I was held up at gunpoint and I refused to give up my item. I never got PTSD from it because I stood my ground.
I was hit in the head, in a fight and because he lied to the police and said I attacked fiest I felt helpless and that gave me mental anguish.
For me when these problems are unresolved or i felt helpless in the situation it caused me to replay the situation and upset myself more until I stopped it.
> I never got PTSD from it because I stood my ground.
I'm glad that you didn't get PTSD, but that's not how that works. PTSD isn't "anxiousness because I didn't stand my ground", it's mental baggage which occurs after traumatic experiences. That can happen even if you stand your ground.
Just wanted to mention this because it almost seems malicious to build the narrative of "if you defend yourself you also avoid PTSD".
I have had three memorable traumatic events in a fairly long life, each about ten years apart.
I was in an explosion where my girlfriend and I were the closest people to survive; I was in a physically abusive relationship; and I was in an abusive work situation.
I had no effects from the explosion. It took me over a year to recover from the abusive relationship and separately, from the abusive job.
A counselor explained to me the reason was that after the explosion, I was in control and immediately made the right decisions to survive basically unscratched, so I experienced no trauma. In the other two cases, I was trapped and felt powerless.
Thank you for sharing your own similar experience and understanding me.
It's difficult for me to explain abuse without being stifled, but I have a feeling while everyone online talks about telling you to stop victim blaming, the abused one is victim blaming themselves anyway. It's why it's so traumatic, I replayed the situation to make sense of it, and it hurt every time, until I got out of that mental rut.
It's funny, when bad things happen I dismiss other problems I had because I had a worst one before so it helped with stresses.
I give OP the benefit of the doubt that they only apply their logic to defendable, human vs. human interactions, but even then - You can get PTSD no matter what you do.
Successfully preventing someone from taking your wallet can cause PTSD, surviving an IED blast without injuries can cause it, etc.
You can get PTSD "just" from witnessing a stranger being robbed.
And of course getting PTSD doesn't mean that someone is weak-minded or whatever.
No. What I am complaining about is the use of "because" in your statement:
> I never got PTSD from it because I stood my ground.
You did not get PTSD. That's great! Glad for you. But you can't know for sure why you didn't get it. That's the reason I think that it almost seems malicious to say that you didn't get it, because you stood your ground. Which makes it seem like you would've got PTSD, if you didn't stand your ground. So especially when replying to someone who has PTSD, it makes it seem like they should've just "stood their ground", because you know, according to you, that is the reason you didn't get it. But you or I or we can't know why you didn't get it. Or why exactly they got it.
Now, if that wasn't your intention at all - Then I'm sorry. But as you can see by the reactions to our comments, I wasn't the only one who misunderstood you. Maybe that's a hint :)
They were shot through and someone else was shot to death. You can't stand your ground or fight that his situation. He was lucky and may have had survivors guilt.
I get that you're trying to be helpful but I only shared my experiences and it doesn't at all apply to his situation. But the stiflingly soft language that you use to dismantle my experience such as "But you can't know for sure why you didn't get it." is passive agressive and I'm telling you to stop insulting my intelligence.
Why don't you post that to the person I replied to when they said mediation worked for them or tell them you don't know if they actually have PTSD?
EDIT: Right, I see your reasoning in another comment. So, if I understand correctly, you believe that due to having agency in that situation it lowered stress and fear levels below whatever your threshold for (severe) trauma is? That's sounds plausible with my understanding (but I'm also a layman on the subject).
Wordsmithing is hard lol.
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I think it show great... something, but nobody is sure what. Maybe it's emotional resilience, or something neurological in how your brain processes fear and memories. Maybe it's a combination of those—and other—things (since they can be related).
I'm saying this because I think saying "because I stood my ground" is a dangerous message to spread around, though.
It also does a lot of people a bit of disservice because many who have PTSD didn't get it through inaction. Firefighters get it, soldier get it, doctors get it, etc.
Also, least time I read, current understanding—even if not great—doesn't support your claim that actions during the stressful/traumatic moments are relevant (at least not to the degree you make it seem). There's some small evidence that feelings of helplessness has an influence, but it's inconclusive since helplessness just manifests extra stress (but not the majority of it, and it's not universally present).
And finally a disclaimer for the above: I have zero qualifications on these subjects. I've always been curious of it because of my traumatic past having lived with CPTSD most of my life (not PTSD; they're different, but they have some "mechanical" similarities). So, I've read a few books on CPTSD and PTSD and healing from them, but they weren't academic literature.
I'm glad you came out okay from that situation, though.
PTSD is an all encompassing phrase that includes childhood sexual trauma, being beaten, disturbing visual experiences, survivors guilt and violent explosions. It is like calling it a human experience. The phrase is without reservation a piece of shit.
You shouldn't treat these things the same, yet they're grouped the same and often treated the same. You say firefighters and soldiers get it, have you spoken to them about agency or why they are troubled? I knew a marine and his sleeplessness was partially due to cradling his friend who was hit with an IUD and feeling helpless to save him and only watching him die.
I'd avoid academic literature on this since they group every bad traumatic situation and listen to why people have their issues or how they fixed them. This is deeply personal, and I'm not telling anyone any advice from my experience, it is just an story.
I've spoken about it generally with my therapists, and don't know many people with PTSD, but know some with CPTSD from a support group.
One person I know who had a "lesser form" of PTSD is a nurse. He worked in Zagreb in the wake of last year's earthquakes in Croatia (the hospitals were an absolute mess due to really unfortunate timing and everything happening at once: earthquakes, harsh winter and no/little heating and electricity, prime-time COVID). I say lesser, because his symptoms (nightmares, hearing sounds that aren't there, disassociating) receded on their own after a while. Maybe it wasn't lesser, but maybe his mind is just more resilient (for an unknown factor).
Yeah, I agree with with you that every PTSD is different (even within the same "subtypes" it's not very consistent).
I believe they're grouped together because of how they (or at least as far as experts know, which is also limited) has some common mechanisms in the brain. And I guess it helps to create a jargon for technical discussions too, even if not perfect.
But yeah I think the topic is too nuanced for layman like us to delve deeper into, since it's... A rabbit hole and a maze with lots of dead ends lol
Don't know why this is downvoted. It is an observation I and many others share. The mental anguish comes more from feeling helpless than from the actual danger. This is not to say (and the parent post doesn't say it either) that you can or should take action in all situations. Only that perceived agency or the lack of can have a greater effect on your mental health than the objective circumstances.
> This statement above, intended or not, comes across as dismissive
My thought as well. It gives me slight "victim-blaming" vibes, "If you would've defended yourself you wouldn't be traumatized now."
If it would be that easy to prevent trauma, it wouldn't be such an issue. Trauma is not a decision, the only influence you have is how well you're able to handle it after it occurs, and even then it can be overwhelming for some and they need external help or even medication.
Now I'm not saying that OP is a bad person for thinking what they think, but they shouldn't generalize mental health issues just because they experienced them in a certain way.
Same can be applied to depression, burnout, suicidal thoughts etc. If you're able to handle these things without issues, perfect! Good for you. Just don't apply this to every other depressed/burned out/suicidal person.
I didn't generalize. You did. You projected every "I" and "me" into "everybody" and "everyone" and I find your behavior mentally stifling and uninformed.
You haven't been in my situation, you haven't gotten past it, and yet you pretend to be the expert on my experiences. You're trying to be helpful... by dismissing everything I wrote with sweet words and redefining everything. Why don't you share your experience instead of whatever you're doing?
I was hit in the head, in a fight and because he lied to the police and said I attacked fiest I felt helpless and that gave me mental anguish.
For me when these problems are unresolved or i felt helpless in the situation it caused me to replay the situation and upset myself more until I stopped it.