Some Things I Didn’t Realize Were Complex Trauma Symptoms

I don’t usually post personal shit but my friend and I were talking and there were some things she didn’t know were PTSD related, and sometimes it’s just so weird and out there so. Some stuff I learned too late were caused by trauma:

- Nightmares that have *nothing* to do with your trauma

- Getting angry at anything that startles you/is loud/is irriatating

- Becoming alarmingly calm in situations of crisis/chaos

- Shaking, just, all the time

- Needing very little sleep to function effectively

- Massive mood swings that often get mistaken for personality or mood disorders

- Feeling like there is a layer of dirt on you/that your skin is dirty and needing to get it off

- Believing you will die young and alone !! Big one!!

- Looking for reasons to cut people out of your life

- Needing things to be exactly as you like them to be – not necessarily clean/organized but just to be a specific way and be within your control, and getting angry when it is not *this one gets mistaken for OCD v often

- Preferring high stress/very busy lifestyles to keep occupied

- Needing compression/pressure (ie tight shoelaces, heavy coats and blankets, snug fitting hats, etc) to feel comfortable/safe

- Discomfort with silence

- Very sensitive to heat, smell, and lighting

- Ringing in ears!! I had no idea about this one tinnitus is not that uncommon for ptsd, even if there was no direct head trauma involved

- Physical numbness, often in arms & hands when a flashback or panic attack is about to start

- Derailing conversations when they are causing stress

- Sudden and unexplained onsets of just the most deep sense of melancholy (often accompanied by a lot of tears)





These are just the ones I know of from experience, if there are any others ppl know of and were surprised by pls add. But yea ptsd is not always flashbacks and panic attacks and avoiding triggers, it’s also just random small shit that effects how you exist ¯\_(ツ)_/¯