Bre,

The counting of breaths or any other item or action, the repeating of thoughts, the intense need to define what has happened, the inability to let go of an idea, and such behaviors are all anxiety. You may not have nervous anxiety that you sense plainly but you have the obsessive and/or compulsive anxieties. Just because you do not have [Flashbacks, nightmares, detachment from others, loss of interest, anger, memory loss, feeling jumpy, turning to drugs and alcohol... ] does not mean you do not have PTSD.

I was put on Klonopin, a benzodiazepine anti-anxiety med. It settled me down a bit so I did not have extreme panic attacks but I needed an SSRI to stop the other behaviors. Most are termed perseveration. I called them looping. I would loop on meaningless things. A license plate I saw. The spelling of a word. A stanza of a song as I tried to find the finish to the song. It was exhausting.

It took a bit to find the right doctor. My doctor said I needed drug therapy and cognitive/psychological therapy to put the trauma into a understandable state. The goal of the psychological therapy was to convince me that a truth was not true to try to trick my mind into letting go. Not an option for me.

Then, about two years after the trauma, I suffered a concussion that added brain injury symptoms.

The immediate trauma therapy is often focused on helping your mind differentiate between what happened and what your mind thinks happened or is afraid of. It is a very complex condition with many different triggers and manifestations. Your symptoms are very similar to mine of 18 years ago.

Your symptoms do not fit with a brain injury.

What makes to say you may have had a concussion?

I am not trained in the specifics but have enough experience and have done enough research to support what I think.

I have a family member who suffers from severe PTSD that went untreated at the time of the trauma and that has left that person psychologically disabled. That person's spouse does not believe PTSD is real so there is no chance of treatment. But, those that truly know the person know that the PTSD is real and has had a serious effect. That person does not have [Flashbacks, nightmares, detachment from others, loss of interest, anger, memory loss, feeling jumpy, turning to drugs and alcohol... ] either but has alienated close family and replaced them with other friends who do not know the pre-trauma personality and function.

Mark