PTSD -Caused by Car Crash and Spinal Cord Injury

[Millard]

I was in a car crash many years ago and suffered a spinal cord injury resulting in paralysis below the shoulders.  I had good recovery physically but have emotional problems since.  I seem to feel no emotion with certain events.  I laugh often and everything seems fine.  On the other hand, when my mother died, I felt no pain at all and the same thing with my father.  I thought I was heartless until my pup died...and I almost died from remorse.  I read and found "Faded Affect", but more closely "Blunted Affect".  Has anyone had anything like this happen in their life?  Any recommendations?

Thanks...

[MYoungAtHeart]

Thank you drifter0213....that is an excellent description....

M

[drifter0213]

the term flat-affect is a character of schizophrenia which i have both no emotions straight & blunt :)

[MYoungAtHeart]

I too was involved in a car accident and still have problems when other people are driving, but regarding your question, PTSD can cause many problems with feelings and emotions...For me it is not so much a blunted effect but a problem with showing emotions or delving into them too deeply which causes me pain.  I internalize a lot of my emotions and think them through before deciding to act on them or react on them.  Another word I use is Dissociation which is a term in psychology describing a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experience.

I don't think you are heartless at all.  Have you had a meeting with your Med doctor and talked about PTSD or asked about seeing a therapist either in a group setting or privately...

Good luck to you

M