I think you would find it hard to take evidence to the person that is supposed to know this in the first place. Your doctor is likely one of the one's trying to change the way mental illness is diagnosed, meaning not likely a doctor that is helping the industry standardize, instead trying to do their own thing... which is plain and simply dangerous within said industry.

Hello,

I personally don't like the label of having a mental or psychological disorder. I find it offensive, and I often can become combative when someone talks to me like I'm a psychic patient. However, I'm not a Doctor, or qualified to determine it, but I certainly resent it.

Is PTSD curable? I suppose if a person is diagnosed early it can reduce, and lesson the symptoms to manageable degrees which can seem like it's cured, but from my research the effects of the trauma that can cause PTSD has a biological effect on the brain which I don't think heals naturally.

From what I can tell there are different kinds of PTSD one which I have is called Complex PTSD which happens to people who suffer long periods of trauma such as a POW, and there are those who suffer a specific one time traumatic event. Both are equally devastating, however, the effects on the brain long term I think causes PTSD to be incurable.

For myself, the trauma is the cause (disease), and the symptoms are the side effects. The issue for me is that even though I can intellectually understand, forgive and forget the trauma and move on with my life, the symptoms of that trauma have a haunting effect. I can go long periods of time living what I think is a relatively normal life without any major symptoms, and then in one weak insecure moment something triggers my traumatic experience, and then everything becomes symptomatic again.

This is only my personal experience, and I would like to think that PTSD is curable, but I haven't seen that. Everyone that I've ever met with PTSD have had periods of time of normality in their lives, but eventually some trigger at sometime sets their PTSD off again.

I'm at the point where I can see that PTSD can go into remission, but it never goes away.

Thanks,
John

With the little I know, I would have to agree with you. My thoughts are that it is a brain injury because it is nothing you could be born with. A psych disorder on the other hand is different.

I see PTSD as curable because it's a product of the social environment one is in.
Schitzophernia is not, it's an actual psychiatric disorder. I can't define it more than that because of my lack of experience with it.
Aquired Brain Injury is a product of either chemical or medical trauma.
Traumatic Brain Injury is a product of a physical trauma.
My TBI has, in response to the inappropriate social reaction to it, created Post Trauma Stress Disorder.
Sad part is that nearly all the doctors I have met say that drugs will cure it. No, they will make it worse, as they have done so in the past.

C.J., I agree with a lot of what you said. I, myself, believe PTSD is curable. I would be very surprised if a cure for true schizophrenia was ever found, but I can not state definitively that it will never happen.

Not quite true CJ. PTSD is actually not just a product of your environment at all; merely managing your environment and exposure to stressors helps keeps symptoms reduced. With or without this though, PTSD can and does created symptomatic recourse due to the physical change in neurological shift within the brain (the aspect making it incurable). PTSD actually presents the same in this manner as say Schizophrenia does, usually though Schizophrenia is simply more active than PTSD in the psychological aspect. Schizophrenia is simply a more progressive psychiatric disorder than PTSD is.

Both are quite deadly when uncontrolled. Schizophrenia typically just means your going to be medicated your entire life, PTSD does not as you can manage a majority of the impact it plays within your daily life through management skills. This does not mean PTSD goes anywhere though, and it still usually plays a daily part within your life. It really depends just how bad an individuals PTSD is.

hahaha...indeed

During my first drug rehab stay, I was diagnosed as severely "schizoid". That was the term used at that time. I think they now use the term "schizo-affective". They stated that my life was identical to a person with true schizophrenia, although I was not a true schizophrenic person.
The day we discussed this, there was some of it I missed.
Even when the counselor was going over my psych evaluation, in a small group session, my mind was wandering so much, and I had flashbacks so bad, that I missed about the first 1/2 of this discussion.
I remember that something caught my ear, and sounded familiar. So my attention focused on this conversation for a couple of minutes. (That was pretty good for me at that time)
Then I said to the counselor, "that reminds me of me."
She said, "it IS you, we have been discussing the results of your psyche testing".

I feel that the DSM series is far too generalized. According to them nearly everyone is mentally ill in some form or fashion.

True CJ, very very true mate. It is like a person self evaluating; you can always find something that fits, you just have to look hard enough. It is like the diagnosis that come with PTSD, whilst we fit so many criteria and so many diagnosis, PTSD is the only accurate one that fits correctly. Anything else is a lesser, which means you wouldn't likely have PTSD or the doctor just wants to prescribe more drugs.

It really is words, and the only thing I could say to people personally is to use their own commonsense and call it what they want and how they want. Some people work with facts, some work with fantasy, some like to just ignore some facts as it makes them feel better. I honestly say go with what works surrounding such insignificant type aspects; though certainly not to apply what I just said to symptoms or dealing directly with PTSD itself.