It’s good that you’ve helped others to take a broader view of trauma.
Remember that PTSD isn’t a thing, but a name for a set of symptoms that come from a particular way of responding to past events. When we’re going through a frightening or painful experience that overwhelms our coping skills (which often happens when we haven’t encountered a particular source of stress before), we don’t let ourselves confront how out of control we feel. It makes sense that aspects of this experience would emerge later when we’re out of immediate danger. Trauma isn’t caused just by childhood abuse or combat experience. It happens when the feelings related to a painful event surpass our ability to deal with them. It makes sense then that a response to the traumatic event would emerge later, when we’re out of immediate danger. The problem is that the link between the feelings and the original experience has been broken.
Yeah, a kidney stone is just a kidney stone, but kidney stones are excruciating in ways that are notoriously unresponsive to analgesics.
Who knows what’s happening if they’ve never had a kidney stone before?
Who has the wherewithal to summon a thoughtful, rational, self-assured response when they’re in excruciating pain and vomiting?
You were encountering your first major medical event on your own, far from your usual sources of support. You were attempting to cope while negotiating an unfamiliar medical setting where most of the communication was in a language you didn’t know.
(Many people are traumatized simply by being in the hospital, let alone in India and being cared for in Hindi.)
You were probably so desperate to relieve the pain that the normal fears associated with anesthesia and surgery (especially a first surgery) weren’t even accessible to you.
How could you possibly have known that *your* particular body would respond to chai or (perhaps something else) in the way that it did? You did absolutely nothing to bring this on.
You unrealistically expected you could downplay how terrifying this all was — because late adolescents and young adults aren’t comfortable exposing their vulnerability.
Given all that happened, I’d be concerned if you *didn’t* have symptoms of post-traumatic stress. There’s absolutely nothing, nothing to be ashamed of. Don’t become fixated on the diagnosis. These categories don’t reveal much. The bottom line is that you had a traumatic experience with fallout that haunted you for a while. Most important, you were able (fairly quickly) with support and insight to put two and two together.
Sounds pretty healthy to me.