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Possible PTSD Symptoms?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Hey, you can call me Austin. I'm 17 years old and currently in high school. I have been diagnosed with depression without a known cause back in late 2012/early 2013. I believe it was caused by a toxic relationship I was in with a girl that also had depression probably caused by her concussion. I have since then attended therapy for about two years and stopped this fall because I was better off than before the therapy, although I still did not feel 100%, but I felt close enough for my mom to take me off of the therapy.
Other possible causes of the depression include two suicides that happened at my schools, one in eighth grade (2012) with a kid in my grade and one last year with a senior, I was a sophomore. Back when the 2012 one happened, I did not know a thing about suicide or any mental illnesses, I was very uneducated about mental health. I was shocked and did not know how to deal with the incident, as he was only a classmate and not a close friend. That somehow caused several symptoms of depression in me. This past year's incident I dealt with better, but it still lingers in the back of my head, why he did it, who caused it, and so on.
I do not have abusive family members of any kind and I do not associate with drug abusers or alcohol abusers in school. However, I am friends with some band kids I make music with who I feel can become major jerks sometimes, to others and to myself. I had almost all symptoms of depression and kept it secret other than telling my ex-girlfriends who then told my parents.
The reason I am making this rather long post is because I am currently doing a school project on PTSD in police officers and as I read the symptoms, I believe I might qualify for PTSD, although I have not experienced any severe trauma, like rape, child abuse, a car accident, or anything to that severity. I took a test online that rated my chance of having PTSD on healthyplace.com and scored a 14/22, where 1-3 was few symptoms of PTSD, 4-9 is PTSD is likely, and 10+ is that I display many symptoms of it.
My symptoms are hyper-vigilance, bad dreams and frightening thoughts which I will talk about in depth later, staying away from places/events that can cause my anxiety, worry, depression, and hyper-vigilance, feeling emotionally numb (I have overcome this symptom through therapy, although it is still a significant symptom I had for 2 years), feeling strong guilt, depression, or worry, which usually occurs during band events such as performances in our pep band, losing interest in activities I enjoyed which also ties into band, feeling tense or on edge, which happens quite often but I think that is normal at my age, and having trouble remembering dangerous events.
My ex-girlfriend who was depressed often concerned me with her suicidal thoughts and actions as she cut herself often and claimed to take pills to try and overdose. I eventually told her parents and she ended up lying about the overdosing, but not the cutting, which makes me now believe she lied about a lot more and is a compulsive liar. She is most of the reason I do not enjoy band anymore, but the other friends I have in band who are jerks are also big contributors. I have wanted to quit band for 2 of the 3 years in high school now because it has disappointed me with the very rude people that I had always looked up to becoming jerks. So that is how band has changed. Through the constant bullying of me and others it has made me want to quit what I had previously loved.
More on the girl, we can call her M. She had always been best friends with me through middle school and we dated for 14 months, 8th grade tying into almost all of freshman year, she's in my grade. M was always very close with me and we always communicated and hung out a lot. Near Christmas, one of her previous friends, AB, was leaving in the upcoming summer and she believed she had to become best friends with him until he left. They ended up cheating on me, basically in front of my face, and AB had symptoms of severe depression, worse than M and I's. He had claimed to cut himself. M had lied to me several months after we broke up about being raped, and I figured out it was a lie because my friends whom she also told said different stories, such as 7th grade, 8th grade, 5th grade, and one of my friends told her parents and her parents said it was a lie.
AB's actions were hard to explain, but they were not that bad. They just often went off alone behind the school's auditorium, which is a very sketchy place where they could get away with any kind of cheating. I believe that is where I developed severe anxiety. Whenever I see that girl, still to this day, my heart skips a beat in pain and sometimes I get severe anxiety, especially when she is smiling and laughing and hugging all of my friends as I do not want her to hurt them as much as she hurt me. I still get anxiety whenever I see her but it is not as bad. Although, now I get the symptoms whenever she is at a band event with me. If we go to a pep band event together, she'll end up talking to my friends, who are also hers, and I will be left alone. This happened countless times, and no matter how hard I tried to get involved or to talk to others, she'd end up screwing with me.
I would become isolated in a crowd of my friends at a football game in the stands where the band sits. I isolate myself and hope to leave the football game as soon as possible, all because she is here and she has torn my heart in the past. Band has became a living nightmare some nights and I had wished to die during football games, yes it got that bad. That happened sophomore year, freshmen year and even junior year. It was always the worst during the first game. I always had suicidal desires and always ignored everyone and was emotionally numb. What I would do is constantly think of what pain she had put me through and what it had done to affect my life. For example, I would think of her and I arguing, fighting, her lying, me catching her and telling her parents once again that she'd lied about a tragic event.
So I apologize for the length of this post, I just don't know where else to go. I have not experienced a single traumatic event, rather smaller ones that have taken a toll on my emotional stability. I am most concerned about the fact that even today my thoughts are still unstable and I still once in awhile think of suicide. By the way, I have never tried myself but I have gotten as far as crying on the phone talking to my ex, M, about why I wanted to die. That probably happened a half dozen times throughout 14 months.
Do I have a chance of having any kind of disorder like PTSD? Why do I still have these recurring dreams of violence and this increased anxiety after talking it over for two years with a trusted therapist?
Also, if there's a better forum or better place for this message, please tell me and I will copy and paste it there.
Thanks.
Other possible causes of the depression include two suicides that happened at my schools, one in eighth grade (2012) with a kid in my grade and one last year with a senior, I was a sophomore. Back when the 2012 one happened, I did not know a thing about suicide or any mental illnesses, I was very uneducated about mental health. I was shocked and did not know how to deal with the incident, as he was only a classmate and not a close friend. That somehow caused several symptoms of depression in me. This past year's incident I dealt with better, but it still lingers in the back of my head, why he did it, who caused it, and so on.
I do not have abusive family members of any kind and I do not associate with drug abusers or alcohol abusers in school. However, I am friends with some band kids I make music with who I feel can become major jerks sometimes, to others and to myself. I had almost all symptoms of depression and kept it secret other than telling my ex-girlfriends who then told my parents.
The reason I am making this rather long post is because I am currently doing a school project on PTSD in police officers and as I read the symptoms, I believe I might qualify for PTSD, although I have not experienced any severe trauma, like rape, child abuse, a car accident, or anything to that severity. I took a test online that rated my chance of having PTSD on healthyplace.com and scored a 14/22, where 1-3 was few symptoms of PTSD, 4-9 is PTSD is likely, and 10+ is that I display many symptoms of it.
My symptoms are hyper-vigilance, bad dreams and frightening thoughts which I will talk about in depth later, staying away from places/events that can cause my anxiety, worry, depression, and hyper-vigilance, feeling emotionally numb (I have overcome this symptom through therapy, although it is still a significant symptom I had for 2 years), feeling strong guilt, depression, or worry, which usually occurs during band events such as performances in our pep band, losing interest in activities I enjoyed which also ties into band, feeling tense or on edge, which happens quite often but I think that is normal at my age, and having trouble remembering dangerous events.
My ex-girlfriend who was depressed often concerned me with her suicidal thoughts and actions as she cut herself often and claimed to take pills to try and overdose. I eventually told her parents and she ended up lying about the overdosing, but not the cutting, which makes me now believe she lied about a lot more and is a compulsive liar. She is most of the reason I do not enjoy band anymore, but the other friends I have in band who are jerks are also big contributors. I have wanted to quit band for 2 of the 3 years in high school now because it has disappointed me with the very rude people that I had always looked up to becoming jerks. So that is how band has changed. Through the constant bullying of me and others it has made me want to quit what I had previously loved.
More on the girl, we can call her M. She had always been best friends with me through middle school and we dated for 14 months, 8th grade tying into almost all of freshman year, she's in my grade. M was always very close with me and we always communicated and hung out a lot. Near Christmas, one of her previous friends, AB, was leaving in the upcoming summer and she believed she had to become best friends with him until he left. They ended up cheating on me, basically in front of my face, and AB had symptoms of severe depression, worse than M and I's. He had claimed to cut himself. M had lied to me several months after we broke up about being raped, and I figured out it was a lie because my friends whom she also told said different stories, such as 7th grade, 8th grade, 5th grade, and one of my friends told her parents and her parents said it was a lie.
AB's actions were hard to explain, but they were not that bad. They just often went off alone behind the school's auditorium, which is a very sketchy place where they could get away with any kind of cheating. I believe that is where I developed severe anxiety. Whenever I see that girl, still to this day, my heart skips a beat in pain and sometimes I get severe anxiety, especially when she is smiling and laughing and hugging all of my friends as I do not want her to hurt them as much as she hurt me. I still get anxiety whenever I see her but it is not as bad. Although, now I get the symptoms whenever she is at a band event with me. If we go to a pep band event together, she'll end up talking to my friends, who are also hers, and I will be left alone. This happened countless times, and no matter how hard I tried to get involved or to talk to others, she'd end up screwing with me.
I would become isolated in a crowd of my friends at a football game in the stands where the band sits. I isolate myself and hope to leave the football game as soon as possible, all because she is here and she has torn my heart in the past. Band has became a living nightmare some nights and I had wished to die during football games, yes it got that bad. That happened sophomore year, freshmen year and even junior year. It was always the worst during the first game. I always had suicidal desires and always ignored everyone and was emotionally numb. What I would do is constantly think of what pain she had put me through and what it had done to affect my life. For example, I would think of her and I arguing, fighting, her lying, me catching her and telling her parents once again that she'd lied about a tragic event.
So I apologize for the length of this post, I just don't know where else to go. I have not experienced a single traumatic event, rather smaller ones that have taken a toll on my emotional stability. I am most concerned about the fact that even today my thoughts are still unstable and I still once in awhile think of suicide. By the way, I have never tried myself but I have gotten as far as crying on the phone talking to my ex, M, about why I wanted to die. That probably happened a half dozen times throughout 14 months.
Do I have a chance of having any kind of disorder like PTSD? Why do I still have these recurring dreams of violence and this increased anxiety after talking it over for two years with a trusted therapist?
Also, if there's a better forum or better place for this message, please tell me and I will copy and paste it there.
Thanks.
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Comments
Welcome to TheSite
It sounds as though you feel you may have some form of PTSD from the things you have been through in the past. It may be worth looking at some more information about this as well as talking to your therapist. Mind have some good resources here. Also, I don't know if you've seen our Expert Chat on panic attacks? There might be some useful information in here about panic and anxiety also. Online tests can be useful in finding more information but for a formal diagnosis, it's always best to talk to a doctor or therapist face to face.
It also sounds as though you feel it's not normal for you to be struggling with anxiety even after two years of therapy. Any form of counselling or psychotherapy can take time, especially if there are several issues to work through. It's not unusual for people to still feel the effects of anxiety years after traumatic events, but hopefully what therapy does is give you the means to enjoy your life and value yourself as much as possible regardless. Do you find therapy useful overall?
As it seems like you are based in the US, I'll post you a link to Reach Out which is a similar website to TheSite but for young people in the USA.
I hope this is helpful
SarahR