A person with PTSD can often seem uninterested or distant as they try not to think or feel in order to block out painful memories. They may stop them from participating in family life or ignore offers of help. This can lead to loved ones feeling shut out.
Returning Veterans who suffer from PTSD symptoms may realize they are “out of line” and seek to protect others from their negative emotions. In order to do so, they may feel the need to shut down all emotions, or build a safe place in which to isolate. The family may begin to take this as being cold and distant.
When a Trauma response is triggered, the more primitive part of the nervous system dominates. This is geared towards shutting down, protection and survival. Because it is a passive defensive response we may feel helpless or hopeless.
Forms of dissociation resulting from C-PTSD can be extreme. A common symptom is fragmented personalities. Growing up, the child may have developed different personality states that were called upon in abusive situations.
It is hypothesized that traumatic experiences lead to known PTSD symptoms, empathic ability impairment, and difficulties in sharing affective, emotional, or cognitive states.
They may be impulsive, acting before they think. Aggressive behaviors also include complaining, "backstabbing," being late or doing a poor job on purpose, self-blame, or even self-injury. Many people with PTSD only use aggressive responses to threat. They are not able to use other responses that could be more positive.
Ochlophobia (fear of crowds): A person may feel anxious about being touched in a crowd. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): Fearing touch may come from experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event. It may occur after sexual abuse, sexual assault or rape.
Shutdown dissociation simulates central nervous system neuropathy. Peripheral neuropathy describes the damage to the peripheral nervous system. Peripheral damage affects one or more dermatomes and thus produces symptoms for specific areas of the body.
Trauma survivors with PTSD may have trouble with their close family relationships or friendships. The symptoms of PTSD can cause problems with trust, closeness, communication, and problem solving. These problems may affect the way the survivor acts with others.
Complex PTSD and BPD can both cause problems in people's interpersonal relationships, and in a few similar ways. However, the causes of these issues and how they play out will often look different.
That's what PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) is—our body's overreaction to a small response, and either stuck in fight and flight or shut down. People who experience trauma and the shutdown response usually feel shame around their inability to act, when their body did not move.
Shutting down emotions can be a normal part of human experience, as a coping strategy in stressful situations. Under high stress, it allows your body and brain to protect itself from perceived threats or harm.
Trauma dumping isn't one of the symptoms of PTSD or any other mental health condition, but many who have this issue do struggle with emotional regulation, loneliness, and possibly depression, anxiety, or low self-esteem.
In extreme moments of traumatic stress, a person might suddenly “space out.” Whereas they seemed fully present, talking, and participating, they suddenly become vacant, staring into the distance. At such times, they are likely to need help reorienting.
People can have PTSD even though they do not recall the experience that triggered the problem. As a result, such people may live with PTSD for years without realizing it.
The trauma causes the person to view the world through a distorted lens and negative beliefs, such as 'I can't trust anyone,' or, 'I am unworthy. ' That could sabotage their relationships, with the negative beliefs serving as self-fulfilling prophesies.
Alterations in arousal and reactivity: Arousal and reactive symptoms may include being irritable and having angry outbursts; behaving recklessly or in a self-destructive way; being overly watchful of one's surroundings in a suspecting way; being easily startled; or having problems concentrating or sleeping.
Some signs your therapist can sense if you're dissociating:
They feel confused. They feel numb. They feel like you've gone somewhere else. Things don't add up.
When a person experiences dissociation, it may look like: Daydreaming, spacing out, or eyes glazed over. Acting different, or using a different tone of voice or different gestures. Suddenly switching between emotions or reactions to an event, such as appearing frightened and timid, then becoming bombastic and violent.
By isolating themselves, PTSD sufferers can avoid negative responses or continued efforts to explain feelings. Self-isolation may not be a conscious choice. As individuals struggle to deal with their feelings, being alone seems like the easiest option.
They may become preoccupied with survival in situations that they perceive as threatening. This may lead others to believe that individuals with PTSD are selfish, thinking only of themselves.
In many cases, they may feel unable to trust anyone, and they often feel misunderstood by everyone in their life. This can make sustaining a healthy relationship difficult (though not at all impossible). Your partner may experience bouts of intense sadness, guilt, anger, or shame related to a past traumatic event.