Exercise may relieve stress, but it's not a fucking CURE for PTSD, Libhatrer.
Exercise may relieve stress, but it's not a fucking CURE for PTSD, Libhatrer.
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/
If I'm the only witness to your madness offer me some words to balance out what I see and what I hear.
10,000 Maniacs
Must... not... make mental illness joke...
The more you complain, the less I care about your problems.
Then I will.....Quote by: Thanatos
Must... not... make mental illness joke...
You're never alone when you're schizophrenic;
The good thing about Alzheimer's, is that you meet new people everyday!
Cheers.
I dream of a better tomorrow... where the motives of a chicken don't come into question.
I didn't say that exercise alone is a 'fucking cure' for PTSD, but seeing how it has done wonders for me both physically and emotionally while I watch others suffer through their addictions to overprescribed anti depressants and just barely clinging onto life, I would say that my method of treatment surpasses all others out there. Don't keep it a secret MJ, if you have some other state-of-the-art cure for PTSD...please inform us immediately of it for the sake and love of your fellow human beings, and that would include all the whining liberals out there of my generation that still think the path to a healthy mind is via an LSD trip while bowing down to their idol Timothy Leary.
The following is a bit of a long post but it summarizes my experience of PTSD. Readers who have trouble reading long posts are advised to skim or scan the paragraphs below-Ron Price, Tasmania
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1.25 Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD) and borderline personality disorder(or BPD) commonly co-occur and they often co-occur in the lives of BPD sufferers. I am a BPD sufferer. Borderline personality disorder has been receiving increased attention within the media over the years. It has been featured in movies such as Girl Interrupted, as well as articles in the New York Times and popular magazines such as O Magazine. I possess five symptoms of borderline personality disorder(I use the acronym BPD here in this section). These symptoms are as follows:
1. A pattern of unstable, intense, and stormy relationships where the person may frequently shift between idealizing and devaluing their partner. With the increase in effexor in September 2010 this tendency, only occurring it would seem when my effexor levels are too low, has been eliminated.
2. Being impulsive in ways that are problematic or damaging. This tendency, too, is alleviated by the increase in effexor medication.
3. Frequent and intense mood swings. This tendency, too, is alleviated by the increase in effexor medication.
4. The intense experience of anger and/or difficulties controlling anger. This tendency, too, is alleviated by the increase in effexor medication.
5. A paranoia that comes and goes as a result of experiencing stress. This tenendcy, too, is alleviated by the increase in effexor medication.
To receive a diagnosis of BPD, a person needs to exhibit these 5 symptoms from a long list of others. Of course, as with all mental disorders, only a mental health professional can provide a formal diagnosis of BPD. BPD has been found among people with PTSD and vice versa. Why are these two disorders so inter-related? BPD and PTSD have both been found to stem from the experience of traumatic events. The thoughts, feelings, and behaviours seen in BPD are often the result of childhood traumas. These childhood traumas may also place a person at risk for developing PTSD. In fact, people with both BPD and PTSD report the earlier experience of trauma as compared to people with just PTSD. My impulsive behaviours and, to some extent, unstable relationships may be part of BPD or they may have no relationship with borderline personality disorder.
The symptoms of PTSD and BPD do overlap; for example, individuals with PTSD may have difficulties managing their emotions. Therefore, they may experience intense feelings and have constant mood swings. They may also experience problems with anger.
1.26 This section is concerned with the manifestation of what is called post-traumatic stress disorder(PTSD) in my life. It entered the psychiatric disorder literature the same year as the term bipolar disorder(BPD), that is, in 1980. The overlap for PTSD and BPD, both neuropsychiatric medical disorders, is high. I have only begun to see it as present in my life in the last four years, the years of my most recent medication package: May 2007 to October 2010. But, in retrospect I can see its manifestations as early as 1968, if not before. Indeed, this overlap has only been recently described in the publicly and easily assessable medical literature as well—on the internet.
1.26.1 We all have a window of tolerance outside of which we behave inappropriately. For healthy individuals, this window is wide. Those with PTSD may seek, focus upon, and over-react to cues even remotely related to danger or trauma, thus constantly reacting as though under threat. Much of the work with traumatized individuals involves helping them with their social interactions when they perceive clues that would take them outside their window of tolerance. I first remember being traumatized in the years 18 to 24 during the first major episodes of my BPD. I now see some of that experience as PTSD: a result of the fear and/or anger and experience of very intense depression and traumatic classroom teaching among Inuit children in 1967/8 at the age of 23.
The degree of my exposure to high levels of trauma in childhood is difficult to assess and any conclusions about this childhood experience are hypothetical. Exposure to childhood trauma in the form of witnessing the domestic verbal violence of my father is now recognized as an independent risk factor for suicidal behavior and ideation later in life. The abilities that we call upon to respond accurately to novel situations are sometimes referred to as executive functions. They are frequently engaged to deal with conditions in which routine activation of behavior may not be sufficient for optimal performance. Now in the evening of my life it may be that whatever PTSD I have interferes with these executive functions.
1.26.2 A person with PTSD must learn to keep their behavioural and psycho-social orientation flexible and appropriate. They can do this by trying to make their interactions with others characterized by an attitude of curiosity, ease and as free of conflict as it is possible to be. If sufferers from PTSD have some professional trainers or counsellors, they can learn to use biofeedback and neurofeedback tools. They can be coached to alter their own neurophysiological state when having experiences outside their window of tolerance. With the help of a skilled trainer sufferers from PTSD can learn to function/behave more appropriately in social settings. They can come to understand that their disturbing reactions are simply reflexes that may have served their purposes in the past, but do not need to be experienced now, do not define who they now are and do not need to determine how they feel and respond in the present. With such psychological counselling, the sufferer from PTSD can learn to tolerate progressively wider windows of arousal.
1.26.3 Such counselling helps the PTSD sufferer to frame his experience in a wider, more comprehensive context, thus ensuring a more normal life pattern. In the last three years on my new meds and without access to a trainer or counsellor and their biofeedback and neurofeedback tools, I have been trying to learn: (a) to understand my disturbing reactions when they arise and (b) to frame them in a wider context for effective interpersonal functioning. By relying on what one might call my own impressionistic feedback mechanisms, I try to observe the indications of my physiology, my body language and my emotions going into hyper- or hypo-mobilization from what are usually and essentially minimal reminders of threat. And there have been many of these minimal threats in the last three years: advice, criticism, the perceived aggressiveness and the over-assertiveness of others, inter alia, which resulted in disturbing and inappropriate reactions on my part.
1.26.4 In these last three years, 2008 to 2010, I have tried to observe the beginning/initial signs of my defensive or my submissive postures so that I can act more appropriately in what I see as threatening situations. I am slowly learning in these middle years(65-75) of my late adulthood(60-80): (i) to observe the origins of my defensive and submissive responses and (ii) to apply non-defensive and non-submissive action systems like: exploration, social engagement and, perhaps, even play. I hope to learn to recognize my overactive defensive actions. I seem to need to learn new reactions and see these resources as replacements for those reactions I once had--and that are not needed any more, not needed as they once were, and which once defined who I was in order to survive.
---------------I'LL POST A LITTLE MORE BELOW------------Ron
married for 44 years, a teacher for 35, a writer and editor for 12, and a Baha'i for 52(in 2011).
1.26.4.1 In the last three years(8/07-10/10), too, what might be called my orienting and defence systems come to occasionally intrude upon and over-ride the functioning of the other systems, severely interfering with love and work, knowledge and play, personal growth and family-social relations. I am still trying to observe and modulate the arousal states which accompany my action systems. As I develop curious, open and non-judgemental exploration of my action systems they become more robust and immune to take-over by defensive systems. The process is, as they say, a work in progress. The whole thing is complex to understand and to describe in writing in a simple way for readers. In some ways I feel like a young adult learning systems of interaction for the first time. On 5 August 2010 my wife and decided to increase my effexor level from 37 & ½ mg to 75 mg due to an outburst of anger and invective the previous day, an outburst that had not occurred with my wife since January 2008 when I had gone right off effexor. This is a good example of a meds response in order to modulate my arousal state. I have now had this new level of effexor for 10 weeks and my current intention is to stay on this level for as far into the future as I can presently foresee.
1.26.5 To deal with PTSD it is necessary that I avoid the stimuli associated with the trauma and the increased arousal. If I do not avoid these stimuli, in other words if I subject myself to too much stimuli, the result is: (a) difficulty in falling or staying asleep or (b) sleepiness and the need to go to bed, or (c) anger and hypervigilance.
1.26.5.1 Formal diagnostic criteria for PTSD in the DSM-IV require that the symptoms last more than one month and cause significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. Only about 8% of the population develop full PTSD. My PTSD, it seems to me, is partial. Predictor models have consistently found that childhood trauma(associated in my case with my father’s temper), chronic adversity(associated with my BPD, employment and interpersonal problems), and familial stressors(my marital and family troubles) increase the risk of developing PTSD in adulthood.
1.26.6 One of the treatments I use for PTSD is known as ‘exposure.’ This involves re-experiencing distressing trauma-related memories and reminders in order to facilitate habituation and successful emotional processing of the trauma memory. Most exposure therapy programs include both confrontation by means of imaginations or creative visualization with/of the traumatic memories and real-life exposure to trauma reminders. This form of therapy is well-supported by clinical evidence. There are other therapies like CBT, cognitive behavioural therapy or simple talk therapy as conducted by successful therapists like Dorothy Rowe. This is a psychotherapeutic approach that aims to change the patterns of thinking and/or behavior that are responsible for the negative emotions and, in doing so, to change the way a person feels and acts. I do some of this CBT and talk therapy on myself and with my wife. For an extended and useful description of PTSD see Wikipedia and other internet sites.
1.26.7 There are three and possibly four groups of symptoms that are required if a person is to be assigned the diagnosis of PTSD. I have some of the symptoms in each of all four groups. The four groups of symptoms include:
1. recurrent re-experiencing of the trauma in the form of: troublesome memories, recurring nightmares about the trauma and reliving of the trauma. In my case this is mostly classroom teaching and various group activities. Traumatic memories are the unassimilated scraps of overwhelming experiences, which need to be integrated with existing mental schemas, and be transformed into narrative language.
2. avoidance to the point of having a phobia of places, people, and experiences that remind the sufferer of the trauma and a general numbing of emotional responsiveness.
3. chronic physical signs of hyperarousal, including sleep problems, irritability, anger, difficulty remembering things, increased tendency to being startled, and hypervigilance; and
4. an emotional numbing which can be seen as a lack of interest in activities that used to be enjoyed, emotional deadness, distancing oneself from people, and/or a sense of a foreshortened future, that is, not believing one will live much longer.
At least one re-experiencing symptom, three avoidance/numbing symptoms, two hyperarousal symptoms must be present for at least one month and must cause significant distress or functional impairment in order for the diagnosis of PTSD to be assigned to a person. PTSD is considered of chronic duration if it persists for three months or more. Since I manage my symptoms fairly well, I consider my PTSD at least partially treated, but I am sure I could benefit from some CBT, talk therapy and general psychological counselling.
1.26.8 The traumatic event, although real, took place outside the parameters of “normal” reality, such as causality, sequence, place, and time. The trauma is thus an event that has no beginning, no ending, no before, no during and no after. This absence of categories that define it lends it to a quality of “otherness,” a salience, a timelessness and a ubiquity that puts it outside the range of associatively linked experiences, outside the range of comprehension, of recounting and of mastery. Trauma survivors live not with memories of the past, but with an event that could not and did not proceed through to its completion, has no ending, attained no closure, and therefore, as far as its survivors are concerned, continues into the present and is current in every respect.
-----------I TRUST THE ABOVE, ALTHOUGH LONG, IS OF USE-------
married for 44 years, a teacher for 35, a writer and editor for 12, and a Baha'i for 52(in 2011).
"Support mental health
Or I'll kill you."
-- Alfred E. Neuman
"I wish I was as cocksure of anything as Tom Macaulay is of everything."
-- Viscount Melbourne
It's nothing personal when we call a mental disorder what it is. If we say someone who is mentally retarded is retarded, we aren't trying to insult them - merely describe their condition. So if we say you have a mental disorder because you experienced traumatic events that led to your acquiring PTSD, it isn't that we're trying to insult you or imply that you are insane or stupid, just that we need a term to identify what has happened to you. Having a mental disorder is a bad thing, but it doesn't mean you're a bad person and it's not your fault. Anyone who uses "mental disorder" as an insult is not behaving as an intelligent, reasonable adult.
That being said, so long as we all know when it's appropriate to be serious, I see nothing wrong with innocent, victimless humor related to mental problems. It's a favorite butt of many common jokes.
I totally agree with you here. Having a very sharp sense of humor--perhaps a little too dry for most, I find it helpful to approach life grounded in levity lifting shoes. The reason for posting about the PTSD issue was to challenge the so-called medical experts to their insistence that an emotional disorder translates to a mental disorder. Would you feel more comfortable and clinically correct saying that a PTSD victim was emotionally disturbed or mentally deranged? I would have figured the politically correct and grammar police yahoos here would be backing me up on this one.
I have a mental disorder that is both chemical and emotional in nature. Emotions are a part of your cognitive functioning, they are mental in nature. If someone said that you were "mentally deranged", I would take issue with that because of the flat out negative connotation of the word "deranged". But, I with my Chronic Depression and you with your PTSD, both, in fact, have a mental disorder. Neither are cause for shame. We both very likely brought some sort of biological component to the table and when we were served a heaping pile of trauma, those two factors interacted and in the complex machinery that is the human body, your biology mixed with your specific cognitive processing produced PTSD, while my biology, mixed with my specific cognitive processing produced Chronic Depression. We did not choose either the biology or the trauma, we both simply have to deal with the result. That result being a mental disorder.
All I see when I look down, something jumpin' on the ground, Scratchin' dirt, cluckin' in the barnyard -
Tell me, could that be you?
John Kay
Ego issues are what you should be troubled about.I find the NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) and the DSM-IV criteria findings labeling PTSD as a mental disorder to be quite troubling.
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/
If I'm the only witness to your madness offer me some words to balance out what I see and what I hear.
10,000 Maniacs
I wouldn't be surprised if one day doctors called PTSD a brain disease.
"One objection that many critics have is the problem of logistics. However, with technologically advanced aircraft at His disposal, transportation for Jesus was NEVER a problem" ---- loser
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