I believe that getting my family to understand is like going to a hardware store for bread. They do not have it to give. When they are ready to understand, if ever, they come to me.

I keep my focus on finding support from folks who are already on the path to recovery. They already have bread to give.

I look at this way. You can't make a rock understand your problems. Unfortunately, some do not believe invisible disabilities. They see me in an electric scooter and accept that and the disabilites that put me there, but would never accept the invisible disabilities I also have. Give up trying to persuade and live your life as you please.

Don't live your life for others. In thinking about it, maybe you WOULD have a better change of having a rock understand your ailments.

Hugs.

My take is that, for me anyway, arfie hit the nail on the head. I turned myself inside out trying to get family to be effective allies. Explained myself. Had them come to therapy sessions so the PTSD expert psychologist would explain it. Shared books, movies, you name it. All to great benefit to me, but without budging family an inch.

Then I realized: they HAVE PTSD themselves and have chosen the path of denying it! It not only explained how they learned nothing from my PTSD experience, but also their own cyclical of unhappiness and bizarre behavior.

That may not be the case with your family, but it is with mine. Everything that happened to me to give me PTSD happened to each one of them. They are determined not to get better just as I'm determined to be here and heal. They believe that works for them. That's their choice.

Now I respect it and leave us all in peace. No more explaining. It is, as arfie said, like going to the hardware store for bread. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

I have given up on trying to make them "understand."
I foolishly exhausted myself trying to "explain." thinking I wasnt being clear, didnt provide good explanation, etc.

Average people can still be very sensitive/supportive to persons fighting cancer. These average folk arent medical doctors that understand the complexiety of disease pathology. Unfortunately, that supportive sensitivity doesnt seem to come easy for average people regarding PTSD, GAD, etc.

I resolved there are some people in my family that are just insensitive assholes with no interest in understanding this part of me. So I dont explain anymore and I dont ask for things. I tell them what I need and follow these boundaries.

BUT if you think your fam does have sincere receptivity.
There is a small book, Healing Trauma by Dr. Peter Levine . It is an easy read and packed with potent info. on PTSD.

Hugs,
Violet

Hmmm, family and ptsd. Families have a way of showing care for you but some can be just plain ignorant and hard-headed assholes (excuse the language). Some just don't want to understand; some just see the symptoms and think I am sick. Reality is that it's true but they just point me out and they don't see themselves.

I've explained myself to a few in my fam but they don't fully grasp it. They get it but don't fully get it... this is still something I am working on and trying to grasp.

This is very difficult. If you can get your doctor to discuss it with them they might "believe" it a little more. Unfortunately until you have PTSD you cannot understand what it is like. Before this happened to me I would have thought you could snap out of it or stop dwelling on it. I was ignorant and did not understand the brain actually rewires itself. It is much like a programing looping in a computer, it just keep returning to start of the PTSD.
You look normal, you don't look sick. That is the part of the problem. My husband is like that but he refuses to go to the doctor with me. He tells me he is sick of the bull crap and I need to just suck it up and move on. God I wish I could. I don't know how to and just when things are going good...boom something sends me into a spiral that I am powerless to stop. One day I am great and can get 96% on a test....next day 59%. I know the material, but some days my brain does not work.
I am not sure you will ever get people to understand. Maybe it is better to learn how to not worry about the non-believers. That would likely be easier in my experience.
Good luck

I agree with what's been said about explaining ourselves, obviously, since I already posted on that earlier. I'm back to say I really like what 51percent said. I get tired of the stigma precisely because, to some extent or another, I don't know how anyone could not have a little PTS even if it's not the D.

That example of the shots we all had as kids was really good. We just have that amped up 1000%, like 51percent said. We are not freaks, in other words, it's just life and surviving extreme moments in it. Yes, we're changed forever and it's hard to cope with, but we are not freaks. Thanks, 51percent!

People are either in denial that trauma/PTSD can happen or that it has already happened to themselves.

I have a hard time myself understanding things too far out of my realm of experience. I've met people with multiple personalities who refer to these personalities by different names. I don't get it, but who am I to judge? Sometimes they seem as if they actually enjoy the attention that their disorder brings and it makes me feel less sympathetic. Am I too judgmental and unsupportive??

I try and remember this when I decide how much info. to relate to others about PTSD. I try to consider how empathetic they are, how "old school, pull yourself up by your bootstraps" they are, and what their life experience is. Most people will not or can not relate, family or not. And of course some families are actually the case of our PTSD, so they are probably the very worst ones to go to for support.

Didn't stop me from trying to get support from my narcissistic dad about the trauma I experienced from my mother's constant abuse.
But it totally didn't work, he just doesn't give a s**t. And that's the way it is with a lot of families. Doesn't mean it's not worth trying, but don't beat yourself up if it doesn't work out. Good luck!!! I hope your
family can be supportive, but if they're not, don't let that stop you from reaching out to others who can be.