) inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma

I know my father raped me, but I can't remember the actual penetration.

(4) markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities

I called in sick every year for xmas with my family, and did not celebrate it because the family got terribly drunk and violent when I was a child and knocked over the xmas tree.

(5) feeling of detachment or estrangement from others

stopped communication with all family in 1993.

(6) restricted range of affect (e.g., unable to have loving feelings)

This does not apply to me because I feel all emotions vividly. There are people with PTSD who can't cry.

(7) sense of a foreshortened future
It is very common for PTSD people and incest survivors to feel like they will not live to be 90. I don't know why that is, but it is common. I did not have any investments before I got married because I felt like I should have as much fun now because I would never live to see retirement. Even now, I joke that I have a nice savings nestegg for my husband's next wife to spend! (I won't live to enjoy it myself, in other words).