Sometimes if I have a bad experience I won't know that it's trauma until several months later, is this normal?

[Silent_cries]

For some reason sometimes when I have a bad or traumatic experience I won't even be able to tell if it's trauma until I start struggling with it several months later. Usually I'll have little to no issues with what happened at all until the flashbacks, guilt and anxieties starts kicking in several months later turning my life into living hell. Is this normal? Anyone else experiences this?

 

[Malaria]

I don't know how common it is, but I've definitely experienced that. When I was SA'd, the trauma of the incident didn't hit me until about five years after it happened.

 

[BrainShower]

I didn't realize that some trauma was trauma until years, even decades passed.
But yeah, the way I identified it was beginning to struggle with it, i.e. flashbacks, anxiety, guilt.
It seems crazy, but I have read that it is common.

 

[Silent_cries]

Well damn, I honestly thought I was the only one. Didn't know it could take years for some though. For me it has usually not taken more than a year for the trauma issues to set in with the exeption of 1 trauma but for that one in particular I wasn't mentally sane enough for it to rly turn into a trauma until like at least 2 years.

Makes me worry about how what I went through with my ex-psychiatrist will affect me, it's too recent to know for sure wether I'll have trauma issues from it or not, and that's scary to think about, ngl. >_<

 

[SuicidalOrganism]

sometimes i wish i have alzheimers/dementia to forget the rough shit

 

[dragonofenvy]

When I went through traumatic stuff from ages 8-12 it didn't start giving me PTSD symptoms until I was 17. Haven't been able to find reasons why. I think for some people it's just lying in the subconscious and needs something to bring it out again.

 

[HereTomorrow]

Absolutely 100%. Living example here, didn't know I was SA'd until 8 years after it happened but didn't fully consciously recall it as trauma until 14 years later. In between the years however I was a mess of a person, and since the full recall I've never felt more uncomfortable with myself.

Symptoms of trauma can emerge but without registering it as trauma or even the memory of it, it can definitely come out as a terrible personality, or even sometimes other disorders before PTSD. It's not often I see someone live perfectly alright lives post trauma without a few mental hiccups before recalling any major points.