RE: PTSD (Full Version)

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Atavist -> RE: PTSD (7/21/2005 4:03:43 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Faramir
I'm stunned to see person after person here saying they have PTSD - it only affects about 3% of the US population - it seems significant to have so many people responding this way. Anyway, my heart goes out to anyone who has suffered such seevre trauma that they suffering an anxiety disorder over it.


Faramir, I respect what you've done, it takes someone special to take care of foster kids. That being said, I can assure you that your stat of 3% is out of date. The studies I've read lately (in the last couple of weeks) estimate that up to 14% of the population have suffered from PTSD. If you want cites, I'll give you cites.




Faramir -> RE: PTSD (7/22/2005 12:11:36 AM)

Wow - that's a big discrepancy. It's not so much "my" stat as what the NIMH reports - I wonder if there is a different criterion being used? Is this a report from a MH entity, or a particular study?




Gem -> RE: PTSD (7/22/2005 7:15:22 AM)

Brightest Blessings

I live with PTSD and have found that SM play helps me fight the demons that roam around in my head. The more brutal Man can be especially on a very bad day, the easier it is for me to deal with the demons, see them for what they are, and understand where things lie in the real world opposed to the flashback world.

I still trigger on mnay things, and 90% of the time I never know what will trigger me, and I live with it, learning each time how to combat it for better mental health.

Man and I also used age play to help me overcome the demons from my childhood abuse and sexual abuse. Each person is differnet how they will react to certain trauma, also how they will react to the flashbacks and demons later on. That I have PTSD and I disassociate only means that I have the medical terms in common with other folks, how I react and how I heal is completely different form how others react and heal.

Wow sorry went on a ramble and did not even mean to......hope somewhere in there I made sense LOL. Oh and I have found laughter has helped me heal, sometimes my reactions to things is dang funny.

Please do not flame me saying that this is not a lughing matter, for me in some instances it is, I did not say it was the be all to end all, sometimes we have to laugh or we will just cry and never stop.

Blessed Be
Gem




Atavist -> RE: PTSD (7/22/2005 3:09:48 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Faramir

Wow - that's a big discrepancy. It's not so much "my" stat as what the NIMH reports - I wonder if there is a different criterion being used? Is this a report from a MH entity, or a particular study?


The statistics vary, depending on the source, subgroup (male/female/age). I've seen the national population rate as high as 14%, others lower. Some of the newer studies seem to indicate higher rates, probably because more is known about the disorder and people are less afraid to report. A couple of cites:
--------------
Rates of disorder varied according to the nature of the event; the lowest rate (2%) was associated with combat, the highest (14%) with sexual assault.

Age was by far the strongest predictor of PTSD: Among those experiencing an event, older people showed lower rates of PTSD than younger and middle-aged people. Only 3% of older respondents met all criteria for PTSD compared to 9-10% of younger and middle-aged respondents.

-Dept. of Veterans Affairs, National Center for PTSD

This study indicates 67% of urban adolescent girls that were screened met symptom criteria for PTSD.

http://www.jaacap.com/pt/re/jaacap/abstract.00004583-199510000-00020.htm;jsessionid=ChtA0I4D4iDda9zweQMPvMTOKaEqRLojsR4f1nItuVBjrA6lbkot!-2006515172!-949856031!9001!-1

-Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychology

I could go on, just do a google search. The point is that PTSD is MUCH more prevelant than many people realize. The good news is that as the problem is recognized, more research and more help will become available.




Faramir -> RE: PTSD (7/22/2005 9:47:28 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Atavist

This study indicates 67% of urban adolescent girls that were screened met symptom criteria for PTSD.

http://www.jaacap.com/pt/re/jaacap/abstract.00004583-199510000-00020.htm;jsessionid=ChtA0I4D4iDda9zweQMPvMTOKaEqRLojsR4f1nItuVBjrA6lbkot!-2006515172!-949856031!9001!-1

-Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychology

I could go on, just do a google search. The point is that PTSD is MUCH more prevelant than many people realize. The good news is that as the problem is recognized, more research and more help will become available.



Yea - I just looked at that link - it has nothing to say about the incidence of PTSD within the population. It specifacally about PTSD symptoms within a population of seventy-nine urban adolescent girls attending an adolescent medicine clinic.

I looked at the Nat Center for PTSD center you referenced. The National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Survey is not applicable to the general population - it's a specific population of combat veterans. The National Comorbidity Survey Report seems more applicable to "America" as a population, but it reported "The estimated lifetime prevalence of PTSD among adult Americans is 7.8%, with women (10.4%) twice as likely as men (5%) to have PTSD at some point in their lives." That jives reasonably well with the NIMH numbers - I can imagine 7% ever having the disorder, and 3% of the population suffering from it at a given time.

Think about it - if 14% of the general population was suffering from one of many, many disorders, we'd have the entire US population suffering from something.




Atavist -> RE: PTSD (7/23/2005 3:21:35 AM)

"Based on a recent study, over 30 million people, or 14 percent of the general public, experience "substantial" dissociative symtoms."

-The Stranger in the Mirror,
Dissociation - The Hidden Epidemic
Marlene Steinberg, MD
Page 17 of the introduction




Faramir -> RE: PTSD (7/23/2005 12:10:10 PM)

Yea, but that is an individual's "groundbreaking new work" flogging her own book, not clinical survey information. I'm suspicious of "groundbreaking," "pioneering" work that supports someone's book sales. Maybe in five or ten years the mental health community will have an opinion on the acuracy of this Dr's claims, but right now I would see this as a self-help book, designed to generate reveues for the author. Besides, even if the claims are true, they claim that 14% of the population has some symptoms associated with a braod range of trauma inspired dissasociation (a braod range of disorders, specified and not specified), not the specific disorder PTSD.

I think the point here is that minimizing a real, serious mental illness like PTSD and complx-PTSD is wrong, but blowing it up and making it a pandemic is wrong as well. PTSD is a serious disease that will affect one in fourteen people in America sometime in their life - not more nor less.




pinkpleasures -> RE: PTSD (7/23/2005 12:46:17 PM)

Faramir....my "medical advice" consisted of asserting that some PTSD sufferers cannot be "cured" and that sufferers vary in their experience of the disorder...i was not well-spoken in responding to Emerald...i did not need to call her a name....i was upset because when people with the disorder read somplace that a "cure" is achievable they may experience a sense of guilt or shame due to their "failure" to achieve a "cure". i am protective...probably over-protective...of PTSD sufferers due to my years of work with battered women.

i apologise, Emerald.

pinkpleasures




Atavist -> RE: PTSD (7/23/2005 2:40:59 PM)

I'll leave it here Faramir.

The fact is, you or nobody else really knows how many people are affected by PTSD. Studies are all over the board. Its not unrealsonable to think that the rate is higher than we think, just as that has proven to the case in the past with plenty of other misunderstood and stigmatized disorders/experiences.




zaynab -> RE: PTSD (7/23/2005 2:59:03 PM)

Hi WulfMan,
im just wondering how old you were when that happened? if you dont mind sharing that?




zaynab -> RE: PTSD (7/23/2005 3:11:18 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Faramir

"I think the point here is that minimizing a real, serious mental illness like PTSD and complx-PTSD is wrong..."



can't friggen believe you posted this......




Faramir -> RE: PTSD (7/23/2005 3:35:03 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Atavist
The fact is, you or nobody else really knows how many people are affected by PTSD. Studies are all over the board. Its not unrealsonable to think that the rate is higher than we think, just as that has proven to the case in the past with plenty of other misunderstood and stigmatized disorders/experiences.


What a bizarre reaction - you start a discussion about hard numbers, bring up souces - and now seem upset that the sources upon careful review say the opposite of what you wanetd them to say.

It's as if you have some emotional stake in the number "14%"

This issue has touched my family, so I care about, but I don't have an emotional stake about "being right" about some arbitrary number.

I do have a general stake in integrity in discourse. There is something very unappealing about you trotting out The National Comorbidity Survey Report and then being unhappy when someone actually reads up on it, citing a "study" that turns out to be someone's pop-psychology self-help book*, etc.



*nothing wrong with pop-psychology books - it just isn't a clinical study.




Atavist -> RE: PTSD (7/23/2005 3:54:43 PM)

Dude. Relax. You seem hung up on proving (or disproving) something. I gave you numbers, believe what you want, I really have no stake in your opinion. As I said, the numbers are all over the place, if you want to believe its 3%, more power to you. We can agree to disagree, no biggie.




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