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| | Notices | Welcome to PTSD Forum. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a life threatening, debilitating disorder that can break down a sufferer’s body through anxiety and stress. Further it poses a significant suicide risk resulting from the brains neurological imbalance and chemical depression. Sufferers often live in denial, thus this community is aimed at helping PTSD sufferers help themselves through others experiences, guidance and education. We are here for the sufferer, spouse and families surrounding PTSD. Spouses and family are too often forgotten in this equation, and often they receive all the worst that PTSD has to offer. If you're involved in any way with PTSD, get registered and help yourself now. Non-active members will eventually be deleted. If you are not a sufferer, carer or someone within the mental health industry, and active, then there is little reason for you to be a member of this forum. Non-active members with zero posts are deleted periodically during the year. | |
View Poll Results: What Is Your Worst Symptom? | |
anger, depression
|     | 18 | 17.82% | |
dissociation, depersonalization, avoidance
|    | 15 | 14.85% | |
flashbacks, intrusive memories
|    | 15 | 14.85% | |
hypervigilance, exaggerated startle response
|    | 9 | 8.91% | |
nightmares, insomnia, sleep disturbances
|    | 12 | 11.88% | |
negative or distorted thinking, low self-esteem
|    | 7 | 6.93% | |
anxiety, panic, agoraphobia
| | 21 | 20.79% | |
another symptom not mentioned
| | 4 | 3.96% | 
09-06-2007, 11:29 PM
|  | | | Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Newfoundland & Labrador
Posts: 2,303
| |  What Is Your Worst Symptom?
Just curious what everyone believes to be their worst symptom of PTSD, the one you hate having the most. If you had a choice to remove one symptom completely, which one would you choose? Personally I was diagnosed on the severest end of the scale, so I've experienced all of the symptoms above severely. However, I chose nightmares and sleep disturbances as the worst, because it effects the amount of rest I get and therefore effects everything else. If you choose a symptom I haven't mentioned, please share what it is here if you feel comfortable. I purposely did not include an option of "many different symptoms" because I figured virtually everyone would vote for that option in that case! :p |
10-06-2007, 01:50 AM
|  | | | Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 940
| |
I chose dissociation/depersonalization. I can handle the milder forms, but even then it's quite a bother to feel detached/unemotional or fuzzy when I'm trying to have a conversation or do a "normal" activity. On the worse end of the scale, feeling dead or outside of myself is wretched. This often leads to self-harm, which makes me feel crap as well. I dissociate quite often on a daily basis and it makes my life feel very unconnected and pointless. It also creates quite an obstacle in my healing--I spend a lot of time and energy "mentally leaving" when I need to stop and face things.
I was tempted to check hypervigilance, as it causes quite a bit of anxiety, but I'm learning to self-talk my way through the worst episodes. Similarly, sleep disturbances suck because they kick the rest of my symptoms in, but I've been getting betterr on that front, too, so it's not all the time. |
10-06-2007, 07:00 AM
| | | | Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: UK
Posts: 691
| |
I chose sleep or lack of. For the same reasons as you mention Evie, everything else is worse if I haven't had much sleep or if I've had a bad night, nightmares etc. |
10-06-2007, 08:05 AM
| | | | Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 11
| |
I choose negative thinking low self esteem because that is what feeds my anger. I get jealous of my kids for having a normal childhood so then I get pissed at them over nothing. I am constantly trying to be better because I feel like I am constantly being judged |
10-06-2007, 12:22 PM
|  | | | Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: High Plains, Colorado
Posts: 450
| |
Nightmares and Sleep disturbance, Insomnia. When I have nightmares, I get into a terrible cycle of insomnia and it bleeds over into my days making me unbearable and irritable. |
10-06-2007, 11:05 PM
|  | | | Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Tampa, Florida
Posts: 2,066
| |
I chose 'another symptom not mentioned' and that symptom is anxiety. That may be a real 'No shit, Sherlock' thing to say since PTSD is the nastiest bitch of all anxiety disorders. But for me all the other symptoms listed don't kick up unless my anxiety has spiked. Then it's basically a free-for-all until I can get my anxiety back under control. |
11-06-2007, 12:11 AM
| | | | Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Newfoundland & Labrador
Posts: 2,303
| |
Oh DUH I should have had anxiety as an option... shit. Sorry. I knew there was something I was leaving out... |
11-06-2007, 05:33 PM
|  | | | Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: U.S.A. Kansas
Posts: 3,540
| |
For me the hardest to cope with is the panic attacks when I think I am dying. Not like the rest is a picnic, but full blown panic is the hardest. And anxiety with the pitter patter of the heart. That just sucks. |
11-06-2007, 10:03 PM
| | | | Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Newfoundland & Labrador
Posts: 2,303
| |
Damn I really wish I would have included anxiety and panic as a symptom. It's such a major one to have slipped my mind, and I have problems with it too. Oh well too late to change it I guess. |
12-06-2007, 10:43 AM
|  | Administrative Editor PTSD | | Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 7,351
| |
I just added anxiety for you Evie.... issue fixed. Super moderators and above can change polls if required. | | Thread Tools | | | | Display Modes |  Linear Mode | 
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