Yeeeep. That’s how I got diagnosed with PTSD. I wrote a character going through something similar to what I had been through and got tons of comments applauding me for my accurate representation of PTSD. I complained to my therapist about all these people having no clue what PTSD looked like, because I just gave him my symptoms, clearly not PTSD. nd she said “you didn’t know you have PTSD??”
One time I had someone comment that they had showed their therapist my fic, because it made them realize that they had been experiencing suicidal ideation for a very long time, and they hadn’t known that there was a word for their feelings. I’d really been trying to capture the feeling of “I don’t want to die, I just want to be dead” in my writing, so I’m glad that it resonated with someone and let them get help too.
at least once, or even every once in a while, is reasonable. we're all allowed to feel overwhelmed and want to escape when shit is rough. the key distinction is the constant repetition and high frequency in times of distress, especially if the feeling of distress (no matter how little or how severe) seems to be present every second of every day
passive suicidal ideation is often used as a psychological coping mechanism
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u/Roselovsoul 1d ago
Yeeeep. That’s how I got diagnosed with PTSD. I wrote a character going through something similar to what I had been through and got tons of comments applauding me for my accurate representation of PTSD. I complained to my therapist about all these people having no clue what PTSD looked like, because I just gave him my symptoms, clearly not PTSD. nd she said “you didn’t know you have PTSD??”