pretty sure she has claimed PTSD several times so far
tbh if you visit enough doctors it's easy to get a diagnosis. not accusing Bianca of this of course, but it'd be surprising if Alice hasnt gotten one yet (or at least tried). Going by how extensively she shopped for a fibro diagnosis (and yet by her own admission never got a definitive one) and that she has already implied to shop for therapists as well she clearly isnt too lazy for this.
No, Welp - it’s not easy to get a diagnosis of *
C* PTSD. With ‘standard’ PTSD you have to meet a range of criteria, from hypervigilance to anxiety to sleeplessness. CPTSD is a lot more… complex. It can be a combination of traumatic events; sustained trauma during childhood; a traumatic event or series of events that makes you feel unable to escape, that you are trapped, controlled and coerced; and there are specific symptoms associated with CPTSD, including numerous and vivid flashbacks so that you perceive you are living the traumatic moment(s) in real time, suicidal ideation and desire, utter despair and sensations of worthlessness, which must be fulfilled in order to receive a diagnosis and subsequent treatment (the best of which I found, personally, to be EMDR - horrific to experience because, in effect, you are directly reliving the trauma, but a good way to unlock repressed memories). Basically, it’s as ‘easy’ to get a CPTSD diagnosis as it is an autism diagnosis - and that takes years of assessment by a range of clinicians and specialists. You would have to find a pretty appalling psychologist/psychiatrist to simply diagnose you with CPTSD without a detailed and rigorous assessment and evaluation of a full range of symptoms and comorbidities - the kind of clinician who should, and indeed *must*, be struck off. It took a year for my trauma therapist to give me my own diagnosis, and that was with weekly sessions.
Someone mentioned Bianca’s positivity re: her diagnosis. It can actually be a huge relief to learn what is wrong, rather than labouring under nebulous fears, stress, the sense that something is desperately wrong - but what? It allows you to feel that now, there might be some resolution to the psychological pain you’ve been crushed by. The feeling is temporary, but it’s at least a start.
-Thank you to everyone who has been so lovely:
@lulooo,
@CookieMonsta,
@Lulugrace - you really are the dearest people, and a great reminder of why these threads are such a lifeline of support and compassion.