PTSD and dissociation

[Guest_922]

Hi I have PTSD. Mostly it’s controlled and I have developed techniques along the way thanks to my psychologist and go to help when reliving traumatic episodes. However, I find that I can talk sometimes to people about the trauma without any emotion at all. It is like I am talking about someone else and I can completely dissociate any emotion. It’s when I’m in control of the dialog and the when and where it comes up. People have often commented that I’m so calm and measured. I find it’s in complete contrast to the traumatic stress I can endure at night, or when I’m by myself. When I do have a flash back even though I know they happen at night and certain things will trigger it I’m surprised by how much fear and anxiety I experience over it and it takes days for me to recover yet during the day it’s almost (particularly at work) as if I’m a different person. I’m strong and in control. Can the two co exist? Is it something I have learnt to do to cope?

[Guest_922]

I ask because my psychologist noted that I dissociate myself from the trauma sometimes and I’m wondering if there’s more to my mental health? Can PTSD lead to other disorders? I was too afraid to ask in my last session.

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi Guest_922,

Thank you for your post. PTSD is an incredibly complex condition - you can have so many people in a room with PTSD and everyone will act so differently.

It sounds like what you're describing is kind of a flat/blunted affect. Often it can seem like it doesn't bother them at all, or they don't care, when in reality it's not the case at all. It can happen so often when people go through trauma. I do personally believe it's something you're doing to cope (probably subconsciously) and I don't believe that it's necessarily linked to another diagnosis because it happens so much within PTSD.

I hope this helps,