Why High Conflict Divorce Can Trigger Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

By Cathy Meyer

“Once you go through a high conflict divorce you are never the same,” said Dana in a recent interview. 

Dana divorced her husband in 1999. Her ex, Jim, had been diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and he has made Dana’s life miserable for over 12 years. Due to the long, drawn out legal battle and Jim’s emotional abuse before and since the divorce, Dana was recently diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. She is being treated as an inpatient and discussed what life has been like for her over the last few years.

PTSD is most commonly associated with survivors of war, but others who experience violent attacks, rape, car or plane accidents, or natural disasters or prolonged emotional stress can also be diagnosed with PTSD. PTSD can affect anyone who experiences a traumatic event in their life.

“I feel as if I’ve been in the middle of a war zone for an extended period of time. I’ve lived with daily fear for years, there has been no relief because some sort of conflict with my ex was always lurking around the corner,” Dana says. "I didn’t have time to process one event before I was dealing with another one. When divorced from someone like my ex you don’t have time to stop, process your feelings, grieve and move on. You have to have your guard up at all times, be focused and ready for what is coming next and you learn quickly that there will be something coming.”

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a normal emotional and psychological reaction to trauma (a painful or shocking experience) that exists outside of some one’s normal life experiences.

Most people who experience a traumatic event will react with shock, anger, nervousness, fear, or even guilt. For most people, these common reactions go away over time, but for someone experiencing PTSD, these feelings continue to escalate until the person has difficulty living a normal life. Someone with PTSD usually will have symptoms for longer than a month and cannot function as well as they did before the traumatic event.

That begs the question: can divorce cause PTSD?

“It’s like I’m constantly in survival mode,” Dana says. “I perceive a lot of things as a threat. My reaction is an immediate defense for survival. My reaction to a tap on the shoulder from behind is quite different from someone without PTSD. I jump, scream or run as if I’m under attack. It is hard to explain but everything feels like an attack on my safety or security. A car turned in front of my one day, there was plenty of room, no danger of the car hitting me but, I froze. I was unable to drive ahead, could only sit and cry. I’ve lost myself and my ability to calm myself after even the smallest adrenalin rush.”

Symptoms of PTSD are often grouped into three main categories:

• Reliving the traumatic experience: Survivors of trauma may experience nightmares or flashbacks of the traumatic event. This might be triggered by something that reminds the survivor of the event like the anniversary of the event or a similar location or even a language.
• Avoidance: People may remove them from people or situations that are similar in some way to the traumatic event. Survivors may become detached from their loved ones and lose interest in their previous passions.
• Increased arousal: Those with PTSD may become more sensitive to their emotions or bodily sensations. They may have high anxiety levels, insomnia, trouble focusing, be hyper-vigilant (always on guard), among other symptoms.

“I’m constantly under some kind of pressure,” Dana says. “I’m not the same happy, loving person I once was. It feels like there’s a barrier wall in front of me and I can’t scale it.”

Recovering from PTSD is a process and differs for each survivor. The goal for PTSD treatment is to reduce the physical and emotional symptoms as well as improve the survivor’s ability to interact fully with their everyday life.

“First and foremost is some kind of personal conversation, talking or psychotherapeutic relationship,” Dr. Arthur S. Blank Jr., a Vietnam veteran and a renowned expert on PTSD, says on a video for the Washington Post. “People need to be able to talk about whatever they have to talk about to someone who is an experienced listener.”

To supplement psychotherapy treatment for patients diagnosed with PTSD, sometimes doctors will prescribe medications like antidepressants as well as many other kinds of prescriptions that can help people along the road to recovery.

“I’ve been told by doctors that time will tell,” Dana says. “Medication does only so much. Each individual has a different reaction to what traumas they suffer.”

So, can divorce cause PTSD? For Dana, yes. When asked if she had any advice for women going through a high conflict divorce, Dana offered this:

“Know when to give up the fight. I expected the legal system to protect me, to make sure my ex was punished when he defied court orders. I was proven wrong over and over again. My ex-husband left and took 87 percent of his income leaving me to raise two boys on my own.

I worried about feeding them, clothing them and housing them. I worried about their emotional welfare and I worked. At times I worked two jobs to make ends meet. My boys and I were trying to live our lives, struggling to get by and at the same time my ex was reaching in from a distance to make it just that much harder. You can’t look to the legal system to protect you and the only way to win over someone who wants you to suffer is to give up the fight. Let it go, your health is more important.”