So, I was wondering... Just how many of you have PTSD or are suspected of having PTSD?
Add to that GD or suspected GD if you are still unsure?
Let me start things off, just in case anyone hadn't caught on. I have PTSD and GD. There is a reason I can describe a lot of those symptoms so well. Mine is not Combat Related however, so there is no misunderstanding that, but I do have flashbacks and the like. It totally sucks. The pairing is not good. I did not vote for it.
So... there you go.
I am kind of curious the number of readers here who have that particular mix or just the one or the other. For science. Or curiosity. One of the two.
Comments
Starting the Queue...
...A painful but calm reassurance that I'm not alone. Count me in.
Love, Andrea Lena
PTSD
I have been diagnosed by the VA as having PTSD and depression. I am a Desert Shield/Storm veteran. I suspect that I have GD.
And yes, my PTSD is combat-related. I don't have flashbacks but I have a moderate to high degree of paranoia. I also have alot of difficulty in social functions unless I can focus on something. Being a member of my church choir actually helps me with attending church however, once church is over and everyone has gone into the guildhall for coffee is when I start getting nervious. Funerals are total hell for me. Not the service it's self but the viewing beforehand. Some social functions I can get through them by thinking of myself as unpaid security or medical support. My main problem with social functions is dealing with adults. Around kids I am usually very comfortable.
I'm in
PTSD and GAD seem to be the big ones that I have not been able to work through. From what I have read, I don't expect anything quickly there either. It takes a lot of cognitive therapy to teach the brain to react differently.
I was lucky though in that the hormone therapy has sent my dysthymia into remission. I tell myself that putting my brain into the right body has finally got it to work better. We just know so little about the brain to tell.
Cassie Ellen
can of worms
I can assure you that most of the people who read or write here have been assaulted at one point or another badly enough that yes they do have PTSD. Since most of them are also trans in some way well ...
Is that answer enough?
Moi aussi
Yes, the pairing is a big part of my life. I wrote 'Uniforms' as my first attempt to rationalise the combination, and the core of 'Ride On' was about the corrosion of the mix I have suffered from most of my life. GID and PTSD. Joy....
Had it
I suspect I had PTSD at one point in my life, but I found an easy way to deal with it, I just live from one trauma to the next so I don't have a post.
Katie Leone (Katie-Leone.com)
Writing is what you do when you put pen to paper, being an author is what you do when you bring words to life
Still PTSD
…as in “Presently and Traumatically Stressed Disorder”? Oh yes, I am soooo on board with that.
think so
I have no official diagnosis but do have many of the symptoms of it.
Look like it
Noting definite, as I don't have any official diagnostics.
So suspected GD
and probably dysthymia. The therm was strange and I check it out, ant it seem to fit some what.
Peace and Love
tmf
count me as one with both
Some days, the PTSD really sucks ...
PTSD plus...
I have combt related PTSD and familial PTSD ( I was an bused child) I also have GID and it cost me dearly as a child. I would get puched in the face by my step dad and get told this will make a man out of you. With my PTSD I also have anxiety and panic disorder, so I am on a shot fuse when I become anxious. I've been in a Depression since age three and now due to vascular surgery I get depressed.
How do I manage? I find that by accepting who I am and living in my correct gender has helped my maintain a peace and quite, that is not saying I wont have another PTSD episode it just keeps me from over reacting to the things I have reacted to. I was dangerous to my self when in an episode, I destroyed in one year twelve PS2 game consoles, many light bulbs and at least five sets of dishes.
When I came home from Nam, I did not know I had PTSD I managed to destroyan entire family unit. My siblings don't talk to me, my relatives don't know how to accept things I say. I am openly honest about my siblings and how screwd up they are. I self medicated until 1983, in 1996 I learned I had PTSD.
I can say with pleasure I enjoy being a girl. I like crying and shopping when I am upset. I do love buttons and bows, I like holding hands with a guy, I truly enjoy wearing dresses, and skirts.
I own no slacks. I pamper myself in the bath tub, enjoy getting my hair done and enjoy wearing matching necklaces and earrings. Only afew people know I am not a genetic female.
Jill Micayla
Be kinder than necessary,Because everyone you meet
Is fighting some kind of battle.
An Emotional Kodak Moment...
PTSD....and gender identity disorder; like Kodak used to say, the gifts that keep on giving.
...however...
I've got an appointment with my immunologist in NYC. In the past four days I've vomited from the stress of normal stuff mixed with the health issues AND... being reminded once again that PTSD is like walking in a minefield covered with lots of pretty flowers. Every once and a while you step on something that triggers reactions. Three different medications are no match for emotions stirred up by watching Chris Cuomo interview Sandusky's first victim. All of that exacerbates my immune system issues.
Night terrors and panic attacks and crying jags and depression. Anyone have a tray filled with items from that ala carte'? I'm going to be accompanying my brothers to my father's grave site next Sunday; the hundredth anniversary of his birth. I really don't want to go, but I don't want to refuse without explanation, and they have no idea what he did to me and my sister. And I'm considered (really I am) one of the ones who is actually coping well with PTSD.
It says that God never gives us anything we can't handle; especially with his help. It doesn't say, however, that he promises it will be easy. And people actually think we want to change our gender. We don't just want, we need it because it's part of the very cores of our beings; not what but whom we are! If I didn't have you and God I'd be dead now.
So if I'm doing well....since I'm doing well, as I said to my doctor, I wonder what the hell bad looks like. Well, we know. Every one who responded with a yes or maybe has seen it; we all have seen what hell looks like because so many of us have lived through it multiple times and even some are walking through it right now. My prayers to everyone who is dealing with this horror; whether or not you are able to comment.
Love, Andrea Lena
GID and other baggage
GID does not come in a neat box. A very large percentage of us have other forms of true mental illness that we've picked up over the years. Few if any of us are unscarred.
PTSD is just the most visible. Its hard to cover up huddling in a corner and crying while others can be explained away.
Its the main reason GID has been treated sooo poorly. It hides behind our other baggage. The shrinks have to wade through the BS that we throw up to hide our internal struggles.
I was never sexually abused as a child, but I was mentally and physically abused by a woman our mother hired to look after us.
Do I have ptsd? I don't know... I'm pretty sure I don't wanna know. I function pretty well other than being a terminal hermit.
Dayna.