Complex-PTSD

[Guest_79331030]

Massive trauma adding to my complex-PTSD from a hospital stay. These professionals are supposed to be people who we can confide in and trust them. My life hasn’t been the same since… Anyone else experienced a similar situation?

[Croix]

Dear New Member~

Welcome here to the Support Forum.  As there are a lot of people with CPTSD and who have been hospitalized you may get to see how they reacted if you look around.

I have PTSD and this makes me very wary of whom I trust, and actually in hospital this  has not been a bad thing at times. I remember one public hospital where I visited as a voluntary patient, but was unable to leave. When I asked why the nurse on duty said so she would not get into trouble if something went wrong. This came as a shock to me.

Not the sort of person I'd confide in. The remainder of the staff were not that approachable either, so I really was not that much better off. They would do the rounds and report I was fast asleep when I was sitting up looking at them, a most disappointing discovery in the conduct of those I'd previously regarded as being professional and competent.

Duty psychiatrists were a revolving door, a different one each day, and under those circumstances not people to inspire confidences.

If that had been all htere was to it I would have left in a much worse condition than when I entered as it seemed to me that my last hope of help was not there.

However there was one nurse who was different. They went to their home and brought back books for me to read. It helped enormously as I could loose myself in them and distance myself from the other patients in distress and staff.

The nurse left me keep the books when I left and that helped upon returning home.  No I did not say a lot to htat nurse, however their insight and kindness made a big difference.

Maybe if the had been assigned to me I might have told them how I was feeling and even of some past events.

Unfortunatly they were one among many and my lack of regard for the staff as a whole at that particular hospital  made me feel trapped after I left, however my experiences since have been more positive, though I have tended to hold back.

I don't know if your experiences are in anyway similar, I guess the best I can say is hospitals vary, and some are good

Croix

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Guest_79331030,

I agree that hospitals and medical professionals do not always provide the empathetic, compassionate care you would hope for and can actually cause harm. Then, as Croix mentions, sometimes if you are lucky you get one of the good, caring people who really makes a difference. It’s really unfortunate you’ve had a bad experience.

I have complex-PTSD too and I have certainly been further damaged in some medical encounters. My mum definitely had undiagnosed complex-PTSD and experienced severe medical negligence in hospital leaving her with serious injuries. She had very clear grounds for claiming compensation but due to her complex-PTSD was far too frightened to do this, fearing something even worse would result. This was her complex trauma freeze response. She’d immediately close down my dad if he brought up the topic of compensation. I could see how her trauma issues were really added to by her experiences in hospital.

So I feel for you greatly. I think bad experiences tend to imprint more significantly when either PTSD or C-PTSD are present. I still hurt inside when I remember certain medical encounters. But I think over time I’ve begun to kind of psychologically give back some of that bad energy from poor experiences to those who were responsible, recognising it’s their bad energy to carry, not mine. One thing I know with C-PTSD is we can suffer particularly severely with shame and such people can instil further shame in us. As I’m getting better at self-care and being kind to myself, I’m starting to be able to release some of the impacts of other people’s behaviours, viewing the bad feelings those behaviours generated as not mine to carry. That’s very much a work in progress but I am experiencing a shift which is part of my complex trauma healing in general.

One of the most helpful things I’ve found when it comes to C-PTSD and the impact of bad experiences, is having good experiences which help the nervous system to remember what those things are. We have a bias towards remembering the bad experiences because at a deep, primal level our body remains on guard for further potential dangers. But as the nervous system begins to have some good experiences such as self-care and nurturing positive interactions with others, we start to know some of what safety and good feelings are. These positive experiences can start to cancel out at least some of the bad.

For me I’ve started to show care for myself in the same way I’ve always cared for others instead of being constantly hard on myself. I’m also working with a really good psychologist who is really kind and present with me, so I’m beginning to trust more and have a greater sense of emotional safety. We may not be able to change how the medical system works, but we can at least develop some agency within ourselves through self-compassion, self-care and healing encounters with kind people who help us know that goodness exists in the world.

I don’t know the actual nature of your experiences, but I wonder are there any supportive, kind people in your life you can confide in or who just being in the presence of has a healing effect? I hope at least here you can feel heard and welcome.

Take care,

Eagle Ray