January 20, 2007

The PTSD Blog

Welcome to The PTSD Blog, a community blog open to which anyone with an interest in post traumatic stress disorder can contribute. Post personal stories, links to related websites and blogs, news stories, commentary, or just your thoughts for the day. Post as often as you like. No registration required! Visit the submit page to submit content.

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PTSD...after many years of quietly existing in the background...WHAMO... it had hit and has left me dazed.
Nobody knows what to say, what to do... take these pills...now let's forget about it, they say.

Huh?

I am lost...dazed...here somewhere, begging for help. Yet, why ask for help if there is noe available right now? It's like asking for something one will never, ever be able to have. Fruitless.

What will become of the many souls we have coming home from "assignments" in areas of "conflict?" How will we help them if we do not get better at this???

I am one...or few. They are very,very many...who is going to help the wailing souls?

Oh, yes... the pharmaceutical companies will befriend them, for a price.

Where's the human hand in this, the one that can soothe if only it knew how? Why are so many just "ducking out" of their "calling" to help?

I have been screaming for help. I am told to take a pill...or two..maybe even three, if needed.

Can't you see the neglect? The failure to respond to other human beings? Where are you?

PTSD...and I struggle one with another, to see who will win. I cry, I pray, I hope, I wait...I crouch, I hide, I'm numb, I die...inside. I am an empty shell... now.

~ ~ You could have helped ~ ~

1. Posted by Beside myself on March 3, 2007

im a senoir and i am doing a project on PTSD. i dont know too much about it except i know my mom had it from the air force. she has her own buissness that can be used to help people with PTSD. if you want to "Beside myself" look up the company. its called BioFeedback. it teaches you how to manage stress and may be able to help you.

2. Posted by Josh H on April 23, 2008

I had seizures for 40 of 44 years and in 1999 had surgery to remove my left amygdala and part of the hippocampus and scar tissue on the left temporal lobe of the brain and I became seizure free for 1 1/2 years. Never healthier and then on April 24, 2001, was standing at a pedestrian crosswalk waiting for the light to change, heard a LOUD crash, looked down and a red van was coming at me. All I remember, is Oh my God! Left or right. I was hit and all I remember is red at the end of my nose. My head went through the windshield and broke my left side up and pulverized my left knee. I found out I had what the Viet-Nam Vets I volunteered with in the 80's in Tampa had. PTSD. Mine is Complex PTSD and mild TBI-Traumatic Brain injury. They say my case is UNIQUE because I am the only one on the planet who had the left amygdala removed and then hit and have Complex PTSD! They took my case to Hawaii and hundreds of researchers from all around met and they are now moving their research to the right side of the brain. I hope with all the testing, it will help people and the soldiers. I have flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks, sudden loud noises and I see the RED coming at me!! I stay inside mostly. What caused me to be hit...an illegal 20 year old MEXICAN with no drivers license, No social security, No insurance and it was a hit & run and they found him two months later and put it through a speedy trial and released him!!!! While I was having a second surgery on my knee. I hear sirens all day and night and it ALL comes back. Have to keep music on. I just hope that the testing and research I have let the researchers do will help. They have tried everything with me, EMDR, tapping, etc., nothing works.Drivers are more dangerous everyday. They are care-LESS drivers. I was just out with a friend and we were rear ended and it all came back. Was screaming. People are always in a hurry and cell phones and looking everywhere but the road.

3. Posted by escape artist on June 15, 2008

I am a Army veteran of the Gulf War, I was a driver of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. My unit fought the Iraqi Republican Guard in three campaigns and my vehicle was point for the brigade. I drove for 172 hours straight, engaged in 100 hours of sustained combat and witnessed literally thousands of enemy combatants die in that short span of time.

Since being honorably discharged from the service of my country I have struggled with PTSD, depression, substance use disorder, homelessness, social and health issues. It took me 7 tries and 15 years to go through the VA bureaucracy to get the help that I needed. Nothing has been given to me that I have not fought for with my life, either in the Gulf War or with the VA. I gave freely of my time and service, the same was not done for me.

I have begun a blog to tell my experience with PTSD:

http://ptsdasoldiersperspective.blogspot.com/

We tell a soldier or veteran of war "welcome home" because the battle never leaves us, as we return from conflict everyday of our lives. This is my story and struggle with PTSD, it affects every aspect of my life. I want people to know what a combat veteran goes through after the media and people forget.

4. Posted by Scott Lee on July 3, 2008

DON'T GIVE UP !!!!!
I am still FIGHTING for the soldiers of previous wars and now! I am the one who has the UNIQUE case due to my left amygdala being removed and they are now focusing on the right and doing research. Each day is a new day. I have really bad days but keep fighting my own battles and I have never been in the war but have the exact same symptoms!!! I volunteered with the Viet Nam Vets in Tampa Bay in the 80's and now I KNOW what they were and still are going through.

5. Posted by escape artist on August 17, 2008

Hi there -

After over 25 years of suffering from an extreme case of PTSD, I have finally kicked the habit. I see PTSD as a sort of unwanted addiction to trauma, one that can, like any addiction, be overcome so that we no longer suffer and are free to live a full, trauma-free life.

In this blog (http://parasitesofthemind.blogspot.com) I explore the interrelated issues of how trauma affects identity, the difficulty of surviving survival, the agonies of PTSD, and the role of joy in leading us out of PTSD hell and into a fun, fulfilling life.

Please feel free to email me (parasitesof.themind@yahoo.com) with ideas, suggestions and comments. As survivors, we don't have to be isolated in our tragedies, nor do we have to be alone in our healing.

Over the past year I have completely overcome all of my physical and psychological PTSD symptoms. It can be done. Come heal with me!

Best on your road to recovery,
Michele

6. Posted by Michele Rosenthal on October 21, 2008

Glad you people got over the PTSD. I CANNOT. EVERY Dr. has told me so due to my UNIQUES case. I just am ready to die. I can't go anywhere, do anything, I freak out at loud sudden noises,and flashbacks and nightmares will NOT GO AWAY! Because of my UNIQUE case, I have NO help.

7. Posted by escape artist on December 18, 2008

For the past 5 years my teenage daughter has done drugs, ran away, stolen, beat my husband and I up, etc... Now I have "flashbacks." I see her overdosed. I go into her room and see her smoking marijuana, etc... I don't know if this PTSD. I don't feel I have a bad case, but it affects quality of life.

8. Posted by AC on December 22, 2008

Does PTSD ruin a soldier's career?

9. Posted by MOUSERNEEDSHELP on December 28, 2008

I suffered from PTSD for over 25 years, not from war but from growing up in the abusive home of an alcoholic father and narcissistic mother. My brother, 10 years my senior molested and raped me repeatedly from the time I was five years old until I was fourteen. Then wonder of wonders, I ended up in an abusive marriage.

I had been in therapy for over 10 years which had helped considerably. However, after trying every kind of treatment imaginable, I was stuck and could not move forward in my healing progress. Upon the urging of my therapist I put myself into inpatient care under Dr. William B. Tollefson. His revolutionary technique, Rapid Reduction Technique, (RRT) has been my salvation. I have been emotional well, stable and highly functioning for nearly four years now. In fact each year I am stronger and healthier than the last.

If you are stuck in your healing process, I highly recommend you look into the Rapid Reduction Technique. http://williamtollefsonvalues.blogspot.com/

10. Posted by T.Hope on August 4, 2009

If you are stuck in your healing process, I highly recommend you look into the Rapid Reduction Technique. http://williamtollefsonvalues.blogspot.com/

11. Posted by T.Hope on August 4, 2009

If you are stuck in your healing process, I highly recommend you look into the Rapid Reduction Technique.

12. Posted by T.Hope on August 4, 2009

If you are stuck in your healing process, I highly recommend you look into the Rapid Reduction Technique.

13. Posted by Anonymous on August 4, 2009

i suffer from ptsd and have for many years. I thought I was doing well but one day it fell on my lap and I was once again in a downward spiral. I am in my early 30's with two children and am single. I try to not hide or cry or scream but it is overwhelming. I am afraid to leave my home alone or do my own laundry, get the mail and trying to write bills forget about it. Every little noise that is unexpected causes shear panic. Flashbacks and nightmares and being unable to stop my brain from thinking about the past is killing me. I feel horrible knowing my kids see this and have to go through it as well. I truly think we will be better people who understand hard times. We won't take each day for granted because we know how hard each day can be. I am going to be starting EMDR treatment and am currently in IMR, councling and home help therapy. It is almost a relife to know other people know how I feel and not just out of text book or words that are said. The true feeling and I wish everyone the best at your own recovery. Remember that there are others who are going through this with you and we are not alone in the world.

14. Posted by Caryn on October 20, 2009

I ama 39 year old woman. After a traumatic event I was diagnosed with PTSD. Alsmot eight years later someone broke into my home and I suffered a psychotic break because of it and ended up homeless and finally in the hospital. I am now back to work and in grad school with the help of medication. Finding the right medication required that I cry and beg my doctor for relief from the worse of the symptoms. It was worth it.

15. Posted by Molly on October 21, 2009

For years I tried to untangle the awful events of my childhood- being separated forever from my mother in a police station when I was five, never being told what happened to her, receiving a telephone call from her ten years later- as if the dead can make telephone calls. When I finally found the courage to break the silence my father erected around her memory, the denial he used to fence in my grief, he promised that some day he would tell me what had happened.

But that some day never arrived.

AFter his death my rage at him erupted, the conflict between my anger and grief splitting my soul in two.

Only when I found the photographs in his WWII Army trunk- photos of mountains of emaciated corpses taken at a Nazi death camp- did I begin to sense the origins of my own traumas.

After finding and speaking with many other WII vets who had also helped to liberate concentration camps, I learned how traumatic that experience had been and how locked away all these liberators had kept their memories.

My father's melancholy, silence, moodiness, irrational anger, his inability to help my mother and then to talk about her fate had all been manifestations of his PTSD. And because he never found healing, he transmitted his trauma to me.

The website, Veterans' Children (www.veteranschildren.com) seeks to bring attention to the long term consequences of a veteran suffering from PTSD not receiving support and help. Trauma begets trauma. It is time to break the cycle.

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