P.T.S.D.
- Intrusion: Unwanted memories, vivid flashbacks, or bad dreams that make you feel like the event is happening again.
- Avoidance: Staying away from places, people, objects, or thoughts that bring back memories of the trauma.
- Negative changes in mood or thinking: Feeling numb, hopeless, or having ongoing fear, anger, and guilt.
- Direct trauma: Experiencing physical or sexual assault, severe accidents, or combat.
- Witnessing trauma: Seeing a violent event happen to someone else or living through a natural disaster.
- Indirect exposure: Hearing about the violent or accidental death of a family member or close friend.
- Therapy: Talk therapy, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), helps process the trauma.
- Medication: Doctors may use certain medicines to help manage feelings of depression or high anxiety.
- Support: Connecting with support groups or healthcare providers offers a safe space to heal.
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Many moons ago, when we were all a lot younger, and I was still using many different substances to alter my mood and mind, I used to sometimes get stoned with this person. This person had spent time in a combat theatre and, as were everyone who has experienced that, was changed by it.
There were time when we would be using and talking about nothing and I would see this thing happen. It was like they went about a million miles away inside their head and I could just about see the film rolling behind their eyes. And I would just sit there and let them go thru it and when over we would continue on like we had been.
I knew that what I was seeing was connected to the trauma of having been to war. I do not know how I knew this. I did not yet have a name for it. And I recognized it. Several years later I heard the term PTSD for the first time and knew that this is what I had seen.
Along the way I remember a time when I was 18 or 19 years old, I think I was about to go into the U.S. Army, I was talking with all of these much older gents, all probably about the age that I am now, and was talking about some of my life.
And, for one of the few times in my life, I was telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And after I was done these people accused me of making it all up. Of lying. I was so offended. And when I asked them why they thought that I was being untruthful they said two things, 1) I was way too young to have had that much experience crammed into my life and 2) I was way too calm talking about some rather horrible experiences.
A quick aside: there is no one so offended as a habitual liar, which I was at that time, telling the truth and being accused of lying :-)
The way too young comment I understand today. If I had not experienced a very full life at a young age then I would never have believed me back then either. I was young and I had experienced a lot of things. A lot of things that people that young should not have experienced.
Way too calm confused me. None of the events that I talked about seemed out of the ordinary to me. While they were horrible when looking at them from the outside, I get that, to me they were just another day. Things like this were so ordinary they did not seem like a big deal to me.
Over the years that followed I would tell others about my life, not very often and not very many for sure, and could never understand why people would look at me like they did. Usually with a lot of pity and a total lack of understanding at my calm.
Years later, after going into the rooms of recovery, I began to hear people talking about PTSD. And when they were describing it I began to nod my head. I was able to identify with the things that they were describing. And I still did not get it.
One day I was telling the story I told at the beginning about the person with whom I used to see the films rolling behind their eyes. And I was identifying their PTSD. And wondering how I was able to do that. And the person that I was talking to asked me how I did not understand my ability to see it. And I just looked blank I think. And then they said the thing that clicked, "If you spot it then you got it".
The light bulb moment.
And all of a sudden it really was like the light bulb went off.
I saw that when someone was talking about the reliving of events in real time I could identify because I often re-experienced past events like they were happening right now along with all of the emotions associated with that event happening Right Now!!!
And when someone was talking about Avoidance Therapy it was because I also avoided a lot of things, especially emotional things, that would bring up these same feelings and sometimes trigger the memory flash again.
When someone else shared about feeling numb all the time, which can also be confused with being calm, and having feelings of hopelessness along with living in fear, anger, and guilt, that that was also my experience.
When I heard people talking about being easily startled, of being angry all the time, having angry outbursts that have no correlation to the actual thing going on, or having a lot of trouble sleeping, that this was also my experience.
That I could see the films behind that persons eyes because I had my own films that were not films. They were the Reliving of Past Events in the Present Moment as if they were going on Right Now and with every single Emotion that I had experienced then along with Shame and Guilt happening now.
So of course I could identify with what people were sharing.
Over the years since, and there have been very many, I have worked and learned how to live the 12 Steps of Recovery as outlined in Narcotics Anonymous as best I can. And that has helped a lot with my various mental health conditions. (PTSD and Depression)
I have also sought outside help. Probably not enough considering everything.
There are solutions to these things. They are not easy nor are they quick. These solutions take time and effort and looking within to all those scary places that are uncomfortable and that most people avoid. I know that I would if I thought that I could get away with it.
The rewards for doing the work are vast and varied. For me the biggest reward is that, while none of these things ever go away, and they do not, for me anyway, I get better at navigating them when they show.
I do not do the navigation perfectly. Some times I do a better job of it than others. For despite all of my best efforts I am still human and therefore fallible. And I have the tools and the skills to do so. Something that I did not have before.
So my friends, if you are dealing with this, or any other of a myriad of mental health issues, just know that there are solutions. Solutions that YOU can use.
After all, if I can do this then so can you.
This I promise.
Namaste 🙏
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