There are many reasons why PTSD leaves anxiety symptoms. For many PTSD survivors, they can cry at the drop of a hat (or express anger). Our bodies and feelings send clues to the undetected mind that repair is needed. PTSD can leave residue feelings of shame, victimization, or lack of self-worth.
You can experience setbacks from delayed post-trauma realization. Because you don’t realize the memories and thoughts that you’re still carrying in your subconscious mind. The thoughts can live undetected in your gray matter (explained further, below) and can negatively impact your current life.
PTSD anxiety symptoms can be one result leaving clues (in the mind-body connection that exists). You can have stressful body symptoms that show up when triggered, but you may not know where they come from.
Showing up as panicking, lashing out, or getting angry or sad. Or you can experience heart palpitations, difficulty in breathing, a knot in your stomach, a lump in your throat, or panicking feelings. These can all come from PTSD that you don’t know you have or what the cause is.
That was my 20’s story in a nutshell.
We commonly think of PTSD as referenced to soldiers who come back from traumatic experiences in their work and during the war. Bless their souls and hearts for their service. They have witnessed trauma and experienced trauma that can leave deep psychological wounds and other wounds, that need to heal. Exposure and sharing first, then scarring to good health
Similarly, you may have experienced trauma that wasn’t so obvious. The trauma may have taken years to transpire, like over your entire childhood or growing up years.
In isolated situations, they can be more traumatic. For children who deal with daily trauma, they don’t know life can be any different. So they grow up with distorted perceptions of life.
…Or what if you felt abandoned or invisible growing up? Those hurt self-confidence and self-worth, that impact so many areas. Those situations may not be as obvious as say, being attacked.
…And you could have been victimized (attacked or bullied) somewhere along the line, so you carried thoughts that life is lack and limitation. There is an invisible box you lived in or think in. You didn’t know you saw your adult life through this lens. Those limiting beliefs became your beliefs. They shifted your values and altered your identities.
Why PTSD Leaves Anxiety Clues (and Can Go Undetected)
First, here are a few common reasons PTSD can go undetected:
Reason # 1:
The trauma incident is fuzzy in your mind, as you may have witnessed a situation but didn’t experience deep physical harm. You survived. It may have been traumatic to you at the time and over time, became blurred (part of your past), as your life went on.
You can also consider yourself tough (or not as sensitive as others you know), so you thought the impact wasn’t as big and downplayed any effects. Older siblings especially can think this way because they played an influential role in younger siblings (who can be more sensitive).
Reason 2:
You stay unaware as part of life’s overwhelm. You never talked to anyone (or uncovered the wounds). You were too busy to prioritize dealing with your “stuff” or “baggage”. You just went on with life without letting out the healthy emotions, sharing your story, and healing.
And now, since time has passed, it seems strange to drudge up the past. Harboring resentment and unforgiveness towards others can leave similar reasoning.
Reason 3:
You stay unaware because you don’t want to open up a can of worms and find the deeper “you”. You may have been fearful of what you could find below the surface or finding someone different than who you see and know in the mirror. You may even think, “good is good, don’t mess with good.”
The problem is your mind doesn’t forget even though you are living a new or different life from your past. Your mind remembers those past or repressed thoughts and can send signals to your body at any time. Especially when triggered, your body can react where you don’t know the cause.
…You wonder why PTSD leaves anxiety symptoms? (such as panic attacks)
If unfavorable, this can appear as anxiety, that is meant to help save you in a real dangerous situation. It takes old thoughts and confused them with current situation thoughts. When you aren’t in harm’s way, your high intellect mind copes and adapts to new situations (your new perspective) to move you away from pain.
Under stress (common in America), your body can let a massive panic attack take over. Maybe this is how you’ve lived all your life? There’s a much better way in awareness.
Or maybe... you experienced trauma more recently?
In David Letterman’s interview with Actress Kim Kardashian, she talks about how just a few years ago on a trip to Paris, she was bound up at gun point and robbed of all her jewelry and possessions.
Wow...that would make you stop, rethink, and change your thoughts and behaviors.
When to Stop and Be Aware
If you can’t pinpoint why you have anxiety, it can be because you have these hidden below the surface trauma memories that you’ve repressed. You simply got on with life, coped, adapted, and put on a band-aid.
When you don’t have conscious knowing, then you can let your life go in any direction. You can miss the opportunity to change the way you approach and see life.
You aren’t just missing small things, you can be missing buckets of categories where all the fulfillment and riches are. Unless you decide to connect the dots and get whole and healed. In less severe cases, you can do this on your own.
Mindset re-frames come in handy. Your mind has the ability to change and you can replace your old thoughts. You have the opportunity to be happy inside you now, no matter your situation and what hand of cards you were dealt in life.
In my case, I lived with reasons 1-3 above until I became aware (and you can too in your situation!).
The Divergent movie series is based on a futuristic fictional world where the government is trying to create a society where people live without their own ideas (like robots). The main characters, Tris and Four, are labeled as divergents, and are put under a virtual reality mind-altering head gadget that makes them face their biggest fears.
These fictional divergent characters have the ability to think themselves out of their biggest fear-based situations that appear real to them but are not. They become the heroes as they let go of these destructive beliefs and live bravely trying to save themselves and the world.
That’s the superpower challenge I leave you with, to get aware, and let go if you think you’re holding onto post-trauma. You don’t have to continue living with post-trauma (or wonder why PTSD leaves anxiety symptoms and clues in your now-life).
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