I think I have PTSD

Hello, I am a 16 year old girl, with MANY problems Dx. Although i don't feel quite depressed at the moment to go in depth that that, I do require some advice on what has happened. July 2008. I was 15 at the time. My grandmother and I were in the kitchen, she was helping me crush and mix up pills for my cramps..I knew it would happen. Prehaps its because im so damn paranoid, but I knew she would fall..I go into my other room..just waiting for it. I heard a loud bang. I slowly walked into the kitchen, from the hall way i didnt see my grandma.. i turned around the corner, and found her lying on the floor. I was worried, her eyes were open and she was making this weird noise.. kind of like heavy breathing or something idk. I called the police to come over, my mom was out working. 911 came with the paramedics, and for some reason..i was calm. I knew she would be dead. My aunt called and i put the phone down to talk with the paramedics. There was nothing i could so.. i had...NO...Emotion at all and jsut sat there talking to one of my friends. Does that make me an awful person? From my room, i could see her feet turning blue. All i have..well, HAD was her and my mom. I never knew my dad, my grandpa died when i was in elementary school. I kinda wished this was the end for her, not because i hated her, because ever since her husband died she has been depressed and angry.. and i thought it selfish to wish for ehr not to be dead jsut to live another day away from him. She always said how she hated life. So now, I constantly worry the same will happen to my mother. She is voer weight, she stresses herself easily because of my messyness (im tryng to be neater) and my step dad. And whenever i hear heavy breathing.. i feel..scared. I supose seing a dead body blue on the floor is pretty tramatic.

Yes you may have ptsd....being in shock after your grandma dies is definitely a hint of it. You saw a very traumatic scene.....you loved your grandma.....even though you wanted her to die because she was miserable you really didn't want to loose her company. Have you seen a doc about this? Perhaps they maybe be able to give you more info on why you are often feeling the way you do....and yeah if you are afraid when you hear loud breathing then that definitely is a possible sign of ptsd. Perhaps your mom can see a psych too.

Kit111 wrote:Hello, I am a 16 year old girl, with MANY problems Dx. Although i don't feel quite depressed at the moment to go in depth that that, I do require some advice on what has happened. July 2008. I was 15 at the time. My grandmother and I were in the kitchen, she was helping me crush and mix up pills for my cramps..I knew it would happen. Prehaps its because im so damn paranoid, but I knew she would fall..I go into my other room..just waiting for it. I heard a loud bang. I slowly walked into the kitchen, from the hall way i didnt see my grandma.. i turned around the corner, and found her lying on the floor. I was worried, her eyes were open and she was making this weird noise.. kind of like heavy breathing or something idk. I called the police to come over, my mom was out working. 911 came with the paramedics, and for some reason..i was calm. I knew she would be dead. My aunt called and i put the phone down to talk with the paramedics. There was nothing i could so.. i had...NO...Emotion at all and jsut sat there talking to one of my friends. Does that make me an awful person? From my room, i could see her feet turning blue. All i have..well, HAD was her and my mom. I never knew my dad, my grandpa died when i was in elementary school. I kinda wished this was the end for her, not because i hated her, because ever since her husband died she has been depressed and angry.. and i thought it selfish to wish for ehr not to be dead jsut to live another day away from him. She always said how she hated life. So now, I constantly worry the same will happen to my mother. She is voer weight, she stresses herself easily because of my messyness (im tryng to be neater) and my step dad. And whenever i hear heavy breathing.. i feel..scared. I supose seing a dead body blue on the floor is pretty tramatic.

It's possible hon.
You witnessed something very traumatic.
A person can get PTSD when something like this does happen.
No you are not an awful person, not at all.

Have you talked about this to anyone professionally?

Hi Kit,

I just joined. Weird that we had a similar experience. I'm 27. When I just turned 18, my mother sent me to dog-sit, and called me to say "she was going to sleep." Nothing out of the ordinary. Still, I sat up all night watching Armageddon (ha!). Next morning, the phone rings, and even though I don't pick up the phone at other people's houses, I KNEW it was the emergency room calling, and lo and behold, it was. Two years prior, my grandfather died of leukemia.

In both instances, I felt completely numb. I wondered why, but couldn't place it.

I've since found out that your brain is like your body when it comes to trauma. People have reported that, when they get shot, they feel nothing. The brain is the same. It's kind of like a crisis-point switch that prevents you from going completely insane.

The funky brain crap came later. I had insane anxiety over leaving my mother alone. My grandfather's dog still lives with me and my fiance. He's 13 (OLD for a German Shepherd). Every day is a nightmare because I keep expecting him to die. I'm horribly anxious, almost all of the time, that my fiance could be taken from me at any moment. Worst of all, up until a year ago, I blamed myself for everything that happened. That's quite a load.

Sometimes, when people experience a traumatic event, they try to get a feeling of control. The easiest way to do so is to blame yourself, and go through all the "what-if-I-did-this" scenarios. THIS IS A VERY DESTRUCTIVE THING TO DO. IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT. YOU ARE NOT A BAD PERSON.

What worked for me:

Clonazepam (generic for Klonopin). It's an anti-anxiety drug that is less addicive than Xanax or Valium, and doesn't have such horrible withdrawal symptoms. This medication calms me down enough for an EMDR session.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). Here is the website: http://www.emdr.com/briefdes.htm

What EMDR does is this: The idea is that you get rid of the painful memories associated with a trigger, and replace them with neutral/positive ones. In your case, a trigger is the heavy breathing. You move your eyes move back and forth, slowly following your finger, while working with your flashback trigger. Like checking for a concussion. So, you've got one foot in the present, the other in the flashback. This is pretty effective at preventing you from getting so anxious that you can't deal with the problem.

Here's an example:
Situation: my mom's suicide attempt
Triggers: ringing phone, vodka, any bottle of prescription or over-the-counter medication, the smell of a particular floor cleaner (she cut herself on the broken vodka bottle and there were bloody footprints all over the kitchen floor), and, of course, the song that was on the radio EVERY FIVE MINUTES, "I don't wanna miss a thing."
Problems: answering a phone, going to the grocery store (I swear I could smell the freaking Pine Sol the moment I stepped in the door), and having to pull over and cry and slam the crap out of my car stereo whenever I heard the song.
Solutions: used my cell phone to call my house phone. Repeatedly. For three months. I set an alarm with a note for myself to come back to the real world, and ramped up "therapy time" from 5 minutes to 10 and then 20. Eventually, I just got sick of hearing the phone.
Bought a bottle of Pine Sol. Didn't huff it, lol, but I did put some in a bucket in a well-ventilated room, and sat there, slowly passing my finger in front of my face, moving my eyes back and forth. Eventually, it didn't cause me anxiety anymore. I did the same thing with vodka, and tylenol, and prescription meds, (just let them sit on the table in front of me) until I could have a drink, get rid of a headache, or walk into a pharmacy.
Same thing with the "I don't wanna miss a thing" song. I listened to it, followed my finger. I am SO happy to say that when the movie Blades of Glory was released, and I was blindsided by hearing it, I didn't cry or hit anything. I actually laughed my ass off during Will Ferrell's skating routine.

Also, I came to terms with the fact that my mother's life is not forever. So we make sure to spend time together. We shop, we complain, we laugh. And I'm not obsessive over "not missing a thing." But we do try to see each other at least once a week.

The other stuff...well, I'm still working on it.

Hope this helps! Post if you need/want suggestions for your specific situation. I didn't want to use yours as an example because you don't know me from Eve, and I didn't want to get too personal. So I spilled my guts instead.


Good luck!!!

It could be two things:

PSTD or acute stress disorder.

The defining symptoms PSTD are:

exposure to an event resulting in extreme fear, helplessness or horror i.e your grandads passing

If you continue to re-experience this events e.g., memories, nightmares, flashbacks, that might be a clue you have PSTD.

If you begin to avoid cues that are reminders of the event, that is another symptom.

The emotional numbing you are expirencing could mean something else however.

Is there a lack of social support after the trauma? Do your family know how you feel about this?

Either way, I wish you good luck with your anxiety and hope it gets easier for you.

I wonder what has happened in your life so far to bring you to a moment where on one level, you went numb in the face of your grandmother's tragic fall in the kitchen? Your story of event(s) will lead you to an understanding whether or not PTSD is developing, or has developed. A competent mental health professional would be the one to help you out with this.

Take care, and stay safe.

Tashina
http://www.psychologicalhealingandyoga.com

It might take a while of assessing yourself before you can definitively diagnose it as PTSD.
I think seeing a therapist for just one or two evaluation sessions can be helpful, if to point you in the right direction. e.g. further treatment or not further treatment. And certainty a bit of evaluation will be necessary before you get started on medications, which tackle symptoms but likely do not penetrate to the underlying causes of PTSD.

Welcome,

I am sorry to hear that you experienced such a traumatic event. It is so honorable that your grandmother chose to spend her last moments in your company and helping you at a task for your benefit. To be with our loved ones in thier last moments is a great reward that grief attempts to overshadow and steal from us.

Have you ever heard of fight or flight? Well, for people the hormones responsible for those actions in respoce to sever stress are more than that. There are three f's: fight, flight or fright (freezing up). It is a very normal reaction to have felt so emotionless at the time. That defense enabled you to work through some extraordinary moments in time. Think how things would have turned out if you had fled instead of froze.

PLease seek out grief councelors and ones experienced in PTSD. You needed the label to know that you need help recovering from a very disturbing event.

I urge you to see the good in the tradgedy, to not blame yourself (we have no way of ever knowing how events might have changed depending on how we acted at a certain time), try not to feel guilt. You'll need to learn to rewrite the negativity in your mind to positivity and a learned and experienced councelor can help you do that.

Seek out friends and family members who either shared this particular experience with you or similar ones. There will be a lot of crying, but sharing your experience will help you learn that a traumatic event is not the begining of victimhood, it is the first step in survivorship.

Moss

The best approach to dealing with "stress" is to focus on what brings us joy and makes us happy. Sometimes as we get older we are so busy in our lives that we don't do the things that make us happy anymore. Maybe we need to think more like a small child, running and playing, and doing what makes us happy.