hmm

There is a book that my social worker has given me info in. It's about adolescents and PTSD.

the author is Leah Giarratano, the book Clinical skills for treating traumatised adolescents: evidence based treatment for ptsd.

Yes it is a clinical guide but it does have some info on thought patterns that may help you with your daughter.
cass

Hi Mom, I'm so sorry to hear that your daughter is suffering because of her friend's suicide. What an awful thing for everyone concerned! You were smart to take her to a professional for help. I am praying that your daughter (and you and your whole family) comes through this as easily as possible.

Thank you for all your positive replies. Some of you have asked if she witnessed the sucicide. No, she did not. She has moved through many stages of grief, but can not move past the death. Danille her friend hung herself and the funeral was an open coffin. It was too much to bear to see a child. Ryan began having nightmares and began seeing Danielle over and over hanging herself in her mind. Her counselor is begining EMRD therapy with her. Has anyone ever had experience with that? Did it help or not?
Thanks and Blessings.

EMDR is like any therapy, it has its dangers that come with opening the mind, as do they all. If multiple trauma's exist, EMDR is not the ideal solution, because it can open up far too much at once, basically overloading the brain before it has a chance to process one or two complete traumas, thus it can cause permanent and severe brain damage, worst case, complete brain failure. EMDR is more about the therapist giving it, being they really need to have serious exposure and experience to do it correctly, and that the patient has been openly honest with the therapist, and not hiding any trauma of significant nature, or else the therapist as such will think they are going to get one response, when in fact they end up getting 10 trauma's all open up at once that where not divulged too them. Its a two way street that one... When done right, and honestly, it can be very beneficial to get everything out in the open now.

When you say that your daughter didn't witness her suicide, then how exactly did your daughter get her PTSD as such? PTSD can not be diagnosed for normal life stressors, such as death, it must be through the exposure of an abnormal event of direct consequence to the person, ie. they witnessed the suicide, they found the person, they had input in some way into the death. PTSD itself is a physical chemical imbalance within the brain. Post Traumatic Stress is what most people generally have after a normal life event, ie. death of a loved one, suicide of a friend, etc etc... Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is when the person has actually been faced with the event, and they must off suffered direct life threat, fear or helplessness during the exposure of the traumatic incident itself. PTS is curable as no chemical imbalance takes effect; PTSD is not curable.

If your daughter has been diagnosed with PTSD, then there is something hiding, a secret, something, because you cannot get PTSD just from a friends suicide itself, without involvement of some kind to warrant the guilt (fear) or helplessness. The other option is, its your lucky day and maybe the therapist got it wrong, and she only has PTS as such.

Hi all I am a 30 year old female that has recentlybeen diagnoised by mulitcal doctors they all have a greatdeal of ambitionto prescibe meds which help a bit but make me feel dumb. I workin the carreer of Emergency medical service my problem was respounding to my dad wjo was of good health and looking forward to playing with our new daughter. Anyways I can't ever get sleep both because the vivid nightmares wake and the fact that I am afraid to fall of sleep I have difficulties going by the place that we found him talking about him or even seeing his picture, I was a daddys girl by far, I think that I have not begun to grieve and that scares me to deathand mostly can I still do what i do. I hope that i get to meet you all to learn that what i am going thru is normal most off all i need to know that I can make through this so help everyone please:dont-know

Mom, this might help you a bit further, as I did some digging on what this could also be, and if your daughter was not exposed directly to the suicide itself, chances are she might just have complicated bereavement instead, which actually shows milder signs and symptoms of PTSD itself.

Saying that though, if she is hiding something in regard to a more direct involvement into her friends suicide, that is different again.

Anthony,
Yes there is fear due to another event. I am not ready to say. Baby steps you know. I will look into what you have posted.
Thanks,
mom1hs1coll

Hmmmm.... yes, but baby steps are for the healing process, not the getting information out process. It is very hard to help someone without knowing all aspects, and this is the very reason people often undo themselves in counselling, because they only share what they think they need to tell the counsellor, instead of telling them everything and letting the counsellor decide what is, and is not essential information.

I understand too well these aspects, but if your daughter had further input, then it is hard to really guide you in any direction without knowing what that input was. PM me if you need, if you don't want information made public. I only want to help you, but that is a fruitless effort without knowing all major aspects. Knowing all the major aspects, allows guidance to be given specific to help your daughter, and more importantly, you.