PTSD from Emotional Abuse?

[Ms_H]

Hi everyone,

A couple of questions:

I was wondering whether anyone had any information on what exactly constitutes emotional abuse?

Is it possible to develop PTSD years after the abuse happened?

Can a clinical psychologist diagnose PTSD, or can only a GP/Psychiatrist do that?

I'm having a lot of trouble sorting through my past and memories. I thought I just had depression, but my psychologist thinks I have PTSD. I've never experienced any sexual or physical abuse. However I'm starting to remember a volatile emotional environment at home when I was a teenager and young adult which is starting to really bother me. I'm finding it hard to sleep or work - I feel jittery and exhausted, and I have moments of intense emotion or panic, and sometimes I feel like I am not really inside my body. I have stressful memories playing on repeat inside my head all day. I don't get any nightmares or hallucinations though and I feel like therapy might have actually brought this on - I was just feeling regular depressed before therapy - but now I'm experiencing all these other symptoms. So I'm not sure it's PTSD or just therapy making me remember things that make me feel bad.

It's pretty confusing because I also remember plenty of warm, happy family times, and currently have a good relationship with my parents. So I swing between intense anger at them, and extreme guilt and anger towards myself for even having bad thoughts about them. It's exhausting!

I'd love some advice 🙂

Ms H

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi Ms H,

Thanks for your post.

I'll try and answer your questions below -

I was wondering whether anyone had any information on what exactly constitutes emotional abuse?

There's actually a lot of ways that people can be emotionally abused, so instead of providing a list here's a link with a bit of a list -

http://www.mindhealthconnect.org.au/emotional-abuse

Is it possible to develop PTSD years after the abuse happened?

Yes. This I know.

But, from what I understand, the science of delayed PTSD is a bit complicated, but people think it happens when either there's a trigger (that links back to the trauma), or there's another stressor. So the theory is that we have always had that trauma but the symptoms of PTSD may not arise straight away.

Can a clinical psychologist diagnose PTSD, or can only a GP/Psychiatrist do that?

Yes, a clinical psychologist can make a diagnosis. A psychologist cannot.

I hope that this answers your questions! Although I can't tell you more about the diagnosis of PTSD I can tell you that it is normal for therapy to 'shake things up' and bring up PTSD like symptoms. This is your mind's way of coping. Even though it can feel extremely uncomfortable (aka a living nightmare), bring this stuff up often means we can work through the pain and find a way out. I've gone through a similar thing with my own experiences. Mixed feelings are normal and you may find that how you're feeling escalates straight after therapy for a few days and then starts to settle. Feel free to bring all this stuff up with your psychologist too; they can help you make more sense out of it.

You may also find this website helpful - http://www.blueknot.org.au/ They are an organisation targeted to people who've dealt with their own childhood trauma.

[MarkJT]

Ms H, just wanted to add a couple of things to the already great advice romantic_thi3f has given above.

I live with PTSD and the added bonus of depression and anxiety. Although I have recovered quite well from the PTSD, I am still very much symptomatic, it is just i have learnt to control the symptoms.

I would well recommend getting an appointment with a clinical psychologist to see if you do have PTSD or not as you can absolutely get it from what you have explained. Don't want to alarm you on this but as is what is said above, when we are being clinically treated, it brings up all kinds of trauma in our brains and mixes it all about so can be quite confusing and very scary at times.

Strict time lines do not apply to PTSD. My triggering incident was in 2003 and I was hospitalised in 2013 so a decade in between.

I really like how you have come here and asked the question though as I was showing all of the symptoms for years but did nothing about it, you are not making the same mistake that i did so well done!

If you do get diagnosed with PTSD, you can recover - you can absolutely recover so let us know how you go and then we can talk about that (if you do get diagnosed).

Mark.

[james1]

Hi Ms H,

As the others have said, a clinical psychologist will usually be able to help you out with diagnoses.

I grew up in a very similar environment and exhibit a lot of the same symptoms you've described. It is best not to self-diagnose, but my therapy with my psychologist has been based around treating things related to PTSD, not PTSD itself. Your situation could be different.

At the end of the day, we're treating the symptoms not the name anyway, and my symptoms have been emotional fluctuations, hairline trigger, and dissociation of varying intensity to not being in my body to just no memory.

I don't have any one event that triggered my issues, but the invalidating environment basically meant I didn't develop fully as an adult, which is something I'm working on now with my psych.

We'd love to chat to you some more if you feel you are still uncertain about anything!

James