Having been told I was severely mentally ill and would be for the rest of my life, I left the hospital and went to a rescue mission where I pretty much sat for five and a half years. I was, periodically, wildly suicidal. It wasn’t an odd intrusive thought, suicide, it was a way out of my unbearable pain. My early family life was remarkably dysfunctional. My finally crumpling under the unbearable emotional pain was labeled insanity, rather than the sanity it really was, PTSD being a very normal reaction to terror.

I am not about sweetness and light. My life was a struggle with pain and isolation. I lived for decadeswithout any sense of belonging to the human race. In the mission I would often spend a week or so without a conversation that lasted longer than four or five words. When I left the Mission, I lived in a small
furnished room. Unlike others of my age, I had no house, furniture, car, wife, kids, job, career, family or friends. After years of isolation, I had lost the ability to hold a conversation, or to really know what I was thinking.

I gained at least fifty pounds in a year, living in the VA mental hospital, on powerful anti-psychotic drugs. I did no exercising. I kept my PTSD in control by isolation, overeating, and daydreaming. Both the State and VA mental hospitals did their best to convince me that I was defective, that I had a genetic mental illness, and would need drugs forever. My self-esteem was in the negative range. When I was in a crowd I would try to get to the edges, or leave, as I didn’t feel I was anything other than a social reject (schizophrenics are crazed killers, don’t you know?).

My mother and I, both terribly traumatized in our respective youths, seemed to be having an unspoken contest to see who would suicide first. She at age56, took her life while I was in the VA hospital system.

And yet, here I am, age 61, alive and, most of the time, happy to be alive. I do a lot of volunteering, and am on several Boards and Commissions. I am on Eugene’s Human Rights Commission, and I am on this current task force looking at the fact that those who go through the mental health system die 25 years before their peers.

If I am getting health, within my limits, it is only because I believed in myself. I woke up one day and realized that I wasn’t “mentally ill” in the traditional sense, and that I would have to do all the work myself, if I wanted to survive. Recovery simply wasn’t built into the mental health system. It was designed by “Big Nurse” to warehouse the very lost and battered; to avoid paying the true expenses of taking care of those with PTSD, though it wasn’t called that at the time.

I give the most credit to the Eugene Rescue Mission where I lived for years. It helped because it wasn’t connected to the mental health system. No one there forced me to take drugs that dulled my mind, no one there labeled me crazy or defective. I had a cot in a large dorm, simple food, and a very simple job folding newspapers for their recycling program.

Let me repeat that: I was aided the most by someone giving me sanctuary from the highly degreed shrinks and their soul-shriveling labels. I lived among equals, men who were equally damaged, distant ghosts unbound by family or relationships.

I fought the VA for years until I got a fairly small pension. Using that, I joined a weight-loss club. Cost me a fortune, but that was the only way to get the 50 pounds off. Very hard to keep it off, but I joined an exercise club, which was expensive, to help me. I went into counseling, as a Vietnam Veteran I was
eligible to use their Vet Center system, which was then a peer-led counseling program. I sat across from someone I grew to trust, for years, relearning how to take my inner world and expose it to the light of conversation. I got off those damn psychiatric drugs, and I stayed off them.

I counsel people today not to do what I did, as I just walked away from the drugs, and for months, had a doubling of my emotional problems. The inner emotional storms were…horrible. But I survived. And I suspect that, though those years took a lot out of me, I bought back a lot of those 25 years. And I do not give much credit to the traditional mental health system for much of my “recovery’. It fought me for years to stay on Thorazine. It refused me a pension, even though I was diagnosed schizophrenic and locked in a VA crisis ward. It did nothing to aid my self esteem. I do have a lot of respect for the Vet Center perspective that sees dysfunction as a natural result of trauma.

I don’t have degree from Yale or Harvard, but I would match the education I received in Norwich State Hospital, Northampton VA Hospital, the Eugene Mission, and years on the street, with the education of any psychiatrist. I sat in the Mission and the hospitals and, within limits, learned what terror and horror and hopelessness felt like. I watched where it came from, how impossible it is get rid of (broken hearts never heal), and above all, I learned that we are remarkably resilient, we human beings, if we get a chance to relax and relearn love. Recovery isn’t about being “cured”, as many of us never had a disease in the first place. It is about relearning to love who we really are, and to accept the daily burden of our struggle as just something we share with most other humans.

Hugh Massengill
H.massengill@comcast.net

Photo credit.

1. In Coping With Life, Tom Davis writes about “Darren DeGraw, Manville and PTSD”:

“Darren, who had also lived in Barnegat, resigned on June 30, 2005 from the Manville force because of the PTSD he suffered from following a 1995 shooting, his ex-wife, Donna DeGraw, once told The Princeton Packet.”

“Even as he suffered, he apparently showed the same leadership spirit he had as a high school student, hoping to revive a community that had a wrecked economy and a population that suffered from a debilitating and deadly illness.”

“But there is only so much a person can do to save themselves, especially when they face the tragedy of depression and trauma that not only affects those around them. Mental illness is often a force bigger than ourselves. It was for my mother, who died of a heart attack in our Point Boro home, in 2003, after suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder for nearly 40 years.”

“For Darren, it was, apparently, a force that – despite the good life he led – was too big to conquer.”

“On Feb. 23, 1995, a man confronted Darren and another officer with a shotgun after a routine traffic stop, according to The Packet. The man stopped his vehicle, near Darren’s police car, and reportedly asked him, “Why are you following me?”

“The man then went back to his truck and took out a 12-gauge shotgun. The Packet reported that Darren and the other officer attempted to drive their police cars away from the man, but Darren’s car was shot at from 30 feet away, shattering his windshield.”

2.  From the New York Times, a tragedy that didn’t have to happen about a soldier, David Senft, who had had prior difficulties:

“A gentle snow fell on the funeral of Staff Sgt. David Senft at Arlington National Cemetery on Dec. 16, when his bitterly divided California family came together to say goodbye. His 5-year-old son received a flag from a grateful nation.”

“But his father, also named David Senft, an electrician from Grass Valley, Calif., who had worked in Afghanistan for a military contractor, is convinced that his son committed suicide, as are many of his friends and family members and the soldiers who served with him.”

“The evidence appears overwhelming. An investigator for the Army’s Criminal Investigative Division, which has been looking into the death, has told Sergeant Senft’s father by e-mail that his son was found dead with a single bullet hole in his head, a stolen M-4 automatic weapon in his hands and his body slumped over in the S.U.V., which was parked outside the air base’s ammunition supply point. By his side was his cellphone, displaying a text message with no time or date stamp, saying only, “I don’t know what to say, I’m sorry.” (Mr. Senft shared the e-mails from the C.I.D. investigator with The New York Times.) “

“With Sergeant Senft, the warning signs were blaring.”

“The Army declared him fit for duty and ordered him to Afghanistan after he had twice attempted suicide at Fort Campbell, Ky., and after he had been sent to a mental institution near the base, the home of the 101st. After his arrival at Kandahar early in 2010 he was so troubled that the Army took away his weapon and forced him into counseling on the air base, according to the e-mails from the Army investigator. But he was assigned a roommate who was fully armed. C.I.D. investigators have identified the M-4 with which Sergeant Senft was killed as belonging to his roommate.”

“I question why, if he was suicidal and they had to take away his gun, why was he allowed to stay in Afghanistan?” asked Sergeant Senft’s father. “Why did they allow him to deploy in the first place, and why did they leave him there?”

3.  From Stop Walking on Eggshells: “High Conflict Relationships Can Led to Stress Disorder”:

Clinical psychologist Dr Joseph M Carver, PhD, who has a number of great articles on his website says in an online discussion that, “Every victim of abuse experiences some, if not multiple, symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Carver writes:

[T]hese symptoms linger many years; some for a lifetime. Everyone knows this but it’s rarely bought up…During our period of abuse, the brain collects thousands of memories that contain details of our abusive experiences and the feelings (horror, terror, pain, etc.) made at that time. In what we call “traumatic recollection,” any similar experience in the future will recall the emotional memory of the abuse, forcing us to relive the event in detail and feeling.

Most people think of PTSD as happening only to people who have been in extreme circumstances, such as war veterans. However, in her book Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence–from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror (1997) Judith Herman describes a subtype of PTSD she calls complex post traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD).

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Tony A. included his list in his book, The Laundry List: The ACOA Experience.

The list is:

a. We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.

b. We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.

c. We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism

d. We either become alcoholics, marry them, or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.

e. We live life from the viewpoint of victims and are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.

f. We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves. This enables us not to look too closely at our own faults.

g. We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.

h. We become addicted to excitement.

i. We confuse love with pity and tend to “love” people who we can `pity” and “rescue”.

j. We have stuffed our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (denial).

k. We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.

l. We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us.

m. Alcoholism is a family disease and we became para-alcoholics and took on the characteristics of the disease even though we did not pick up the drink.

n. Para-alcoholics are reactors rather than actors.

In the past few years, PTSD which has been long recognized as a byproduct of war and severe trauma, is now being used to define some long-time less severe traumas. Last year, at the age of 70, I realized I have lived with PTSD since I was about 5 years of age. I have based most of my major emotional decisions on the core belief that if I don’t expect much emotionally, I can’t get hurt. The reality is that other people are going to do what they choose to do.

For excerpts from 3 PTSD experiences, read “What is PTSD and How Do I Know if I Have It?” Also here is a PTSD test.

The symptoms for PTSD are generally considered to be: From “What is PTSD and How Can We Recognize It?”:

1. From Mark Goulston: PTSD Symptoms: 7 Signs That May Signal PTSD:

1. Feeling Bulletproof:Prior to the trauma, they often felt invulnerable as if nothing could harm them (the way a very wealthy person who can buy anything — and sometimes anyone — can feel all the way to a freshly trained soldier before they enter battle).

2. Horrendous Trauma: There is usually something horrific about the trauma. Horror has a way of destabilizing the acting, feeling and thinking parts of their brains so they can no longer work together. This may explain the use of the expressions: “Wigged out,” “Coming unglued,” “At wit’s end.”

3. Raw Vulnerability: As bulletproof as they once thought they were is as vulnerable as they have turned out to be. There is a belief that they don’t know how they survived the first trauma and an unconscious belief that they wouldn’t survive being re-traumatized. One of the reasons for anniversary reactions.

4. Brittleness: Not being able to find peace outside or inside their life or inside their psyche, leads to a brittleness where anything can set them off. This leads to the heightened startle respond common to people with PTSD.

5. Terror: Inside there is a deeply held belief that any re-traumatization will cause them to shatter and fragment and there is an feeling of impending inevitability that it will happen which creates a state of terror, difficulty sleeping, heavy self-medication (which also dulls ones rational thinking).

6. PTSD Symptoms: Most of the symptoms of PTSD from withdrawing to alcohol and substance abuse to not sleeping (since the experience of and fear of nightmares adds to the terror) are attempts to avoid re-traumatization.

7. Fragility: Feeling on the brink of going from brittle to shattering, fragmenting, losing their mind and never getting it back can cause a person who needs to be in control to take desperate measures. That is because to such a person, losing complete control is a fate worse than death.

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In the past year, I have begun letting all parts of me come together and I feel so blessed and grateful. I have three mental illnesses–alcoholism (recovery date Nov/ 24, 1976), depression (has been in remission since 1992), and now PTSD. I always knew that the addictions were the Band-Aid over the wound. But I thought the wound was depression. Instead I now know that the wound was PTSD.

I scan over 500 blogs in my Google Reader and am so thankful for the brave souls who write about their recovery experiences.

1. In her blog, Being Sober, Mary Christine writes: “June 7″ :

“It was 30 years ago that I was raped. If you would have told me then that I would still have this date engraved in my soul thirty years later, I would not have believed it. But my life was irrevocably changed that night. (I wrote about it in depth here.)”

“Two years ago I was suffering terribly from PTSD from the rape and underwent therapy for it. It was immensely helpful. And just sitting here tonight, about to go to bed, I am brought to tears remembering. I was asked to name a “safe place” before we began the therapy. I thought it was lame, but the best safe place I could come up with was my own bedroom. My own bed. In all of its glorious whiteness, the crisp white sheets, the white duvet, the white duvet cover, all bleached, ironed, and starched. The window open and the sheers floating on a warm breeze.”

“This is exactly the safe place that I get to fall into in a moment. This is no dream. This is my reality today. I have a safe place to lay my head.”

“And if you are an alcoholic woman, you may know what a miracle this is.”

“God has blessed me so abundantly. I am so grateful to be sober. I am so grateful for the beautiful life I have today.”

2.  In the LA Times, Steve Lopez writes about “ACLU’s lawsuit against the V is a step in vet’s recovery” :

“Combat veteran Greg Valentini slept in Wednesday morning in Hollywood, the day he sued the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Actually, Valentini didn’t file the suit himself, and he was only one of four plaintiffs in what could become a class-action case. The ACLU of Southern California argues in the suit that the VA has mismanaged and underutilized its sprawling West Los Angeles campus even as mentally impaired homeless vets sleep on the city’s streets.”

“If there’s money to wage two wars, there ought to be money to restore abandoned medical buildings at the VA and fill them with some of the estimated 8,200 homeless veterans in Greater Los Angeles, as well as provide them the rehab services they need. That’s how the ACLU’s Mark Rosenbaum described the thinking behind the lawsuit to me this week.”

“As the suit notes, the VA campus has enough space for private companies to store buses and rental cars and for a hotel laundry facility, but no permanent housing for veterans, even though the property was deeded to the government more than 100 years ago specifically to house veterans.

“As for Valentini, his involvement in the lawsuit came as a surprise to me, even though I’ve been shadowing him for several months in a series of columns about his efforts to rehabilitate himself. He told me he was sworn to secrecy until the suit was filed.”

“On Wednesday morning I visited him at the Hollywood rehab center where he has lived since last August along with a few dozen other veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Valentini, 33, hadn’t seen the lawsuit, so I delivered a copy.”

“Valentini, who grew up in Lakewood, wasn’t entirely comfortable being named in the suit. He doesn’t enjoy reviewing the harrowing details of his combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq and his later descent into suicidal fantasies, homelessness and drug addiction. But he was willing if it would help others.”

3. A message of hope from one of the best PTSD survivors, Michele Rosenthal, on her blog Heal My PTSD writes about “PTSD Success Story: Finding the Window to Freedom” :

“A very exciting event occurred recently: One of my clients had his final session with me and is now off to live a life that is free of PTSD symptoms. That’s right, free.”

“The day any of us reaches the end of the healing part of our journey is a cause for celebration; this story particularly moves me because the psychiatrist and psychologist involved in this case said it couldn’t be done. They believed this client couldn’t heal based on their assessment of the fact that PTSD had set in at a very early age due to chronic and horrific child abuse. They had tried for years to help this client move forward, all to no avail. He was heading into middle age and they had told him just to learn to live with it.”

“While it may be true that C-PTSD is more of a challenge to heal, I never lost hope.  The journey was not easy but my client hung in there. We believed in each other and felt that together we could reach his PTSD recovery goals.”

“It has taken us almost 2 years to get to where we are today. Through a combination of coaching, hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming he has been able to:

• establish a sense of safety
• process and release grief
• resolve issues of anger
• integrate the trauma
• reconnect to himself in important and meaningful ways
• reclaim his identity as a worthy, lovable human being
• put in place necessary boundaries with family and friends
• reassess and reframe the past
• re-envision the present
• begin constructing the future
• stop all medications
• sleep through the night
• take back control of his life
• resolve all symptoms of posttraumatic stress
• feel happy, strong, empowered and good about himself

“I’m sharing this story with you for one reason: You must always have hope. Find someone you believe in to work with. Stay determined and committed to your ultimate recovery.”

“It’s easy to lose faith. The road to posttraumatic stress syndrome recovery is long and hard-fought, but it is worth it. You have enormous healing potential. The goal is learning to access it. Keep seeking that stairway that leads to your window of freedom.”

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Moranda Hern was 15 years old when her father, Lietenant Colonel Rick Hern, was deployed to Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan. In the months that followed, she found herself feeling increasingly more isolated and lonely.

“My friends don’t have parents in the military for the most part, so they didn’t really understand what I was going through,” Moranda said. “I thought I was the only one who was experiencing these feelings.”

Moranda had long hoped to follow in her father’s military footsteps. At 12, she began attending camps and events with the National Guard and California Army, and during a National Guard Youth Symposium in Missouri in 2007, she met another girl, Kaylei Deakin, with whom she had an immediate connection. “Meeting Kaylei was kind of this ‘aha’ moment for me. I learned I wasn’t the only one going through these things.”

She and Kaylei wanted to turn their own feelings of confusion over their fathers’ deployment into a movement — one that brings military children across California together.

“Military kids get each other,” Moranda said. “There’s a real understanding there.”

Together, they attended The Women’s Conference in California in 2008, which laid the groundwork for The Sisterhood of the Traveling BDUs — itself a play on the popular teen novel and Army-slang for battle dress uniforms.

Moranda and Kaylei began organizing their first conference for the organization right away, all the while finishing up high school classes and applying for colleges. “I was still, like, trying to get my driver’s license,” Moranda remembers.

With help from mentors like Major General Mary Kight of the California National Guard and grants and training, they scheduled speakers, workshops, and a semi-formal “Purple Carpet” event. Soon the girls raised enough money so that all conference participants could attend for free.

It took a lot of work, but seeing these hundreds of girls coming together and supporting each validated Kaylei and Moranda’s mission.

“The last night of the conference we had an Open Mic, and every girl stood up and spoke about their own experiences,” Moranda said. “They thought their fathers had deployed because they didn’t love them; they talked about eating disorders and self-esteem issues. They cried and laughed and all these things. But they left the conference knowing that someone was fighting for them.”

http://www.helpstartshere.org/issues-and-answers/issues-answers-%E2%80%93-veterans-affairs-about-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd-and-brain-injury-in-iraq%E2%80%99s-war-veterans.html

Free Stay for the Military

Lest We Forget: PTSD Family and Military Support:

Remember, in combat we relied on each other for support and brotherhood to get us through and this is no different .

Going it alone and in silence is not the military way. No one should be left to go this alone and by coming together we ensure that our troops, veterans and military families get only the best care they deserve after they come home! It is possible to get through this, and with support and encouragement you can find the path to healing.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, is an anxiety disorder NOT a mental disorder or illness.  PTSD can develop within days, weeks, months or even years after single or multiple exposure(s) to a terrifying event(s) in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened as has been happening with many of our military troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be terrifying. They may disrupt your life and make it hard to continue with your daily activities. It may be hard just to get through the day.

Knowing that you are not alone in this is just one step in getting the help needed to help you cope. Join an online support group, look on our resources page for a community based group in your community, contact your local vet center, Facebook is also another great place to find others dealing with this issue like you! Remember, the war is not just over when we return, for many families the battle has only just begun.

Quantum Leap Farm:

Every horseman knows the relationship with a horse is special. But for those who are recovering from injury or who live with mental or physical disability, this relationship can open the door to an entirely new realm of possibility. Horse and human become partners in a therapeutic relationship which offers a multitude of opportunities that explore abilities rather than disabilities.  Participants learn to be at ease, rather than dis-eased.

Quantum Leap Farm, a 501-c-3 nonprofit organization founded in 2000, is nationally recognized equestrian program serving injured and disabled civilian adults and children, military service members and their families. We are able to provide these services only through the generous support of our local community and individuals like you.

Thank you for taking time to explore our website. We invite you to join our family of friends and supporters:  help us and our beautiful, gentle horses assist our clients on their journey to wellness. Read more about Quantum Leap Farm >>

“Do You Have PTSD from Childhood?”

“Panic.  Anxiety.  Fear. Nightmares.  Insomnia.  Fuzzy-brain feeling.  Indecision.  Confusion.  Out-of-body numbness.  Dissociation.  Reacting to present-day events from the past’s influence.  These are all familiar states of being and feeling to people who grew up in an environment influenced by alcoholism, workaholism, narcissism, depression, or otherwise dysfunctional parenting that involved neglect. If you know these feelings, does that mean you have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?”

“Quite possibly.”

“Marylene and I discussed how PTSD is diagnosed today, as well as historically, and how people with PTSD can get better with therapeutic treatment. (Yes, there’s hope!)”

“THE BASICS OF POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD)”

“While many of the questions I discussed with Marylene were focused on the fallout of being someone raised by dysfunctional parents, she also outlined the basics of PTSD in general—as well as a bit of high-level controversy among psychologists.  “There is some controversy,” she forewarned me, “about what kinds of experiences can precipitate the development of PTSD. At present, a person has to have had a certain type of event occur in order to qualify for a PTSD diagnosis,” she says. “And childhood adversities such as neglect or psychological abuse are not formally recognized as experiences that can cause PTSD. Still, we know that people who experience childhood adversity do get PTSD—so you can see that there’s something wrong with the existing definition of events that precipitate it.”  The good news (for us) is that the DSM that comes out in 2013 will reflect a new diagnostic approach to PTSD which may focus exclusively on the symptoms and abandon the requirement that a certain events (and not others) cause PTSD. (The DSM is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.)”

“Dissociation—feelings of unreality—is one of the hallmarks associated with Acute Stress Disorder (ASD),” Marylene says. “But this is somewhat controversial because that feeling isn’t currently connected to the PTSD diagnosis, although dissociation is widely recognized within the community as a symptom that occurs with PTSD.”

“ASD symptoms occur right after the event. While many people have ASD which resolves on its own within three months or so, it is a risk factor for developing PTSD.  It identifies people who are at risk for developing a chronic stress reaction. The timing is essential to the diagnosis,” Marylene explains. “When the acute stress symptoms last past three months following a traumatic event, it can become a conversation about a potential PTSD diagnosis.”  The symptoms of ASD are identical to those of PTSD, with the exception of the additional dissociation symptoms.”

2. From Pastor Dave writing at PTSD and Ministry in a post entitled “Piling On“:

“However, the official definition of PTSD from Princeton University and found on the sidebar of the blog reads, “PTSD is an anxiety disorder associated with serious traumatic events and characterized by such symptoms as survivor guilt, reliving the trauma in dreams, numbness and lack of involvement with reality, or recurrent thoughts and image”  These traumatic events can be one large event – or a series of smaller events that continue to pile on.”

“When we look at our case study, Hawkeye Pierce, we see that he is surrounded by trauma, he’s an Army Surgeon in a warzone, that’s to be expected.  There wasn’t one event that pushed him to Sidney though, it was the culmination of all of the wounded, all of the death, all of the destruction, all of the stress and anxiety that caused the spiritual and emotional implosion.”

“Most of us don’t live our lives in a war zone, but there are those who have been piled on throughout the years.  Abuse, abandonment, trauma, death, fear, feeling threatened.  When those events pile up over the years  one can begin to experience PTSD symptoms, guilt, numbness, nightmares, dreams.  While a psychological professional may not diagnose PTSD because of the lack of a specific traumatic event – the wounded soul is still wounded – and the wound looks similar.”

“When I look at my life, there is a specific event that led to me being diagnosed with PTSD.  I can name it, I can tell you about it, it’s an event on a calendar every year for me.  However, going through counseling (PROFESSIONAL HELP IS A MUST) I came to realize that there were many little wounds on my soul as well as the one large wound.”

“Would I have shut down from the little wounds?  We will never know, however as my life continued there would have been more little wounds, one after another until perhaps one day I would have found myself numb, withdrawing, having nightmares.  The wounded soul is the wounded soul, it’s the feeding ground of the dragon.  Whether that wound is a long jagged festering wound of TRAUMA, or death by a million paper cuts of traumas, the soul is wounded.”

3.  From Heal My PTSD, Michele Rosenthal writes about her PTSD recovery in “PTSD Recovery: The Reality of Change“:

“This week I’m doing something I never thought I would do: I’ve come back to New York City. We arrived on Saturday, but with last night’s news of the death of Osama Bin Laden, this trip has suddenly become even more meaningful than I expected. I was living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on 9/11. The memories of that day are, of course, still picture perfect in my mind.”

“For those of you who don’t know this part of my story, NYC is the place of my trauma. More than that, it’s the place in which my PTSD raged so out of control I scared myself. It’s also the place in which I bounced around the offices of medical and psychiatric professionals looking for help that never came. I left the city so that I could heal.”

“During my years of healing my family took frequent trips back to NYC. I could never go with them. The thought of getting on the plane was enough to trigger me with anxiety, stress and emotional meltdown. The idea of going back to a place that was so riddled with pain and sadness and the danger of my own insanity was too much for me to even consider it. Even immediately after my recovery I had a sort of superstitious feeling that NYC was cursed and I was better off staying out of it.”

“Now, however, I’m back. My whole family has come back to celebrate my brother’s big __th birthday. And here’s what’s fun about PTSD recovery: Now that it’s all over and solid and I’ve moved so far on with my life, I’m actually excited to romp in the city for a few days. Saturday night we went to a play on Broadway. Yesterday we went to the Yankee game. This afternoon we’re going to the Metropolitan Museum. And while, yes, the ghost of my other sad self is here, and while, yes, I feel sorry for and acknowledge her past pain, I’m loving being here as who I am today.”

“We can make progress out of that awful place where PTSD drags us. We can shift out of that terrible chaos and find a place of peace. If, according to Judith Herman, a ‘central task’ of recovery is establishing safety, this means not only in the therapeutic environment but also in the physical world. Sometimes, it means (as if did for me) making a drastic change by leaving the place of my trauma so that I could heal in a place that offered me a blank slate.”

“I’ve heard from other survivors who’ve relocated to heal. It can seem like a drastic move, but everyone I’ve heard from agrees: Sometimes letting go and starting over means letting go of everything, including your hometown. Later, when you’ve tamed the PTSD beast, you can choose to go back — and have a really good time doing it!”

“Today, I dedicate this post to all the survivors of 9/11 — those who gave their lives, those who tried to save them, and the families and friends left behind.”

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1.  “Catching Up and Cleaning Up” from Broken Brain–Brilliant Mind:

“And amazing, how much my life has changed, in the past three years or so. I’ve essentially gone from being locked away in a world of my own making and imagining, to being fully out in the outside world, participating with life on life’s terms… a whole lot more integrated into regular society, than I ever was before. Thinking back, I was seriously reality-impaired, and it showed. The 30+ years I spent inventing my own version of what life was all about — by never fully engaging with real-live people who could steer me right, and keeping my head buried in books that I was either reading or writing — did not help when it came to interacting with the outside world.”

“I would just say and do the most off-the-wall things… and never realize just how off base I was”.

“But what did I know? I was off in my own private Idaho, creating my own world and my own version of reality. Whenever I ventured out, I was met by people who would ridicule or dismiss me. What did I care about participating in their world? Indeed.”

“So, I built up this persona and this “reality” that was structured around and informed by my own partial imaginings of how life really was and how people really were. In some cases, I could be incredibly insightful, in others I could be so far off-base, people had no idea if I was in my right mind… An interesting mix, needless to say. And I filled my life — and my office — with all the stuff that reflected and supported that persona of mine.”

“Now I find myself at an interesting place, where the old stuff — while it served me at the time — is no longer entirely useful to me. In fact, in many ways, it just holds me back. But at the same time, there’s part of me that wants to hang onto it, like Linus’es security blanket from Charlie Brown. It’s like all the books and items around me from years gone by offer me a way to escape, a destination to run to, if things on the outside get to be too much. So, in that sense, I do want to hang onto the old things. Just in case.”

“This is all probably coming up, because I watched the move “Marwencol” the other night – the documentary about the guy who got beaten within an inch of his life, who went on to create his own little world — literally — out of 1/6 size action figures in a WWII setting. Nazis and spies and witches, oh my. I had intended to watch it, but I forgot to write it down, and I spaced on the time and date, so I only caught the last half of it.  But that last half was absolutely fascinating.”

“It was also a little sobering, because in a way, Mark’s story is similar to my own, though his experience was more abrupt and extreme. A band of hooligans beat him within an inch of his life, and after that, he had no memory of the attack, he had hand-eye coordination issues. To deal with it all, he turned to a world of his own that would give him safety and a way to play out his own experiences and pain, in the privacy of an environment that he could control, that he made happen.”

2. From Wounded Times: Editor and Publisher Chaplain Kathie: Chairelli Lauds Anti-Suicide PSAs:

“I tell the story often of a young Marine back from Iraq crying and apologizing for crying because he was a Marine and wasn’t supposed to cry. He did everything he needed to do no matter how much pain he was in. He didn’t allow himself to feel it until he was back home and no one else was in danger, except him. He wanted to live.”

“The other night I got a phone call from a National Guards Mom I hadn’t heard from in a couple of years. Her son had tired to commit suicide twice by the time she contacted me. She didn’t know what to do any more than she understood what was going on. He was totally lost. He carried the pain of something he had to do, started to think he was evil because all he focused on was what happened, forgetting what came before the end of this event. He needed to see himself through different eyes. Anyway, fast forward to two year later, he got married again, is back in treatment, went back to church and is healing. He’s closer to his Mom than ever before because she was willing to do whatever it took to help him. She wanted to understand and it saved his life.”

“We need to stop making excuses to not care, not want to know, because we lose 18 veterans a day to suicide and we’re still losing them to suicide while on active duty. We can’t save them all but they are worth fighting for and doing whatever we can to save them. After all, the fact they were willing to die for us shouldn’t mean we should let them.”

“You don’t have to know what it was like for them to be a soldier. You just need to understand what it is like for them to be human.”

3. From Marcella Zimmerman writing “Learning How to Understand Each Other” published in Family of a Vet:

“I noticed about a month after my husband returned home from Iraq, in February 2004,that something wasn’t right. He refused to go to sleep at night, and then would end up sleeping all of the following day. He was extremely aggressive and would go off on these rages that I had never seen before. One day he went on a rampage and pulled out the drawers to our dresser, smashing it and chipping the hard wood floors. At this point, I took our three year old son and had a friend pick us up.  I was shaking and crying pretty hard as I called his 1SGT to tell him that I thought my husband had a serious problem. His response to me and our situation was that he hadn’t noticed anything different about his behavior at the motor pool and that maybe I needed to back off.”

“When my husband didn’t come home early from work about three months later, I started to worry, though I was also getting use to him arriving later than usual. At first, I didn’t think to much on it when I heard his key turn in the door. Then when I saw his face and the look on it, I knew something wasn’t right. He told me that he had to go away from awhile to a locked down mental health facility in the next town. He was driving and had seen the post hospital blow up. He stopped the car in the middle of the road and started doing ID checks. An officer from another unit called the MP’s and from then on things just got worse. Trying to regulate the medication he was on was terrible. He’d sleep all the time and when he was awake, he was like a walking zombie. his temper only got worse and finally he was medically discharged from the military. Now, he is on 100% disability for PTSD and TBI. At one point he turned to substance abuse to self medicate. I developed secondary PTSD and would even have anxiety attacks. If there were too many people in line at the grocery store, I would leave my cart to the side and just go home. There were days I was too nervous to even leave my house. I began checking all the locks in the house several times throughout the night just to make sure my house was completely locked up. If I ran into someone I knew while out running errands, I would get nervous and make any excuse I could just to leave. If anything unexpected would happen, it would upset me. I developed insomnia, nightmares, and an ulcer.I filed for divorce on two separate occasions. We have been to hell and back and everything in between. So many hardships that I could probably write a novel.”

“Now he is active in ACVOW and volunteers at the local VA. He still has his nightmares and crowds will still make him nervous. He doesn’t like to talk about his experiences, so I have learned to stop asking. It took me six years to learn how to navigate through his troubles and through it all, we have become a much closer family. There isn’t too much that can shake us now days. It’s a process to go through and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But, he is active in pursuing all the outlets that help and he is taking classes to help counsel his peers with PTSD. It is our dream to one day open our own center for soldiers and their families suffering from PTSD. I have learned to be more understanding, but I have also learned not to allow the fact that he has PTSD take control of the way the family will be. In return, he has learned that while he does have PTSD, it is no excuse to fly off the handle and act any way he wants when he is mad. While we have come a long ways. we still have miles to go. I just wish there had been more support when all of this first started. At that point, I had no one and I was 22, without a clue on how to handle any of it.”

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Secondary PTSD is not a recognized mental or emotional illness but it is real to those who are living with a PTSD survivor.

1.  From Brannan Vines, founder of FamilyOfaVet– a great reference post entitled Secondary PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder):

“The signs, symptoms, and effects of Secondary PTSD are just as varied as the ones
exhibited by Veterans with “primary” PTSD.  It really is hard to explain, unless you’ve lived
it.  However, I’m going to try!”

“Basically, when you’re living with a veteran who has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, you
become his (or her) caretaker.  You slip into a role, without even noticing it, that has you
constantly watching for people or circumstances that might “set him off.”  You’re trying to
make sure everything stays in line – that nothing aggravates or upsets your vet – that
everything is “perfect.”  Despite your best efforts, you’re still getting screamed at and
berated by the person you’re trying to help on a much too frequent basis. “

“Your vet is not emotionally “there” for you.  When you’re upset or happy, angry or sad, you
have to deal with your emotions on your own.  You begin to feel ignored and unloved and
start “protecting” yourself by treating others – especially your vet – the same way.”

“You’re also probably handling all household chores, childcare, financial management, etc.
You get no help (or very little) from your spouse.  You’re the cook, chauffeur, secretary,
accountant, yard guy, child care provider, laundry service, etc., etc., etc.  Everything in
your family feels like it’s up to you.  It is a 24×7 job at which you constantly fail.  It’s not
humanly possible to do everything – or to prevent PTSD from creeping in.”

“This cycle takes its toll on many spouses.  You lose yourself.  It’s impossible to tiptoe
around your vet, day in and day out, while taking care of all of life’s other duties (duties
normally shared between two people), without feeling the strain.   And that strain soon
transforms into… ta da… Secondary PTSD.”

“Secondary PTSD may make you feel overly angry, depressed, exhausted (but, alas,
unable to sleep), overwhelmed, and just plain unhappy with the world around  you.  I can
honestly say there have been times when I found the idea of folding a load of laundry
absolutely impossible.  I felt like I could not do anything right.  I cried a lot and was really,
REALLY pissed at the world.”

2. From Living with PTSD and TBI: “Secondary PTSD and Me“:

“When you are seeking information regarding PTSD you usually come across the term of “Secondary Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome” or “Compassion Fatigue”. I have read on Family of a Vet, (a site in which I haunt quite frequently) about this subject and the author/owner of the site has a special way of describing things on an every day person’s level. Another words, it’s simple, to the point, and in no way must you have a Harvard degree or be a psychologist to understand any of it. If you are a caregiver or spouse for your veteran with combat PTSD, definitely check out her site along with her description of Secondary Post Traumatic Syndrome. Now I didn’t go out to seek out my mental problems nor did I think in anyway I am going nuts…but I admit that I have had some problems here as of late.”

“My last doctor visit my blood pressure was really high…enough to be put on medicine for it. Tension/migraine headaches can sometimes be debilitating to the point where now I have a special med that is a kick ass Tylenol mixed with Zanax for nerves. Let’s add in the anxiety pill that I take as needed, and the medication for depression which is really for my Rheumatoid Arthritis (I promise I am not 80!) and helps combat the battle of the blues in the process. So the two or three bottles of meds have now increased to 11 and I was forced to get a pink old lady pill box daily reminder for myself all before my 35th birthday which is quickly approaching! It’s quite depressing really because I still feel young, still feel somewhat sane, and embarrassed I should have to admit to anyone I am taking so many pills. My doctor made a comment that I could be suffering from Secondary PTSD so I have been looking at it a little closer now that she has brought it up.”

3.  From Beth Ellen McKinney writing in counseling. Suite101.com: “Secondary Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder“:

Secondary PTSD Risk Factors in the U.S. Military

“Respected researchers such as Figley, Pearlman and Saakvitne have been documenting cases of secondary PTSD in psychotherapists since 1995. Figley, who refers to the condition as “compassion fatigue” notes that empathy is an important part of a therapist’s role, but acknowledges that it can have a cost. Pearlman and Saakvitne, who describe this condition as “vicarious trauma” state that sometimes “the therapist’s inner experience is negatively transformed through empathic engagement with clients’ trauma.” The result may be Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder (STSD).”

“However, anyone who gives care to a traumatized person is susceptible to STSD, including children and spouses of active duty military personnel. It seems to be more likely to occur among people who have experienced prior traumatic events themselves. People who have other types of mental illness may also be at risk. However, social isolation or a lack of inner resources, such as a strong spirituality, can cause anyone involved in the care of a traumatized person to be debilitated by STSD.”

Symptoms of Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder

“People with STSD may experience the same symptoms as the traumatized person. These symptoms include depression with suicidal thoughts and feelings, as well as feelings of loneliness and betrayal. This condition may also lead to substance abuse. Many people with STSD will have difficulty carrying out regular tasks at work and home. In some cases, their ability to cope will be severely impaired.”

“Family members of traumatized persons will often develop hyper-vigilance. Since they are impacted by the traumatized person’s emotional crises, they become sensitive to small mood changes or other risks to stability. Eventually they may find it difficult to relax and feel as if they are “walking on eggshells.” This may also make sleep difficult.”

“If the stress continues over a long period of time, mental health professionals, caregivers or family members may eventually develop negative feelings toward the traumatized person. They may become unwilling to provide care. They may even become verbally or physically abusive toward the traumatized person. Therefore, it is important to treat STSD as soon as possible.”

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Today I am writing a short post about the wonderful people I read who are interested in PTSD and/or who are recovering from PTSD, addiction, child abuse, sexual abuse, ACOA, and/or codependency.

1.  Susan Kingsley-Smith at A Journey….An amazing journey of hope, healing and self-discovery!

“The purpose of this blog then is to share the journey – the steps, the process, the path I have taken to identify a starting point of where I was in my journey, where I wanted to be, and the information, actions, insight and understanding that have moved me from dependance on external sources (other people places and things) for my solutions to that internal insight and awareness that offers those wonderful, life-changing “aha!” moments that are the beginning of lasting change.”

“Much of what I write here is part of the process that I have experienced as I walk this path.”

2.  Michelle Rosenthal at Heal My PTSD: Conquer the Past. Create the Future.

“In 1981 life really shocked me: I was 13 years old when I found myself struggling to survive Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, a freak allergy to a medication that turned me into a full-body burn patient almost overnight. None of my doctors had ever seen a case. By the time I was released from the hospital 3 weeks later I was a very different girl. The kid I had been was gone. The girl in her place was a complete stranger”

“It didn’t take long for insomnia, intrusive thoughts, nightmares and flashbacks to set in. I didn’t tell anyone. I was determined to go back to who I’d been before my illness, so I avoided all mention of my trauma, pretended the past was behind me and ran as fast as I could into the future.”

“Within 5 years I was a complete and total insomniac, anorexic, melt down mess. Over the years everyone thought I was a difficult teenager, and then a temperamental artist, and then just a really moody woman. The therapists my parents forced me to see didn’t recognize my classic symptoms of PTSD.”

“By my mid-twenties the stress of constant hypervigilance and hyperarousal, the lack of sleep, the unrelenting on-the-go lifestyle I lived so that I did not have to be alone with my thoughts began to entirely undermine my health. By the end of my twenties I was very ill: my hair was falling out, my liver, stomach and small intestines were in various stages of dysfunction. I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease, and possible liver cancer (both of which turned out to be false, psychosomatic symptoms). By my mid-thirties I had developed advanced osteoporosis because, unable to get the nutrition it needed, by body pirated the minerals in my bones.”

“Still, none of the specialists or psychologists we consulted and with whom I worked recognized my symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress. In desperation I began to do my own research. It was my proactive, self-empowered search for information and help that led to my PTSD diagnosis. Finally, after 24 years of living without understanding what was wrong with me, I had a name for my insanity.”

“Receiving my diagnosis was only the beginning of my healing journey. Literally, the journey took me from New York City to Palm Beach, Florida. In the end, it required 10 modalities and quite a few practitioners to get me to where I am today: 100% PTSD-free.”

Michelle’s website has a weekly series about other PTSD survivors.

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1.  From MC Kelly: “Trauma & Post-Traumatic Growth”:

“In the face of high doses of trauma, and especially if there are signs of post-traumatic stress, early treatment is essential, states Joseph C. Napoli, M.D., a psychiatrist in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and co-director of Resiliency, a crisis-response consulting firm.”

“Psychologists say taking action and finding positive passions can spur post-traumatic growth. Some survivors turn to religion, volunteering, athletics or another outlet. Others show growth by transforming their trauma into service, speaking in the community, serving as a witness in court or lobbying for laws that would prevent similar accidents.”

“Coming to terms with the loss of control is also key to creating a more fulfilling life after trauma, says Ken Reinhard, Ph.D., director of the Anxiety Disorders Clinic for the Veteran’s Administration Hudson Valley Health Care System in Montrose, New York.”

“If you’re struggling after a trauma, visit the American Psychological Association at APA.org.”

2. From Chris Hudon: “Operation Warrior teaches meditation to vets with post traumatic stress disorder”:

“After the horrors of World War II, everyday life seemed impossible for one Vero Beach man.”

“But 30 years later, he said, something pulled him through. And Jerry Yellin, now 86, has started an organization that helps soldiers with post-traumatic stress, or PTSD, in an unusual way and he wants to share that secret with today’s combat veterans.”

“His new organization, Operation Warrior Wellness, is a division of the David Lynch Foundation, which is a national nonprofit started in 2005 that pays for the teaching of meditation to at-risk populations.”

“The kind of meditation used is called transcendental meditation, a form practiced in India for thousands of years that requires only 20 minutes twice per day.”

“Yellin was a P-51 pilot in World War II who flew 19 missions over Japan. His experiences left him alone and unable to talk to anyone following the war.”

“The sights and the sounds and the smell and the body parts are a permanent part of my memory,” said Yellin. “To have an incredibly clear purpose of what to do everyday and then one day the war is over and everything you’ve been doing falls away, life really has no meaning.”

3.  From Dr. John Zemler: “A Laundry List of PTSD Healing Techniques”:

“Start Writing:  You don’t have to share it with anyone.  But it will help.”

“Start Talking: Find someone you can trust and talk about it.  They have to be able to hear the same story over and over and be able to listen and not judge or interrupt.  Sometimes only a good therapist can do that.   Anyone can interrupt me (they often do!), it is a gift to be able to listen attentively.”

“Seek God: If you have a faith community, start attending.  You can write and talk to God.  This can be done formally (church service) or informally by taking a walk and telling God what is on your mind, or writing about an important issue in your journal.”

“Get Creative: Find, or start fresh, some creative outlet.  Creation is life and it helps heal PTSD.  Drawing, singing, painting, writing, etc.  Some folks say they don’t know how so they never start to be creative.  Then it is a great opportunity to discover where talents lie that are now very rough but that can be nurtured.  Art is life.”

“Compassion: While this is a hard one it is necessary: Try to understand people the way you would like to be understood.  Tolerate as you would like to be tolerated.   This often takes a lifetime, but we can choose to become more compassionate.”

“Forgiveness:  If you cannot forgive, ask God that you will one day have the grace to forgive.  PTSD thrives on hate and will try to keep us from forgiveness.  Forgiveness does not mean we suddenly trust someone, it means we will no longer be controlled by hatred.  Forgiveness does not means we say it is okay that these bad things have occurred.  It means we want to heal from their effects.”

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