Lived Experience Forum

[Rhye]

@Seachickens I love that name! It's really nice to meet you, and welcome to the SANE Forums 😃

I hope you don't mind me saying, it's brave of you to take this step and share a part of your journey here with the community. I also wanted to say that I share your diagnosis and it's really great to see someone refer to it as DTD – till now, apart from my psych, I've never heard anyone refer to it as anything other than C-PTSD so it's refreshing to read. 

I'm sorry to hear that covid has meant your peer support group has been put on hold, but amazing that it provided an improvement in symptom management. I wonder if you've been able to carry any of that over with you?

It's great to have you here @Seachickens and I'll look forward to getting to know more of your journey as you feel comfortable to share.

Tagging a few of our Community Guides here: @Faith-and-Hope @Shaz51 @outlander @Anastasia @maddison @pinklollipop15 @CrazyChick 

Rhye ☘️
Peer Support Worker

[Faith-and-Hope]

Hi and welcome to the forums @Seachickens 👋

[Dudley]

Good morning all,

I have had anxiety and depression all my life and have managed over the years with cognitive distortion therapy and helpful doctors and psychologists.

It has been a long journey.

I am now my wifes carer as she has dementia so as you can imagine that adds another level to my stress. I get support from age care and respite two days a week.

Ido a lot of things, yoga,cars,guitar etc but don't feel like I want to these days. I have to push myself to do the things that I used to enjoy.

I find depression is easier to deal with than the anxiety.

Cheers!

[Seachickens]

Hi @Rhye thank you for the warm welcome. C-PTSD doesn't really capture what DTD is, that's why I prefer the latter. My trauma was early rather than as an adult, so there are some significant differences in lived experience. Glad to hear that your therapist refers to that diagnosis. 

Yes some of the skills that I learned in group have been able to stay with me and make life easier to navigate. I think the skill I have practised the most has been active listening. That has really helped in my marriage. Being able to hear what my wife is saying, even if some of it triggers internal responses, and being able to sit with her rather than with the stuff that's come up for me. There are others that don't spring to mind readily. I am able to get from one end of the day to the other more easily than I was prior to group.

[Seachickens]

Hi @Former-Member, thank you for the warm welcome. The story of my user name. I was watching a YouTube video and the narrator was talking about how it's difficult for us to not think of something. Most people say don't think of a rhinoceros and suddenly we're all thinking of rhinos. In this video they used seachickens and put up a picture of chickens on a coral reef. I loved the picture and the concept of chickens doing their thing underwater. It still brings a smile to me every time I think about it. Hope you're having a good day.

[Rhye]

You know how people say "oh that's amazing!", and it sometimes feels like a bit of a throwaway line? Well @Seachickens, having walked what sounds like a similar path to you in some respects, it is  actually amazing that you've been able to learn these skills and put them to use in your daily relationships despite the trauma responses. It's such a credit to your strength and resilience 💙

[Appleblossom]

@Seachickens @Rhye 

I looked up DTD after your discussion and found a few good insights for myself.  

That I did not trust grown ups and was overly self reliant.

Not rocket science but I had not thought of it before.

Finding this helpful too.

https://www.complextrauma.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/DTD-Item-List-Spinazzola-3.13.2019.pdf 

[Seachickens]

Thanks @Appleblossom . My psychologist and I went through that list ticking way too many of those symptoms. That's why she prefers and now i understand that DTD is the correct diagnosis. C-PTSD is more about reoeated or sustained trauma as an adult. The argument I hearf from one psychiatrist was that BPD already covered the childhood trauma area and so DTD was, in his opinion, redundant. I've read some of Bessel Van Der Kolk's work and I tend to agree with him that DTD should be included in the DSM at some point. Cheers

[Seachickens]

Thank you @Rhye. That's very kind of you to say that. 

[Rhye]

That's a really helpful list, thank you so much for sharing @Appleblossom. It will be great to have it as a resource here for anyone reading along who might be wondering what a diagnosis of DTD involves.