Trauma – PTSD

Question:

(SnowByrd75) writes: Hello I was just wondering if any of you who have DID or similar disorders have experienced severe pain (not physical cause) or pressure in your chest or if anyone  knows if this may be a symptom (along with other symptoms).

Wow!!! yes, I haven’t thought of that in a long time, but yes I did have that.  Sometimes it felt like something trying to get out.  Ugh.. that sounds awful so Alienish.  I often had unexplained pressure too. There was absolutely no physical reason for it.  I have not experienced it since int*gr*tion.  I sort of associated it with switching somehow, there was a lot of increased tension when that was going on. This is my main question, but I am also wondering about pain/pressure in the head. Although for me the chest discomfort is more prevalent.

I think the head pain and pressure was worse for me.  The pressure, band like around my head and on the top when I dissociated.  If something really bad happened and I started to fuzz, that would come first.  When I was switching a lot, I had a lot of headaches, I hear that’s pretty common.  They were the awful icepack and heating pad type headaches that no painkillers would help.  Those have pretty much stopped too, I get tension headaches now, but they are babies compared to what I used to get.   Thanks for your response:)

Are you presently in some heavy therapy???  My physical symptoms were worse during the intensive times in therapy, it goes with the territory.  As I gradually worked through memories, they got worse and then better and then stopped.  There is light at the end of that tunnel, hang in there.  I know how you feel.  I wish I could help. Crisis

Response:

Hello I was just wondering if any of you who have DID or similar disorders have experienced severe pain (not physical cause) or pressure in your chest or if anyone  knows if this may be a symptom (along with other symptoms). This is my main question, but I am also wondering about pain/pressure in the head. Although for me the chest discomfort is more prevalent. Thanks for your response:)

Response:

Hi Crisis:) Thank you for your reply. It is very helpful for me to hear from others about this. I am not currently in therapy and I have never been diagnosed as DID, but I have been reading about it here and there over the years and sometimes when I compare symptoms I read about, to myself, I wonder about it. For me the pain manifested itself mostly after an experience I had when I would say what seemed like I part of myself I didint know was about to come out and right at that time experienced a sever shock and loss. I have barely gotten over that over the years but somehow I manage. The pain is almost constant and feels so buried like I cant get at it. It almost feels like a part of me died that night. I dont know how to interpret how I feel or what happened. Anyway, thanks alot for your feedback. I very much appreciate it:) SnowByrd75

Response:

Hello I was just wondering if any of you who have DID or similar disorders have experienced severe pain (not physical cause) or pressure in your chest or if anyone  knows if this may be a symptom (along with other symptoms).

I doubt that chest pain would be a specific symptom, but unexplained physical sensations that have no present day basis in reality are symptoms of things that go along with dissociation (PTSD, conversion reaction, etc.) Of course I want to mention here that it is always important to make sure you get this verified to know that there isn’t _also_ some present day physical problem! I say this because I totally destroyed my knee when I was 18 because I was too good at ignoring physical sensations in my body. Had I checked it out I would have been able to get it fixed before it became such a problem. Since then I am more careful about my pains and get them looked at so that I know they aren’t the start of a present day physical problem (for example, I know that my stomach pains aren’t from an ulcer or gallbladder or whatever). In my case specifically I don’t have chest pains like you describe. I have pressure in my chest sometimes because I’m not breathing, I get severe stomach pains that are most likely stress related, I get other various pains that are clearly directly related to body memories of the abuse, I get (well used to get) serious, severe, unbelievable headaches, and so on. I also have various problems because of chronic stress/anxiety that has effected my muscles and joints. And many of my physical problems are due to anxiety that I am not aware of but my body is. I think that each of us with a history of physical trauma and with the ability to dissociate to the point of DDNOS or DID (and for that matter the ability to dissociate, period!) have our own personal physical symptoms that are trying to tell us something. What that pain is and where it is located is personal and directly related to what happened in the past, or related to what each of us does in relation to stress/anxiety/emotions but the idea of having some unexplainable pain is pretty common as far as I can tell. This is my main question, but I am also wondering about pain/pressure in the head. Although for me the chest discomfort is more prevalent. Thanks for your response:)

This sounds like my dissociation headaches. I have many problems with headaches because several of the insiders have different vision, clench the teeth and mess up the jaw, hold tension in the neck that causes pain and so on. Sometimes someone inside will be having an emotional reaction to something but I don’t know what it is, so I end up with a tight feeling in my head. If I am able to figure out what emotion goes with that feeling I either get a headache or I get the tight feeling to go away. But again, I first made sure that none of these were present day problems in need of physical attention. Lately I’ve been looking into present day solutions to the discomfort that is helpful (such as massage). Rainbow Colors (Jill) —      I am in the process of becoming, so this space is blank.

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