Ok, as this came up again I will add my two cents once again. I spoke with Evie on the phone the other night and she asked me this exact thing, and my answer went something like this:

When I started this forum I used to shutdown any person who went down this road of thought, being its a negative thought pattern. The thinking style of comparison is never a good one in most aspects of life; PTSD being one of them. We have threads here in the new member forum and elsewhere outlining these exact aspects, yet many don't read them or skip through them.

You cannot gauge your PTSD, your healing capacity or trauma to another person, ever. The simply reason is as I have stated previously, and commonsense, is that every person and situation is different and will be interpreted uniquely. This comes back to why you can stand two people side by side, shoot them both in a non-lethal body part, one may get PTSD and one will not. Why? Because one's brain processes the act of being shot uniquely. This is why some people get PTSD and some do not, regardless the trauma, situation or lifestyle.

Kathy summated perfectly the exact variations between people, and those who do not see this need to read it over and over in order to grasp the concept. Because a person works for example, does not mean that person is better off than someone who doesn't work with PTSD. The person who works may have little choice, so they counter act their PTSD with work, they drink or smoke heavily to cope with it, they medicate themselves heavily to cope, and the big one is.... some who have PTSD are actually workaholics as workaholism is a form of medication to help them cope with their PTSD. Again, every person is different and no two people can ever be compared the same, regardless of certain similarities with symptoms, their severity of symptoms will be different.

Kathy refers to those with severe PTSD. Well, I am a veteran who was diagnosed with severe PTSD. When Kathy refers to combat PTSD, etc, these are references that are discussed as coming in 2012 with the production of the DSM V. They are discussed only as possible categorizations to PTSD diagnoses and yet to be confirmed. Even those do not outline, nor could two people with the same diagnosis be compared.

My brother-in-law has PTSD from being a medical officer aboard a Navy ship. He dealt with the wounded only, never seen action on land, yet he has PTSD from fixing soldiers who had been wounded and civilians also. He works, yet I cannot. Why? Because his trauma is far different from mine, his brain processes his trauma differently, yet we both have the same illness. He chooses to drink and smoke, which are known aids in combating the symptoms of PTSD. I used to cope doing the same thing, though I was drinking and smoking myself to death. Now, I do neither and must find other ways to keep my stress levels low, one being not to work and create myself undue stress that would force me to be medicated. Actually, even if medicated I would likely kill someone if provoked enough. Big difference in trauma, big difference in brain processing, big difference in symptom severity and duration.

You cannot compare trauma, ever.... you cannot compared symptom severity. What works for one may not work for another. What every person with PTSD can do though, is achieve a more healthy lifestyle in their own time finding what works best for them.

The facts are though, people lie. Am I calling everyone here a liar? NO. What I am saying though is that even most people I have worked with here had lied to me, they kept secrets from me that hindered the healing process. You do it to your therapist, you do it here, you do it with your families.... the facts are, people lie. Some are very honest and open, the majority don't tell the full story to make themselves look better than they are, which means they lie. If you lie to yourself, your still lying at the end of the day, regardless how honest you are with anyone else. If your honest with yourself though not totally with others, then still your lying. Sorry, but the facts are; people lie.

So knowing this very important fact, no person should ever be comparing themselves or another against another with PTSD, symptoms or trauma, as the gauge is not even comparable on a realistic measure of accuracy. All you do is lie to yourself, lie to others and piss people off.

The best thing any person can do is forget all that nonsense to begin with, and just work on what works best for them, though knowing it may help another, yet may make someone else worse. Learning to manage PTSD is an experimental process. This forum just helps narrow the experimentation down for each person, or helps a person find what can work for them through others experience. It is not a pissing contest for comparison though.

People here try and gauge themselves against me, yet I still never figured that one out either. I manage myself quite well the majority of the time, function extremely well and can interact with society quite well also. All that though, I still cannot work because the stress would be so overwhelming to me that all these other aspects would be no more. I would end up in a hospital.

Evie and I spoke about avoidance, and how avoidance of some things are good, and some avoidance is bad. Typically, any aspect surrounding your trauma will hurt you, although some can be beaten with exposure therapy, some will never be beaten and instead must be avoided. The difference though is that a person must push themselves beyond their capable limits to expose themselves to the problem and use commonsense and logical solutions to learn how to move through it. If a problem cannot be moved past with the help of professionals and techniques known to work, then sometimes avoidance is the best solution. The overall aim though in management is to have very minimal aspects that you will ever avoid, compared to what you used to avoid though now interact within your life.

Anything that is essential for life is not logical to avoid, ie. driving, shopping, entertainment for relaxation. So even if your PTSD is from an MVA, you must achieve a level of interaction surrounding motor vehicles, because its not logical to avoid them as that would limit you entirely to your home. Meaning even if you never drive one again, you can be a passenger without fear, you can walk the streets with cars driving by, etc etc.... though even then it is like falling off a horse, you must get back on.

I got hurt some years ago pretty bad in a motorbike accident, though even whilst I still had broken bones I was back on a motorbike and riding it slowly down the street to ensure I didn't grasp a fear of riding them, especially considering I enjoy them so much. The longer you leave something the worse it becomes to interact once again with it. Avoidance is a logical strategy for some things if you have tried to first engage them many times with no sight of improvement. If you find improvement, then you continue exposure in order to learn how to engage it once again.

Overall though.... with all this in mind, you cannot compare any aspect of trauma or healing with another, as they are unique and cannot be compared nor gauged as every single aspect is unique. The only thing we have in common is PTSD, the symptoms, though not the severity nor the trauma nor the healing. Two veterans who have PTSD will have unique trauma. You can attempt to go around the problem all day discussing each trauma, though you will never find a similarity and only that you both have the same thing, PTSD; and even that will be different for each.

What everyone is missing is the fact that I worked SICK!!!!!!! I was a basket case, and yet I forced myself every frigging day because I had too.

What I did was because I HAD too. YOU all do what you have to. I am NOT saying anyone has to work, or do anything that they can't do. I do for me what I need to, and have to. What you do for you is what you have to.

Yes I use work to help ease my symptoms. If I was home all day long I would go NUTS thinking..... No Thanks!!!!!!!! I would rather work.

If you can't work...Fine, no one said you had to.......

End of my rant.

There is a thread I responded to earlier: "Sensitivity to light, noise, and touch", and a sentence in it that I would love to have time to clarify, yet despite my efforts late this afternoon, this time simply does not exist and so I'll have to get back to it.

However, I like to say in response to the title of this thread, I really don't think IMHO, that there so much a matter of PTSD sufferers passing judgements upon other sufferers, as there is a problem with some individuals comparing rather than identifying.

It's been a number of months now, since I wanted to start a thread on the principle of "Identify don't compare, it's far more effective", and start the thread with personal insight through experience.

Statements of fact, are none more than statements revealing fact.

What I see apparently differs what from what others are seeing. I don't so much see people passing judgement upon severity of other PTSD sufferers symptoms, but I've seen and written statements of fact and or experience, and I've seen people who are responding at times in over sensitivity to 'chooses of words' and/or are perhaps doing the judging or comparing themselves.

Anyhow, today has become one hell of a day for me filled with anxiety from my triggers. I own these triggers and I am responsible for them. Just as others own their unfactual comparisons.

Not a perfect post, but with little to no time and countless interruptions here, hell I'm posting it anyways, or I'll never ever be able to ever post anything.

Hope

My experience working while sick..........
Having been a single parent with 6 kidz at home, youbetcha it wasnt easy...i worked graveyard managing a big local chainstore, had my then 16 yr old at home taking care of/watching the kidz while i was gone. Dang, i was so proud of myself being able to work and support my family. So many outside influences just knew i couldnt do it by myself. Boy...was i proving them wrong! there i was....wow! SO NOT WORTH IT!!
Lemme tell ya...I worked sick for years, draining myself further and further until i was almost totally empty..refusing to stop and take time for my inner healing. compounding and multiplying alot of my issues even further. all the while convincing myself that it was "the best thing for me to do in order to support my family...so what if it was at my expense?? thats what Moms do, right?" WRONG!!!
it ultimately only made trying to stay on my road to recovery WORSE, LONGER AND MUCH MUCH HARDER than it already was!!! all the while durning my working phase, i was participating in multiple therapies, individual, group, and of course, being the spastic parent that i am always needing to know im doing things the right way with my children.....individual for them and family therapy also. I wanted to make sure they had outside professional people to help "lead the way" and provide support for them also. Heck, we were up to having someone having a session every single day of the week it seemed! And my hours were graveyard, lets not forget. My family and I plugged along, doing what society says the responsible parent does and provide without assistance for their own family. Not being a burden or debt to anyone.
I guess what im trying here to express here is, altho i thought it was the best thing for me to do financially at the time, it finally pushed me over the edge and i crashed BIGTIME!! reality forced me into having to take an "open leave of absence." To this day i have to wonder how much farther in my recovery *if any* would i be had i not pushed myself into working like i was doing. Sure, i "handled" it for a period of time...but it was a slippery slope downhill from there. So, here i sit, knowing that work is not an option for me at this point even yet still....all the therapy, meds, support, tricks, keys, i have to accept that its just not my time to be out there. There are days when im feeling good enough and actually entertain the thought "hey, i could do it" then BAM! i get hit with all kinds of things that prove to me, no way. Im just not far enough along. Working while sick....It works for some people, and i am one of the ones who knows that didnt work for me. Will it ever? who knows? i try not to beat myself up about it. Right now my job is to hold myself together enough for my children and myself. Sure, the monetary pay SUCKS, and im getting more overtime then i ever did in the real world workforce...but i guess working outside the home will come *hopefully* when im emotionally healthy and ready. Only time will tell. Until then, i have to remember, some folks just deal with it better than i was able to. Wish them all the best and hope they stay off that slippery slope that leads to the black hole.

Kathy,

Thanks for this post. I really like how you stated this point which is an important one. I would add that sometimes a person can be very well controlled symptom wise for long periods of time and then have a traumatic memory surface that can put them is very great distress. Severe symptoms can persist for long periods of time. I appreciate your point.

Eagle

I am in same boat right now. Except that I was fortunate to be able to work for many years until my symptoms got this bad. Now I fall apart if I have to go one place a day and have to rest for a few hours. And I used to work at home!

Excellent point. This is true in the U.S. as well. In fact, the percentage may be even higher than 60% here.

Thanks for expressing how I feel so well.

We've been living on my severance, which will end this month. If I can't get some arrangement on unemployment or disability, I don't know how we're going to make it on my husband's earnings. I'm still going to try to do some really pretty small freelance projects and pray I can do enough to help keep us afloat for a few more months. But as for a normal type of freelance commitment or job? I can't handle it. Maybe with the right meds, eventually, but for now I am accepting my limitations. I have no choice about that. And, yes, I hate admitting that. But it's the truth.

I do keep saying to you Hope..... you should be an editor here.

Anthony... would you be willing to summarize, what you said in your first post?

I just want to make sure I understood it right, as I've read it a few times.. and could see a few different angles.. but I'm not totally sure which ones your driving at?

Hope you wouldn't mind clarifying?

bec

I think I'm going to just write that ebook I am thinking about writing, outlining the simplistic facts from the birth of PTSD to learning how to cope with it.... a job for next year.

Okay.. I gotta ask this?

Am I wrong here? Is my thinking skewed or off kilter somehow?

I really thought.. that comparing symptoms is mean, rude and insensitive. Whether it's I have severe PTSD so you can't understand me if you have mild, or the other way around, it's just not going to work.

It hurts people's feelings, it alienates us from each other.

This thread was not and is not about work. That was an example. That was pulled out of the air. It was not specific. It was not aimed at one person. If it was.. I would have named and quoted that person. Or I would have quoted many people. My point is, this is not a personal attack on you She Cat. And it's not about just work. It's about all of it.


My point is the us against them.. mild vs. severe. is getting old. It's pointless and doesn't help anyone. I've been on the receiving end of it and it hurts. I resent being treated like that. I've been here over a year. It's nothing new. It's been here the whole time.

So again, is my thinking really that ****ed up?

bec