PTSD sympthoms or something else?

Hi,
I'm new here. Recently I have been diagnosed with Bipolar disorder possibly PTSD and anxiety disorder. So a lot of stuff to wrap my head around. It's hard to differ the sympthoms form one and the others as they do overlap quite a bit. Plus my life was very traumatic and continues to be difficult, so in my everyday life I deal with many triggers.
I've been reading through the posts over last few weeks, trying understand myself and my conditions better. Also trying to make sense out of them and you know, accept, I suppose. My diagnosis is difficult to face for me if I'm being honest and I'm struggling with just taking it in. Especially that I've read so much about misdiagnosis, which can be even easier to happen when someone has so much crap weighting on their back.
As I went through the forum I could relate more or less with certain topics, sympthoms and stories.
And I'm aware that I can't ask anyone to help me check my diagnosis, but there's one thing I'm courius about. Do people who mainly deal with Ptsd experiance strong mood swings as well ? do you get manic states (apart from anger/ rage ), euphoric, almost "high" like? if yes could you share how does it feel for you?

Thank you.

pepera wrote:


but there's one thing I'm curious about. Do people who mainly deal with Ptsd experience strong mood swings as well ? do you get manic states (apart from anger/ rage ), euphoric, almost "high" like? if yes could you share how does it feel for you?

Thank you.

Yes I have PTSD (and now that the nightmares have stopped and I understand it, I am okay with it - it is just who I am) but prior to learning this and working through it, many people thought I was manic depressive (much better description frankly than bi-polar) as my mother is, so easy diagnosis to make. I will come back with more later.

oh and welcome

oh did you? that's very interesting for me! my father was manic depressive and ended up committing suicide, so yea I also think that could have had an impact on my diagnosis. Nonetheless, personally I resonate more with manic depressive sympthoms and stories myself. Maybe if you throw some light of your experiances it will help me understand things better.

See, I had s@#$ty life yea, but I never felt truly traumatized by it. Anxious, but angry yes, but never fully traumatized. I went to the theraphy, I changed my lifestyle completely (keeping it healthy and simple) and a lot of triggers went away.
If I'm being honest I don't really feel like my past haunts me, not anymore. You know, if I talk about it, it's sad. But it is what it is. I have no issue going back there in my memory, I don't feel angry about it anymore, I don't have flashbacks or nightmares; sometimes I think about it, but usually in relation to something else and not in a triggering way. I don't avoid people or places that remind me of it either. My anxieties are not that bad anymore, apart from mood swings and energy levels changes that come out of nowhere and sometimes for no reason, I would consider myself mentally healthy. Yet I'm not.

So when I go through ptsd sympthoms list, I find it hard to place myself there. But I dunno, maybe there's something to it that I can't see. or maybe I do have both.
would really appreciate if you shared your story. How was your ptsd mimicing bipolar?
Thank you.

From abuse you get drug addict, alcoholic, gambling addiction, hoarding, shopping addiction (travel addiction is in this) and workaholic.

I was a workaholic. Not the "I love getting out of bed in the morning so I can go to work" (two of my clients have actually said that to me) but just driven to be successful. I was self employed, basically as I could not hold down a job, (very bad social skills) but could work 30 hour days. (start at 9.00am one day and finish at 6.00pm the next). In a way it was a form of self abuse. It was born of rage and hatred towards society which I thought had thrown me under the bus as a kid (still feel that way). I wanted to prove them wrong.

I am not a high energy individual and usually do better on 8-9 hours sleep (in bed at night), but I could drive myself to almost collapse. That mirrored a manic phase. What happened after mirrored a depressed phase. I would withdraw from people (family) etc as much as possible until I recovered. During this time I would be very negative (even more than usual). People would call this depression (I was still however working long hours doing six day weeks, just not REALLY long hours, say cutting back from 65-70 down to 50. That phase lasted 17 years and finished around same time I had an incident that forced me to address my childhood.

I definitely have PTSD though but now know my triggers and that it will pass soon.

thank you for sharing your story. It must be difficult for you and I can see how it could mimic manic depressive that way. I guess neither of these disorders is fun to have.

I can relate to what you say. I run away from my house when I was 18 and I was very badly driven by a need to be successful. Now I'm driven by a need to be healthy. I get very obsessive by these things though and can overdo even things that are supposed to be healthy (nothing is in large amounts) . When I was younger I would experiance more sympthoms of ptsd and anxiety; bad social skills was one of them. Fear, anger, nightmares, flashbacks. But I tried theraphy and other forms of self improvement techniques right after I left my home and I have to say a lot of stuff disappeared. A lot of triggers doesn't work anymore. I have no nightmares, no flashback, I can comfortably make a phone call and go to shops, I forgave my family and have a healthy enough relations with them, I'm not angry with the world, I don't think people are bad and I don't have trust issues.

But I do have mood swings. And even though I don't exactly like it, I'm starting to accept that I might have bipolar disorder too. I go into a high energy levels where I loose control and love life. Love it to the point it freaking hurts. It sometimes gets activated for no apparent reason. Sometimes it's stress related (not fun for someone who experianced abuse). Sometimes I stay within my current obsessions and interest areas, just overdoing them to the point I start to hate them but still getting $#%^ loads done. Sometimes I get hooked by completely random things. When I look back it's as if I went crazy, as if I was drunk/high rearranging my whole life, but there's no anger in it, it's extreme happiness and in those moments everything makes perfect sense (sometimes I do get messages from above (God/Universe) to do certain things, and I'm not really a believer on a regular basis). And when i crash, I crash hard. From heaven to hell. Complete depression, hopelessness, pure darkness. All I do is sleep and eat, not able to function. I feel like I'm drained, like all the energy has evaporated. It's horrible and I have very little control over it. It's a dangerous place to be.

I isolated myself cos I don't want anyone to see my madness. I don't want people to associate me with my (hypo)manic self, cos even though she seems like fun to some, it's not me and in my regular moods I can't live up to the image of me she creates(hypomania or low mania can be more fun at least from the outside, manic me is better to kept lock in a room), and I, first of all, don't want to be around people when I'm depressed, second of all I don't want to be a burden to anyone. That leaves me with a small window where I'm relatively normal and I could approach people, but anxieties and bad social skills usually kick in here

It is a very lonely life I have. After my last year's episode I lost my job and wasn't able to get one since. I'm just not capable. I can function well enough when I'm at home, and can manage my episodes myself, but any sort of disturbance is just hard to handle at the moment. I feel like I'm falling into pieces. I take one bit of my back, something else shows up in it's place. It's a constant struggle. I'm just tired and overwhelmed.

Sorry for all that. I just came out unexpectedly.