Quote Originally Posted by Mango2 View Post
Thank you all so much for your replies! They are very comforting and helpful.
No, I suppose it isn't PTSD. After I read up a bit about the condition, PTSD is, as you have written, a result of a sudden, traumatic, shock-typ incident, like a car accident, assault, military conflict, etc, etc.
I read a book about eating disorders where the very competent author stated that parents in a family where a child has been suffering and been treated for an eating disorder develop, in her words, PTSD.
I'm not sure if she was exaggerating the "post-stress" situation and using PTSD as a means to simplify her explainations, but probably, as others have written, PTSD is probably a condition that gets thrown around a lot incorrectly.

Strange thing is though, during all that time during the summer, when all these bad things were happening, the anxiety I felt was extreme and suffocating, but at the same time it felt strangely "genuine".
It was an anxiety that was based on real, life-threatening situations in the real world, as compared with my usual GAD/Panic anxiety that I've been dealing with most of my adult life which is more diffuse, and based on distorted thinking coming from my low self-esteem.

However, I suppose my nervous system is in a high sensitised mode right now as it's trying to fill an "anxiety vacuum" not that things in my life have calmed down. My brain is finding other threats in my life, which in reality are more benign.
PTSD isn't only caused by one single episode always. I don't know if what you have is PTSD, but I do have episodes of my ears ringing when I am triggered and retraumatized. Regardless, what you have been through has been really hard for you and I definitely think it warrants you talking to someone about it. Really, in the space of a few months, you had legitimate fears that you could lose not just one loved one, but a number of them, of course that's traumatising.

Sending love. X