PTSD

ABOUT A YEAR AGO, I woke up in the floor of my bedroom. I was on my hands and knees, panting like I’d run a marathon, my body drenched in an icy sweat, with no recollection of having gotten out of bed. I’d been having a nightmare, reliving a rape in excruciating detail. 

Earlier this summer, I took care of an elderly man with heat exhaustion. (I’m in healthcare.) I got him settled on the stretcher, took his vital signs, started an IV and drew labs, and hung IV fluids, all while fighting to breathe and maintain my composure. I had to leave his room to put his information in the computer, because I was seeing black spots and my forearms were tingling from hyperventilating. (FYI: It’s never a good sign when your patient asks if you’re okay.) 

Why did a sweet elderly man reduce me to the verge of a panic attack? 

Because he reeked of BO. (Not his fault – he’d been cutting his grass in sweltering heat.)

And years ago, I was raped by two men who reeked of BO, cigarettes, and beer. 

PTSD is a bitch. 

We often see it referred to in regard to soldiers, but it’s not limited to men and women in combat. Any traumatic event can lead to PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. 

PTSD symptoms are often grouped into 4 categories:

INTRUSIVE MEMORIES

• Recurring, unwanted memories
• Flashbacks (unintentionally reliving the experience)
• Nightmares/ night terrors
• A physical or emotional reaction to a trigger

AVOIDANCE

• Avoiding places, people, or activities that remind you of the trauma
• Refusing to allow yourself to think about or talk about what happened

NEGATIVE CHANGES IN THOUGHT OR MOOD

• Lack of pleasure in things you once enjoyed
• Hopelessness
• Feeling emotionally numb
• Withdrawing from relationships
• Difficulty experiencing positive emotions
• Pervasive negative thoughts 
• Difficulty recalling details of the event

CHANGES IN PHYSICAL OR EMOTIONAL REACTIONS

• Hypervigilance regarding safety
• Self-destructive behaviors, such as drinking too much
• Startling easily
• Insomnia
• Difficulty concentrating
• Irritability or anger
• Aggression
• Overwhelming guilt or shame

The unimaginable stress following a natural disaster – a hurricane that destroyed our region –  drove me to seek help. At the time, I was having a majority of the symptoms listed above. I’d repressed everything for years, stuffing all sorts of horrible events into mental boxes that I refused to open. As my therapist put it, the hurricane and its associated recovery ripped all those boxes open and left me reeling, unable to deal with the painful memories exploding into my mind. An abusive parent who pointed a gun at my head while keeping up the facade of perfect parent to outsiders. An absent parent who knew what was happening and didn’t step in. A trusted-adult-turned-molester. Multiple rapists during my teen years. 

It didn’t matter that the events were decades-old. For me, it was as fresh as if it had just happened. 

As a wife – and even more, as a mom – I was compelled to seek help, more for my family than for myself, at least at the beginning. If I’m being completely honest, I might not have sought help if it were just me. I didn’t think I was worth it. I was so despondent that I didn’t see a way out of my overwhelming pain. Every single minute was a struggle to keep going, and I was quickly losing steam. 

But I have kids, and they needed me, and so did my husband. 

I chose to get help, and I’m glad I did. 

The good news is that PTSD is absolutely treatable. There are differing levels of traumas and more than one type of PTSD, so there are multiple treatment options that can either stand alone  or be combined and/ or be used in conjunction with medication.

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, helps you identify unhelpful thought patterns and replace them with new thoughts. It focuses on how our thoughts impact our emotions and behaviors.

• Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, or DBT, is another form of therapy that’s adapted for people who are experiencing very intense emotions, which are often seen in PTSD. It focuses on helping people accept the reality of their lives and behaviors, and then change any unhelpful behaviors and thus, their lives, in a positive way. 

• EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, allows a person to process blocked traumatic memories by simulating the eye movement of REM sleep. REM sleep is the stage of rest pivotal to emotional processing. Professionals trained in this technique gradually help a person deal with traumatic memories in more detached manner.

• Group therapy is another option for treatment. Sometimes there’s no substitute for talking to someone who’s been through a similar experience.

If you have an accompanying mental illness, such as anxiety, depression, or suicidal ideations, medications can be combined with therapy to have you feeling better as quickly as possible. 

I went through a combination of CBT, DBT, and medications. I still take medication, though it’s been adjusted as needed, and I’m now in a much better place. 

Do I still get triggered? I’m not gonna lie – summer brings a lot of sweaty bodies into close proximity, and sometimes I have to actively work to calm myself, but I can do it. 

I don’t like using the word “cured” when it comes to mental illness, because so often, life unfolds as a series of stressful events. All we can do is cope with one situation at a time and pray thirteen new problems don’t simultaneously crop up. 

Stressors can and will occur in life, though. That’s a guarantee. I now envision them as huge waves, pushing me back toward the shoreline. 

I have 2 options, and so do you:

1. Struggle against the waves, expending all your energy to still lose ground in the long run,  OR
2. Learn to ride the waves. 

I choose daily to ride those waves.

And it IS a daily choice, for each of us.

Much of the information here comes from the Mayo Clinic’s information on symptoms and treatment of PTSD. Additional information can be found here: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20355967 .