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Comment by nickswan | Hacker News Reader

“PTSD continues in unexpected ways. I’m still hypersensitive to noise, anxious in crowds. I cry at the tiniest prompting, often at kindness and evidence of a shared humanity.“

I would never associate ptsd with these symptoms. My daughter was diagnosed with Leukemia in May ‘17 (she’s responded well to treatment so far) and I’m susceptible to all of these - but I would never have labelled it as ptsd.

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If you're seeing a mental health professional it's an interesting conversation to talk about labels for illness, and how people ideate around them. If this label doesn't work for you, you don't have to wear it.

If you aren't seeing a mental health professional, given the stresses in your life, it's worth at least thinking about. I value time spent talking to somebody dispassionate, but interested in my mental welfare for a number of reasons. It only has upsides, as far as I am concerned.

A fever, muscle pain, and cough are symptoms of a lot of different diseases, right? Same here, although minus the disease. Grieving, acute stress, homesickness, depression and anxiety and a lot more share the common symptoms described. PTSD does too, but that’s not all that defines it. Intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, hyper vigilance, emotional outbursts, vivid and disturbing dreams, and all of this over a period of months is suggestive of PTSD. If you check out some of the diagnostic manuals, you’ll find a common theme is a list of symptoms, and instruction that a certain number need to be present over a given time frame.

So a cough for a few days suggests a cold, while a cough and high fever for a week suggest something else, and coughing up blood suggests something dire. See what I mean?

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