PTSD symptoms long after trauma
October 3, 2017 8:17 AM   Subscribe

Is it normal to experience PTSD symptoms long after a traumatic experience, even if the symptoms were not as pronounced immediately after the experience?

I had a series of traumatic experiences when I was 19 and 20, including an acquaintance rape and some secondary victimization in the aftermath. I coped pretty much okay. I didn't get much mental health support but I got through college all right, had some depression, some bad dreams, a lot of fear around men and sex but I can't really isolate any specific PTSD symptoms. And by the time I graduated from college two years later, the experience felt very far away and I didn't think of it all that much, except as something that had happened to me a while ago. The bad dreams stopped. I was still really panicky around men and sex and avoided both but I did not feel like I was traumatized at all.

Over the past year, things have changed a lot. I'm 27 now and these experiences happened to me almost eight to nine years ago. But I feel like I think about my rape and the aftermath now much more than I did at 21. I have a lot of intrusive thoughts about it throughout the day. I've had some dreams about the aftermath, dreams I haven't had in years and years. I feel super high-alert and frightened of touch and startle easily. I've always been kind of a nervous person but it's worse now. Conversations about rape and media depictions of it freak me out and that wasn't the case right after it happened. I feel my heart pound really fast whenever I hear someone talk about it. I'm started taking martial arts classes because I want to learn how to protect myself better--a very recent impulse. I had not thought like that after the rape. I've been dating men more recently, after taking a very long break and mostly dating women and I am constantly calculating in my head how dangerous they are now when I meet them. And being alone with a man makes me panicky.

My question is: have other people who have experienced traumatic things had this kind of pattern ever? Where you seem basically okay afterwards but suddenly, it hits you really hard seemingly a lifetime later?
posted by armadillo1224 to Human Relations (20 answers total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Yes, absolutely. In fact I think it's very common.

It's ok to seek help, support, and therapy long after traumatic incidents and experienced professional caretakers will get it completely. That would be a good choice.
posted by Sublimity at 8:21 AM on October 3, 2017 [9 favorites]


Absolutely normal, and sometimes it can cause symptoms you don't even realize are related to PTSD.

I would specifically recommend finding a therapist who does somatic experiencing, a body-based psychotherapy that focuses on trauma. I thought fibromyalgia was just this random thing I had to live with, but somatic experiencing made my symptoms go away. You can find practitioners here. Or you can check out the primary book about it, Waking the Tiger.
posted by FencingGal at 8:28 AM on October 3, 2017 [5 favorites]


Totally normal unfortunately, yes.
posted by DarlingBri at 8:34 AM on October 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Super common. Usually what has happened is you've been re-exposed to some aspect of the trauma - in this case, you started dating men again which may have something to do with it, but it can also be triggered by stress that feels similar to the trauma.
posted by corb at 8:47 AM on October 3, 2017 [6 favorites]


Best answer: Agreed. Totally normal. For me, it was that I was in a place where I felt safe enough that my brain could start to process the trauma (whereas before it was all just shut down). It was helpful for me to think of the symptoms as a hopeful sign of healing (unpleasant as they were).
posted by mcduff at 8:53 AM on October 3, 2017 [30 favorites]


Totally normal. Mcduff has it 100% for me.
posted by kathrynm at 9:23 AM on October 3, 2017


Agree with posters above. I had physical and emotional trauma growing up, emotional and sexual trauma as an adult, emotional trauma from working as a first responder for the past decade. I’ll be 34 on Sunday, so I’ve been dealing with this stuff for as long as I can remember, but just in the past year or so have been willing to talk about it; even with my mental health professionals.

My therapist that I worked with for four years had tried a lot of different ideas and we tried different medications for my anxiety (which is why I had started seeing him in the first place), depression, and other assorted symptoms. As I slowly improved but had/have my “stuck points,” he revised my diagnosis to PTSD/anxiety/dysthymia and I am now working with a different therapist (my first therapist’s recommendation - and both of them are totally cool with me becoming his patient again after this round of work) who specializes in PTSD and we are on a several-months long course of CPT (sessions once a week and nightly homework in the workbook).

It’s quite significant; it’s hard as shit, but my outlook and self-esteem is slowly improving. My friends and coworkers have noticed. I have been very open about the therapeutic process, if not the reasons that I am affected by PTSD in the first place because I work with mainly men and I’m uncertain they’d understand the rape and sexual assaults, but because PTSD as a result of what we see and do is very real in our work and we are working on the new folks having a baseline understanding that there shouldn’t be a stigma for them to go talk to someone.

Your timeline is fairly close to mine, as far as times between events and me actually seeking therapy, but I spent a lot of time in the bottle. Don’t do that.

Good luck and I hope you feel better. MeMail me if you need to talk or need any support.
posted by sara is disenchanted at 9:29 AM on October 3, 2017 [3 favorites]


Totally agree with what's been said above, but if it helps it make more sense/feel more "legitimate" to you, being panicky around men and sex and avoiding both (as a heterosexual) as a result is itself an expression of trauma. People who aren't experiencing trauma don't feel and act that way.
posted by praemunire at 9:32 AM on October 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Both dissociation and delay of onset of full diagnostic criteria are accounted for in the definition of PTSD. Like, this is so normal it's considered a standard presentation.

Even for people who are experiencing identifiable persistent symptoms 1-6 months after the event and get treatment, even very good treatment, PTSD does not necessarily "go away" permanently and symptoms can re-emerge (and change, morph, diversify, worsen, etc) as a result of an event or even just getting older and having more insight and needing to re-contextualize the experience, as humans do for all kinds of experiences.

For people who dissociated for purposes of survival or functioning, the damage done doesn't go away just because it isn't conscious. If that was a viable treatment for mental/neurobiological illness, you'd have heard more about it.

A lot of people find, when they finally sit down to wrestle with something like this, that it hasn't been silent all this time, only that the symptoms have just now become impossible to ignore.

It's likely that you are suffering from that thing we all do where you're being much harder on yourself than you would be on someone else, and you wouldn't fault or doubt any other victim of violence or trauma for still being affected a decade later. Especially for trauma experienced as a child and adolescent, especially given the science of PTSD treatment has improved dramatically in a decade, would it surprise you if a friend your age (or twice your age, at that) just now started to grapple with something that happened years ago?

Be kind to yourself, allow yourself to deserve to get help and feel better.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:33 AM on October 3, 2017 [11 favorites]


Many years ago, I slipped and tumbled down a flight of stairs. Everything seemed fine and I completely forgot about it until I went to Mexico two (!) years later. I was at a Mayan temple when I experienced a PTSD flashback going up those high temple stairs. My brain was suddenly overtaken by instinctual animal terror and I had to crawl down on all fours, freaking out fellow tourists. After that I had several more flashbacks, each milder than the previous one. Of course my PTSD is very different than yours given it came from a freak accident and didn't involve a psychological component but it's actually a good example of the purely physical aspects occurring long after the event.
posted by rada at 9:34 AM on October 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


Yes. I work with veterans and it's extremely common for people to kind of push through for a while and then have the trauma come back in force as they age.
posted by bile and syntax at 9:38 AM on October 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


It's extremely normal. Some of it's just the "normal" ebb and flow of trauma, or an old coping mechanism reaching the end of its usefulness. Sometimes, horribly unfair as it seems, a thing that can happen is that other aspects of your life improve - maybe you leave a bad work or housing situation, maybe you get an unrelated health issue sorted out, maybe you get some new supportive friendships or your financial situation eases or any of a number of things - and your brain just sort of goes, "Hey! That thing I've been repressing for many years because otherwise I was not gonna get through the day in the survival mode I was in? I have some breathing room to bring that out of hiding now!" And suddenly your brain is throwing all sorts of suppressed crap at you that you had no idea was even down there.

It sucks, and I'm sorry you're dealing with it. If you have the space now to seek some mental health support, or a peer support group, or even just to open up to a friend, that might be a useful thing for you to do. Whatever you do, I hope you can be gentle with yourself.
posted by Stacey at 9:56 AM on October 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


Yeah. I repressed memories of childhood trauma (you name it, I endured it, fairly regularly and fairly early on as well) my entire life and they all surfaced after I was physically assaulted by an ex when I was drunk. I, too, managed life fairly well and was even successful until that episode despite what I learned was complex PTSD plaguing me.

Therapy was ok, but I think more than anything what worked the best for me was acknowledging what was happening to my brain and body as a neurological response I wasn't responsible for and a regular dose of mushrooms (not condoning illegal activity, but there is peer-reviewed research to back this).
posted by Young Kullervo at 9:59 AM on October 3, 2017 [3 favorites]


I'm a therapist and have worked with people who have experienced trauma, though (standard disclaimer) I am not your therapist.

What you're describing is totally normal, as many others have said. If you'd like more information on possible treatments, you might find this website helpful.

I'm so sorry you're having to deal with this. Be compassionate with yourself.
posted by socialjusticeworrier at 10:30 AM on October 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


I am 29 years away from my first sexual assault and 12 or so years away from my last. This year has been absolutely horrific with regard to panic, dreams, memories, sensitivity towards media or jokes, etc. Part of it for me is that the President of the United States is a rapist. There are a lot of people back in therapy or back on meds (or on meds for the first time, like me) since the election. It's also just the way it goes. I have ebbs and flows of the PTSD that can last hours or months. Take care of yourself.
posted by I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today! at 10:36 AM on October 3, 2017 [7 favorites]


Completely agree with everyone who says that this is a normal (and indeed almost diagnostic) feature of ptsd. It's also treatable, so please don't feel you have to deal with this just because it is "normal".

Personally I had ptsd symptoms including flashbacks, nightmares and general anxiety/low mood flare up several years after sexual abuse - oddly enough just after I started a loving romantic relationship with my now fiance. I had had no problems with one night stands /purely sexual encounters and I think that the emotions attached to our relationship triggered something. I'm doing much better now - after some time and some therapy and some medication. I hope that will happen for you, too.
posted by bored_now_flay at 10:47 AM on October 3, 2017 [3 favorites]


Yes. I have PTSD from college due to being in a profoundly abuse ridden student job, and a few years later I was raped twice. This was roughly 8 years ago. I am only just starting to experience true disassociation due to the rapes, and what is probably a series of small panic attacks any time something remotely related to my student job comes up. I hate it. It wrecks my sleep, it wrecks my evening, and sometimes it interferes (though temporarily) with weird things like being in restrooms or trying on clothes at Target. But when I talk about it in therapy or with other people, I’m really casual about it. “It was a learning experience. I’ve processed it now. That’s why I can discuss it so easily.” This is not the truth, yet my mouth to say it.

What I really need to do is go back to therapy, be honest with myself (my psychologist and psychiatrist are patient, bless them) and restart EMDR, which is a type of CBT methodology that helps your brain resort and untangle traumatic events from their triggers so you can process them and hopefully make them dissolve as much as possible. I used it to process some horrible events from childhood and it helped tremendously.

Maybe the same would help alleviate some of your PTSD too?
posted by Hermione Granger at 10:53 AM on October 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I'm a researcher/psychologist specializing in PTSD, especially as it relates to sexual victimization. Delayed-onset PTSD is definitely a thing. Anecdotally, when I was working in the VA, I saw it a lot in older combat veterans who had recently retired, and suddenly had time to think about things that they hadn't been thinking about for years. The research says it's pretty rare to have delayed-onset PTSD in the absence of prior symptoms, but for civilians who have had symptoms before like you're describing, delayed-onset PTSD is 15.3% of cases.

My standard recommendation for PTSD treatment based on my knowledge of this research and my clinical experience is to find someone who will do a good diagnostic assessment and then do either Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT, which was mentioned above) or Prolonged Exposure, as those are the only two PTSD treatments that have extensive evidence for their effectiveness in resolving PTSD, do so within 12 weeks for most people, have a well-defined theoretical rationale, and tend to be delivered correctly in the community.

Feel free to message me if I can be helpful in finding treatment options. PTSD is a very treatable condition and there is hope! Be well.
posted by quiet coyote at 11:16 AM on October 3, 2017 [4 favorites]


Call the nearest rape crisis hotline. They will have useful resources and will consider you eligible to make use of any resources.
posted by theora55 at 3:06 PM on October 3, 2017


Yes, I recently went through something similar for reasons that aren't even very closely related to my own trauma. This happens. I have found EMDR therapy to be incredibly helpful for my PTSD, which resulted from domestic violence and abuse that was physical, sexual, and emotional in nature.

I am so sorry that this happened to you.
posted by sockermom at 5:35 PM on October 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


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