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Category: Life in the USAF

PTSD – Having a Happier Holiday

PTSD – Having a Happier Holiday

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Good morning and Merry Christmas!! It occurred to me this morning that sharing a bit of how the trauma brain works might be helpful, especially for families gathering together during the Christmas holiday.
So here goes .. As a trauma survivor I remember every traumatic event in my life with equal clarity (and even more so) than most any positive event. For instance, I remember the acute feelings of abandonment when my mother left me and her car at a sitter’s when I was four with more clarity than the movie Les and I watched last night.
No reason to feel sad for me, it’s just the way the trauma brain works. And, it’s not just traumatic events. It’s like every major event in my life has been recorded as an easily retrieved 8 mm video. So, if your Great Aunt Cecilia seems preoccupied with something awful that happened to her when she was six, remember, to her that event is as clear and detailed as if it happened yesterday.
I hope that helps you and yours make the most of your time together. Cheers to making new and happier memories! …oh, and we watched three movies last night – the Christmas Rom about the German Shepherd was the best 😃
What is PTSD?

What is PTSD?

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PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

From MayoClinic.Org:

Overview

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that’s triggered by a terrifying event — either experiencing it or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event.

Most people who go through traumatic events may have temporary difficulty adjusting and coping, but with time and good self-care, they usually get better. If the symptoms get worse, last for months or even years, and interfere with your day-to-day functioning, you may have PTSD.

From my perspective:

The worst part of experiencing an event so traumatic is that it literally impacts and changes your entire life from the moment of that event. Everything after that is determined by how much that trauma has changed you. For a child still in development, trauma changes everything, how you grow emotionally, mentally, and sometimes physically, and even how you relate to everyone in your life and everyone thereafter and the worst part, you have no idea how someone without trauma is supposed to act, think, or be.

One of the first things I said to my therapist was that having been a toddler, I know have no idea who I was before or who I was going to be, before. And if your life is faced with more than one trauma, every traumatic event changes you even more. My first trauma – toddler, my second trauma -3, my third trauma – 5, and so on until I was well into adulthood.

How common is PTSD?

Well, how common is abuse? How common is child abandonment? How common is rape? If you think about, everyone who has gone through these personal traumas not to mention war and murder, all of these are capable of causing trauma to the psyche of the victim.

What are the symptoms or signs of PTSD?

From MayoClinic.Org:

Symptoms

Post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms may start within one month of a traumatic event, but sometimes symptoms may not appear until years after the event. These symptoms cause significant problems in social or work situations and in relationships. They can also interfere with your ability to go about your normal daily tasks.

PTSD symptoms are generally grouped into four types: intrusive memories, avoidance, negative changes in thinking and mood, and changes in physical and emotional reactions. Symptoms can vary over time or vary from person to person.

Intrusive memories

Symptoms of intrusive memories may include:

  • Recurrent, unwanted distressing memories of the traumatic event
  • Reliving the traumatic event as if it were happening again (flashbacks)
  • Upsetting dreams or nightmares about the traumatic event
  • Severe emotional distress or physical reactions to something that reminds you of the traumatic event

Avoidance

Symptoms of avoidance may include:

  • Trying to avoid thinking or talking about the traumatic event
  • Avoiding places, activities or people that remind you of the traumatic event

Negative changes in thinking and mood

Symptoms of negative changes in thinking and mood may include:

  • Negative thoughts about yourself, other people or the world
  • Hopelessness about the future
  • Memory problems, including not remembering important aspects of the traumatic event
  • Difficulty maintaining close relationships
  • Feeling detached from family and friends
  • Lack of interest in activities you once enjoyed
  • Difficulty experiencing positive emotions
  • Feeling emotionally numb

Changes in physical and emotional reactions

Symptoms of changes in physical and emotional reactions (also called arousal symptoms) may include:

  • Being easily startled or frightened
  • Always being on guard for danger
  • Self-destructive behavior, such as drinking too much or driving too fast
  • Trouble sleeping
  • Trouble concentrating
  • Irritability, angry outbursts or aggressive behavior
  • Overwhelming guilt or shame

For children 6 years old and younger, signs and symptoms may also include:

  • Re-enacting the traumatic event or aspects of the traumatic event through play
  • Frightening dreams that may or may not include aspects of the traumatic event

Intensity of symptoms

PTSD symptoms can vary in intensity over time. You may have more PTSD symptoms when you’re stressed in general, or when you come across reminders of what you went through. For example, you may hear a car backfire and relive combat experiences. Or you may see a report on the news about a sexual assault and feel overcome by memories of your own assault.

Coping with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Coping with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

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Three years –

It was was three years ago that I realized I had PTSD and that it occurred my first night of my first duty assignment while in the Air Force. Later, I would realized that that was the beginning of my adult PTSD but that I’d been living with my childhood PTSD for far longer. My first traumatic childhood event – when I was toddler.

I’m 60 years old and I realized I had PTSD three years ago, why am I posting this now?

Because this past year has been a time of significant change and healing for me and I want to share all of this with the hope that it will help someone else. I don’t want anyone to go through what I’ve been through and this is the most pragmatic way I can think of to help.

A New Adult Novel?? – My Life

A New Adult Novel?? – My Life

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Life in the Air Force

New Adult VS Young Adult, Yep, That’s My Life –

This morning while dressing, it occurred to me that since young adult novels seem to be “it” right now in regards to book sales, maybe I should be working on that “great” young adult novel I still have inside my head. But, of course, being ADHD, my brain went in a multitude of directions from there. When I finally sat down to write what came out was more “new adult” than “young adult.”

One of the adages that writing teachers readily preach is “write what you know or know what you write.” So, with that in mind and being that my “new adult” experiences began when I left home and enlisted in the Air Force, this is what came forth from my cranium this morning….

The Plan?

In June of that year, I graduated high school, less than two weeks later, I turned nineteen and more than a month after I graduated, my new life began, or at least that was the plan. In retrospect, I probably never should have enlisted. I should have figured out a way to go to college and become this great, amazing writer, the one who lays dormant inside me.

But that wasn’t my life; mine was about surviving and getting away from the hell that was “home.” It wasn’t always that way, one upon a time I was surrounded by people who loved me and wanted me, but then not all fairy tales have happy endings and when my “wicked” stepmother married my father, she truly was not a very nice person. So like all fairy princesses, I needed to escape and my escape was the United States Air Force. Who knew the proverbial jumping from the frying pan into the fire actually existed? I soon found out.

The Great Escape

I was a farm girl in rural Pennsylvania, my graduating class was 265, actually I don’t think every one of them graduated. We were poor, no way around it. My father’s get-rich-at-farming attempts just never panned out, so if I stayed in PA (my favorite abbreviation for Pennsylvania) it was either flip burgers or marry a farmer. Somehow neither was very appealing. I wanted to travel, to see the world, so for someone like me, the best option was the Air Force.”

In truth, not a bad start. BUT, I write fiction, not creative nonfiction and isn’t my reality incredibly boring? So, here are my thoughts…perhaps, as I siphon through my memories of what my life had been like back then, maybe I can come up a few kernels of research to use in a fictional novel. With that goal in mind, I’ll keep writing and share whatever remotely clever bits I come up with here, on this blog… Or, at least, that’s the plan today. Of course, being ADHD, I could have a new plan tomorrow… 😉

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