Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

AllanfromWales1 t1_ixylsv5 wrote

Could it be that the people who don't report traumatic events which happen to them also don't get diagnosed with PTSD even if they suffer from it?

80

Kickin_chickn t1_ixyn9t9 wrote

I believe this was on a self reported basis. Participants were asked if any of the ACE applied to them and if they felt that they suffered from any of the conditions. No diagnosis needed.

23

AllanfromWales1 t1_ixynnqi wrote

I think what I'm saying is that the personality of the participant will at least in part determine whether they interpret a particular incident as adverse, and will also be a factor in whether they suffer from PTSD as a result. So it's not entirely the actual incident which is the issue, but also the response to the incident.

9

Kickin_chickn t1_ixyo9o5 wrote

http://americanspcc.org/take-the-aces-quiz/

This is a link to the type of questions used, it might help answer you question a little bit more

12

AllanfromWales1 t1_ixyq68y wrote

There are certainly questions here for which the answer is subjective rather than objective and will be influenced by the personality of the participant.

0

OrcRampant t1_ixytchc wrote

Personality has nothing to do with it. An adverse event is one which causes abnormally long periods of cortisol in the developing brain. There are studies and scientific evidence of how a persons brain develops differently.

28

AllanfromWales1 t1_ixyua8p wrote

So when asked a question from the ACE test such as:
> Did you often or very often feel that … a) No one in your family loved you or thought you were important or special?

.. the response will be objective and not affected by the personality of the person answering?

4

OrcRampant t1_ixyv2ln wrote

I believed my parents loved me, even though my dad knocked me through the banisters. I thought I was important to them even though they never made me feel that way. The affects still exist.

For years I had difficulty in relationships because of how I was raised. Thinking I was raised normally didn’t save me from the side effects. Regardless of my answer, cortisol poisoning was still happening.

Scientific studies aren’t just a quiz and that’s it. The World Health Organization followed thousands of candidates over the course of 20 years before they published their study about ACEs.

36

AllanfromWales1 t1_ixyw72x wrote

OP's study, though, is based on answers to the ACE test, not on assessing participants' cortisol levels.

3

OrcRampant t1_ixyx14e wrote

My point is, whatever a person’s personality is does not determine the health affects of the adverse events. What you are referring to is under reporting, or normalizing trauma. That’s why these questions are asked in several ways and with different wording. The results aren’t unreliable.

13

AllanfromWales1 t1_ixyy7ct wrote

> That’s why these questions are asked in several ways and with different wording.

Not in the test I was looking at. They looked for different effects, but didn't repeat questions with different formulations to try to pick up issues which might have been passed over.

Yes, my concern is that normalised trauma may introduce a bias in the results. In particular, that the sort of people/families that may normalise trauma may well be the sort of people/families who would not identify PTSD and hence it would not be detected. This would appear in the records as people without detected trauma having a lower incidence rate of detected PTSD, as such introducing a bias in the results.

6

OrcRampant t1_ixyzrbu wrote

“Many previous studies observed that traumatic childhood events are linked to long-term adult diseases using the standard Adverse Childhood Experience Questionnaire.”

“…volunteer-based population health study in which each adult participant is invited to take a retrospective questionnaire that includes the Adverse Childhood Experience Questionnaire…”

“Using participant’s cross-referenced electronic health records, a phenome-wide association analysis of 1,703 phenotypes and the incidence of ACEs examined links between traumatic events in childhood and adult disease.”

So, this is science. They have to be thorough. Also consider that the hypothetical person who has normalized trauma would not be volunteering to be in a study like this. All in all, I just think that means that there are likely more abuse victims out there than we know, but that really doesn’t affect a study like this.

9

[deleted] t1_iy0d5bp wrote

[removed]

1

Francie_Nolan1964 t1_iy0vf7v wrote

There's a lot of childhood trauma that's not included on ACEs such as death of a parent, being in foster care, terminal illness, significant car accident, etc. The authors only included the MOST common adverse childhood experiences.

5

BananaJammies t1_iy0dje0 wrote

Seems like that could fall under both “emotional neglect” and “mental illness in the household”, no?

1

jenkinsleroi t1_ixz1tzy wrote

Trauma affects personality development, so I'm not sure your question makes sense.

Besides which, if they've already correlated the scoring on the questions with people diagnosed with trauma, then I'm unsure what other validation you're looking for.

3

AllanfromWales1 t1_ixz4qpc wrote

I don't have a problem with the idea that trauma and PTSD are connected - that's a truism. I just feel that to quote numbers in the way this article does is slightly questionable.

Obviously trauma affects personality development, but I think it's folly to suggest that pre-existing personality doesn't influence the extent to which a given event will traumatise a person.

−7

jenkinsleroi t1_iy1lqok wrote

You keep saying personality, but it's unclear what you mean by that and it's making your question non-sensible.

For the sake of argument, let's assume that you mean temperament or sensitivity. It still doesn't matter, because what's relevant is whether or not an individual experienced an event as traumatic.

8

halfjapmarine t1_iy1jdfg wrote

What are you getting at? Some people are weak minded so PTSD affects them more?

3

sudo999 t1_iy1i22a wrote

self-report doesn't necessarily mean they were asked if they "felt" they had particular conditions; the wording of the question matters heavily (e.g. it could have said "have you ever been diagnosed," "have you ever suspected," "has any friend or family member ever told you," etc which would all have dramatically different effects)

edit: exact wording for the study was "Have you ever been diagnosed with, or treated for, any of the conditions" with a set of nine conditions participants could select. I suppose people could lie or misremember, but it's not particularly subjective.

2

paf10 t1_iy0lk3r wrote

People often think ”I just had an average childhood”. How would you even know that what happened to you was out of the ordinary if no one points it out to you? And your personality developes based on your experiences and becomes normality. I didn’t know I had C-PTSD until I was in my late thirties.

9

AllanfromWales1 t1_iy0moev wrote

You seem to be implying that personality is purely environmentally conditioned. This would imply there is no genetic element to it. I doubt that, I think both play a part.

2

paf10 t1_iy2pyko wrote

I agree that both play a part, I’m just saying traumas can heavily skew it.

2

TalmidimUC t1_ixyo0qg wrote

It’s also not surprising men didn’t report nearly as much as women did.. I’m sure pride and shame heavily play into this.

8

Flying_Dutchman92 t1_ixyqmac wrote

Change that to guilt and shame, and you're dead on.

18

TalmidimUC t1_ixyxaqw wrote

I mean exactly what I said. I feel no guilt over being molested as a child. There are a lot of men out there that have a hard time facing sexual trauma over pride issues, we’re taught to be “strong”, sexual abuse is humiliating and makes you feel defenseless and weak. Whole lot of shame mixed up in there. Maybe it’s just me, but I have a good grip of male acquaintances in my life who have also experienced sexual abuse or been molested.

Why are we trying to correct what others say? I mean what I said, you’re allowed your opinion, but please don’t correct what you think I meant.

−3

Flying_Dutchman92 t1_ixyxnc1 wrote

>Why are we trying to correct what others say? I mean what I said, you’re allowed your opinion, but please don’t correct what you think I meant.

Because I DO feel guilt about the rape I endured as a child. That is all.

11

TalmidimUC t1_ixyyhne wrote

Okay, that’s what you feel, not me. We don’t speak for each other, I’m not telling you to change your guilt to pride or any other emotion. All I’m saying is people experience different feelings and emotions.. but I’m not going to tell someone to change how they view their own personal trauma.

0

AaronJeep t1_iy1lpb1 wrote

I don't think anyone is intentionally trying to invalidate what you said. t feels more like a matter of semantics. Both guilt and pride can be used differently in different cases. Men and boys are taught to be strong, to be able to defend themselves, to be emotionally in control (boys don't cry), and so on. This may not apply to you, but it is very common for boys who were molested to feel a sense of guilt. The don't feel guilty that it happened, but that they didn't do what they were supposed to do - they were supposed to be strong, they were supposed to be able to defend themselves, they were supposed to be smart enough to see it coming, they should have known better... for a lot of men the guilt is feeling like they should have known better or done something to stop it, but they didn't. Now, like you mentioned there's a sense of shame because the failure to stop it or do something about it made them feel weak, defenseless and powerless. I'll single out humifaction because a person could be (as the word is often used) too proud to admit it. But if a person is saying they are too proud to admit something happened, they are almost taking responsibility for part of what happened. They didn't do the molesting, but they didn't stop it and they are too proud to admit they weren't strong, then some people feel guilty that they weren't strong enough, man enough, etc. to stop it. It's where a lot of men take on a sense of guilt, not over the abuse itself, but because they didn't do what they feel they should have been capable of doing. Again, this may not apply to you, I'm just trying to explain why a sense of guilt is very common and it's not the kind of guilt where you feel like you asked for it, but guilt that you trusted someone or that you didn't fight them off or you got in the car with someone and you should have known better. These are all things that apply to what a person did or didn't do. The feel no guilt over doing the molesting, but they might feel guilt that they didn't do more to stop it and now they are too proud to admit that they feel weak. You can't really feel bad about feeling weak, defenseless and powerless unless you also feel like you shouldn't have been. If you 100% know and accept that it wasn't your fault for trusting someone, or being smaller than someone or being unable to defend yourself... then you are still kind of saying you did something wrong. That's why, for a great many men, sexual abuse carries a sense of guilt. Maybe you are the exception to the rule and that's fine, but being that guilt (over not being a "real man" capable of defending himself) is so very much a common thing for men who are molested, it's not too unfair to think that's what someone might have meant by using the word pride.

I know more about this subject than I wish I did, so I'm not talking all theory.

3

farox t1_ixyoisu wrote

Girls are more often victims, iirc. Which makes sense Imo as there are more straight men when it comes to sexual violence. Not saying that under reporting for men/boys isn't a thing.

13

TalmidimUC t1_ixyxpap wrote

I get what you’re saying, but please don’t downplay the significance and frequency of male sexual abuse or assault.

6

DoodlerDude t1_ixz4jfs wrote

“Girls are more often victims”. We don’t know that, due to the underreporting you are downplaying.

1

Repulsive-Barber2001 t1_iy5cpc2 wrote

Men/male children do underreport. Most men who were sexually abused or molested as kids keep it to themselves. Many girls also keep to themselves but I believe more girls will report bc they know that’s what they should do, whereas boys believe that’s what they shouldn’t do. As the internet expands & resources become more avail, maybe the way our culture embraces discussions like this will help adults to provide more safe spaces for children to address what they experienced.

1

FromThaFields t1_iy0lsmj wrote

Reminds me of this: "Pride isn't the opposite of shame, it is the source" - Iroh

1

Repulsive-Barber2001 t1_iy1a9kr wrote

Oh yes. Many men have PTSD without realizing it. In a lot of cases it’s bc they keep things to themselves as kids. Since many boys are expected to behave a certain way - we believe having a valid emotional reaction to something that doesn’t seem Okay is invalid. Or we should be ashamed to be emotional about it. That can cause PTSD later bc those experiences don’t just go away.

3

AnimusCorpus t1_iy1jwsq wrote

I didn't get diagnosed until I was 29. Child abuse from when I was 7 was the main catalyst.

I could have quite easily gone my entire life struggling without a diagnosis, none the wiser.

I only ended up getting diagnosed because whilst trying to get some help with depression, one of my doctor's mentioned I could use my abuse to get an ACC claim (NZ universal accident insurance) for therapy. Through that, I discovered I had PTSD.

3

Repulsive-Barber2001 t1_iy578xk wrote

I hope therapy is helping. I found one way to heal childhood trauma is to pinpoint the earliest memory the abuse started, the one that really made you react or think “this is not right.” And imagine yourself as 7yo and forgive your abuser. Most trauma comes from acts that our ego cannot fathom as forgivable bc the acts come from behavior that is logically senseless & unfair for a child to experience. Unfortunately people are weak, gone thru sh*t & aren’t always the best decision makers. When no one can rationalize what you went thru, ironically depression becomes the only anecdote; like the only thing that makes sense. Our ego understands something not right is happening & we internalize the unfairness.

A child’s most basic need for nourishment aside from food & hydration is love. And when it’s given to us in the most atrocious, unfair way, we don’t understand how we can accept that kind of love.

So with the exercise, I would first be in a quiet place, imagine being your 7yo self, face your abuser (as they were then) & say “I know you were trying to do your best with the tools you had then and I forgive you.” If they were an addict I’d say “I know you were not strong enough to make the best decisions & you depended on [substance] to make those decisions for you, they weren’t helping you make the best decisions for me but I forgive you because I realize now you were weak, and not the strong person I thought you were, and you believed the [substance] was good for you & would make the best decisions for you with the resources you had at that time.” Something along those lines. If you are open too it, this exercise helps a lot. Bc most traumatic experiences are unkind, to counteract, forgiveness is a powerful act of kindness & a strong anecdote to heal.

1