Taylor Frankie Paul’s PTSD Reveal Puts Focus on Symptoms and Support
Taylor Frankie Paul, one of the stars of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, revealed this week that she was diagnosed with PTSD two years ago. The reality TV figure shared the update through Instagram Stories on April 19, and the posts were later recapped by entertainment outlets after the stories disappeared.
According to TMZ, Paul said the diagnosis was made by more than one therapist, and she suggested it may now fit complex PTSD, or CPTSD. JustJared reported the same timeline and added that she used the posts to push back on people who had questioned or assumed things about her mental health.
Paul even reposted older clips to show what dissociation and anxiety looked like for her in real life, including one moment where she said she sat for a couple of minutes trying to open a hotel room door with her car keys. Another post showed her reflecting on how often people are “smiling through it” while struggling in private.
According to Hulu, Paul is a main personality tied to the Mormon Wives franchise, the creator of #MomTok, and a central figure in the story that first brought a lot of national attention to that world. Hulu’s bio also lists her as a divorced mother of three who joined the show, in part, to let viewers see a more vulnerable side of her life.
What is PTSD?
PTSD stands for post-traumatic stress disorder. The Mayo Clinic states that PTSD is a mental health condition that can develop after an extremely stressful or terrifying event, whether a person lived through it or witnessed it.
The VA’s National Center for PTSD says it usually becomes a concern when symptoms last more than a month and start causing real problems at home, at work, or in everyday life.
The same VA resource states that complex PTSD is recognized in ICD-11, though it is still handled differently from standard PTSD in some clinical systems.
What signs should people know?
Symptoms do not look the same for everyone. Both the Mayo Clinic and the VA both describe four broad patterns that often show up with PTSD:
- Reliving symptoms, such as nightmares, flashbacks, or upsetting memories that keep coming back.
- Avoidance, which can mean staying away from places, people, conversations, or reminders tied to the trauma.
- Negative changes in mood and thinking, including guilt, shame, fear, numbness, memory problems, or feeling detached from other people.
- Feeling on edge, like trouble sleeping, irritability, poor concentration, being easily startled, or always feeling alert for danger.
PTSD can show up soon after trauma, or much later. For instance, symptoms may begin within the first few months, but they can also appear years afterward.
If any of those symptoms sound familiar to you, don’t try to diagnose yourself from a headline or a social media post. Reach out to a doctor or licensed mental health professional. The VA says it is worth getting help when symptoms last longer than a month, feel very upsetting, or disrupt daily life.
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