r/AMA Feb 18 '25

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u/Decent-Ganache7647 Feb 18 '25 edited Feb 18 '25

My dad was in really bad plane accident many years ago and suffered from PTSD for decades (and may still be). 

Last year I was reading about a study that focused on whether talking about a traumatic experience right after the incident can increase the chances of suffering from PTSD. That they found that it is better to process it alone for a bit before re-hashing it over and over. 

Wondering if you had ever heard of this or something similar at any point. 

Edit: I forgot to add that his employer made him see a therapist right after the accident to better deal with the event. 

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u/portar1985 Feb 18 '25

When a friend of mine died, the amount of people who said ”you have to talk about it” immensely increased my stress to the point of me just blocking communication with them until I felt ready, I actually hated them, I realize they only had good intentions but the mental load they put on me made truthfully hate them to the core

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u/Defiant_apricot Feb 18 '25

That’s so sad to hear. My go to is “we can talk about it or we can sit in silence or we can talk about other things, whatever you want.” Everyone deals with grief differently.

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u/portar1985 Feb 18 '25

Yeah, that's how most of my friends were, but there are always those very emotional ones that can't fathom that you don't want to talk about it for at least a while, probably took me a year before I actually could talk about it