The header was specifically designed for this page to suggest that there is more to PTSD that has been acknowledged. And because of this limitation on what’s allowable, people are struggling to find ground to stand on that’s solid and honest.
PTSD is the result of brains changing in response to some kind of stress. Typically, the stress is external: Sights, sounds, physical interactions that are defined as being outside the realm of normal human experience.
Lots of people believe that only veterans have PTSD. Lot’s of people believe there is only one form or flavor, one set of characteristics, observable behaviours, for PTSD.
Here, we examine and explore those possibilities. We look at the stories people have told by themselves. We contrast those told by those who evaluate us with paper “instruments” with their undefined limits and stages. Paper instruments that reflect the internal bias of the discipline.
So we look at those instruments and ask: Why? How? Who said?
Especially here, we examine the use of language and it’s ability to make the false and abstracted seem authentic. We look at how labels and diagnoses form people, stuff them into categories. And simultaneously, rarely if not never, give us an opportunity to tell our own stories our way. And have them be believed and respected.
If there’s one core value in this section, it’s respect for the realities of PTSD, for the stories, for the growth and the changes that are possible because many of us are living them. Maybe for the discouraged, the hopeless, it’s a beacon of hope in the darkness.
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