PTSD life – Part IIb – My PTSD

This is a continuation from Part IIa.

Flashbacks and memories

The flashbacks are the absolute pits. There is no warning. There is seemingly no trigger, but there are also triggers. The lack of predictability increases or causes the anxiety, which in turn feeds the depression. The toll these unwanted intrusion, disruption and emotional destruction the flashbacks take on me is unable to be measured.

Flashbacks happen, anywhere, anytime. There are roads I cant drive down at night time, because if I do, I see the bodies of people I treated there, in those places. They are not real, but I see them as real so they are real for me. I know they are not real, but for a split second, I see a tangible, real body, and it causes a massive adrenergic response….and anxiety. The fact that they are not tangible doesn’t take away from how truly horrifying and terrifying it can be for me. There are streets I cant drive down in the day time, for the same reason.

I can be in the middle of talking to someone and it can be just a word or phrase, a tilt of the head, an infliction on a word, and it will stir up another memory or worse, a flashback. I can be texting or msg’ing someone, and a phrase they write will bring back a memory of a suicide note I read, and then Ill have a flashback of one of the to-many suicides I attended. I see trees, with certain shaped branches and see people hanging from them. The same with balconies, stairs, high set houses. Its so unpredictable and so damn uncontrollable.

I can see a street name, or a car with an RIP sign on the back, or a set of flowers and memorial on the side of the road, and again, flashback. I live in the area I worked as a paramedic for 13 years, so driving around this area stirs lots of memories and brings flashbacks. There are a lot of those memorials around our city, that are placed for the people I attended, but couldn’t help or save, or could help and save.

Sometimes, there can be no trigger. It just happens, without warning. These are the worst.

Insomnia

Insomnia is the absolute pits. This is so intrusive and limiting on lifestyle. I struggle to fall asleep, and sometimes I’m so irrational and scared (anxious) I cant go to sleep because I feel I might not wake up again, and then sometimes I think that that would actually not be a bad thing, for me and everyone else around me. I hate the ‘irrational’ side of things, given that I am a complete control freak (Gift from the RAN).

On a good day, I average 4 hours solid sleep and cope really well with it. But on a bad day, I manage to shut my eyes and fitfully drift, not asleep, not awake, aware but not alert. Its horrible. And then there are the nights where sleep just doesn’t happen. At all. The nights I cant sleep are annoying. I used to read, in the days when I could concentrate for longer than 10 minutes, but I cant concentrate long enough to read anything of depth now. Thats a real pisser also. One of my favourite things to do was to read, so having lost that ability has been quite devastating.

Everybody knows somebody – helpful links

So that’s just a small insight into the complex that is my PTSD. I haven’t touched on the emotional toll so much, or the toll on personal and interpersonal relationships, or my ‘quirks’, yet. But I will.

Everyone knows someone with Depression, Anxiety, Mental Illness and chances are it is a loved one. When dealing with them, (us), if we actually tell you we are having a ‘rough/not so good’ day, just be there. Don’t try and intrude into our heads. Don’t try and analyse what it is making things ‘rough’. Don’t try and fix it, because you cant. Don’t tell me ‘you should try…..; etc, because I wont be able to comprehend it anyway. And don’t ask me, the very next day, ‘how are you today? Are you better now?’ – because that’s not how this shit works. Just be there. You dont need to talk – you just need to be there.

Black dog Institute

Beyond Blue

Lifeline

Open Arms (Defence Members, past and present and their families)

Phoenix Australia – Centre for post-traumatic mental health

SANE Australia

PTSD life – Part IIa – My PTSD

In my first post, I talked a bit about PTSD being an individual experience. It is. So for this post, I thought I would explain what MY PTSD looks like, but I’m not really sure how.

PTSD

The Black Dog Institute provides us with a ‘definition’ of what PTSD is. It doesn’t state that the symptoms each person suffers can be vastly different, but they are.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a group of stress reactions that can develop after we witness a traumatic event, such as death, serious injury or sexual violence to ourselves or to others. PTSD can happen after we’ve been through one traumatic event, or after repeated exposure to trauma. Sometimes, PTSD can develop after hearing details about devastating and traumatic events many times, like the experience of some emergency workers. It’s important to seek help to manage PTSD. There are effective treatments for PTSD, and you can feel better.

Anxiety

Anxiety regularly manifests, for me, as self doubt mixed with fear, exacerbated by self doubt. Thats probably the best way I can describe it. It is also very unpredictable. I dont know when I’m going to get excessively anxious, or how bad it is going to get. It starts with pounding in my ears which is so loud it both blocks all extraneous noise and amplifies it at the same time, until there is a cacophony of noise thrashing around inside my head. It frightens me and makes my heart pound. I can feel my heart rate increase.

I can feel the palms of my hands become instantly wet, and also the backs of my knees. I’m acutely aware of the noise in my head. Over the cacophony of thrashing inside my head is the voice telling me how shitty everything is, and in a single second I can have a billion thoughts and conversations, play out a multitude of scenario’s and not be able to form any kind of reason or realism. Yet, everything seems so real. Its so confusing. It stops me doing simple things, like going to the markets, or going to the movies, or any number of normal, every day things. But sometimes I can go to the markets, I can go to the movies, I can do everyday things. Just depends on the day, time, people, place…..

Depression

Depression is rough. Its so damn rough. Its always lurking in my psyche. Its part of me and it doesn’t leave. Depression isn’t being ‘sad’. Its not something that ‘goes away’ for a day, its not something that I’m always aware of. For me, its a lack of emotion. Its a lack of being able to feel. Its also feeling like nothing is good, nothing can be good and when something is good, its not going to last. It is oppression and oppressive.

Each day is a battle and fight. It can be a struggle to get out of bed, and sometimes, taking care of basic hygiene is the most difficult and exhausting thing. Most of the time its easy enough to ‘look happy’, which helps other people.

Helpful links

Black dog Institute

Beyond Blue

Lifeline

Open Arms

Phoenix Australia – Centre for post-traumatic mental health

SANE Australia

– The PTSD life – Part I of…..who knows?

So this is the deal, the PTSD story. Its hard to write, its hard to know where to start. So I’m using the words of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson as a guide, of sorts.

The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. “Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?” he asked. “Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

But starting at the beginning doesnt really make sense. I cant start at the end, because I don’t know what, when or where the end is or will be. So Ill start with the diagnosis and work through, a bit like Roald Dahl’s Wonkavator, not an elevator…..

Elevators can only go up and down. But the Wonkavator can go sideways frontways 

Charlie Bucket : And backways? 

Willy Wonka : Yup roundways, and squareways. Just press the key and Zing! You are there! By now pressed all the keys! Except one! Go ahead, Charlie! Press!

So sit tight and press the button. Read away. And if you don’t like it, don’t read it. I’m ok with that, because again, its about me and its my story and I need to write it to help me. Or you can go read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – its about as twisted as this stuff!!

PTSD – what is it?

So the diagnosis is PTSD. People love labels, people need names for things, people need an explanation. PTSD can manifest in different ways for different people. Whilst there are ‘textbook’ signs to tick boxes, the actual signs and symptoms are variable and very much individual. So when I talk about ‘PTSD’, this is MY PTSD, not anybody else’s PTSD. Because we are all different, collectively different, but still ‘same-same

Blackdog institute provide this snippet for us:

What PTSD does do to me is multifactorial and ever changing. Some things are transient, some things are intermittent, some things are permanent. And some things are just plain scary as fuck. Crippling Anxiety, depression, hyper-stimulation, exhaustion, lack of concentration, insomnia, fear, nightmares, flashbacks, triggers, and of course, the gift that keeps on giving – seeing weird shit. Everywhere. Makes life interesting.

What PTSD doesnt do to me is make me stupid. I’m not stupid, I’m not an idiot, although I can be, and I can do stupid things. I’m not unintelligent, I’m not lazy. And sometimes I laugh inappropriately, because I feel that if I cry, I just wont stop. Ever. I function like a ‘normal’ person, most of the time. And the times I don’t function, you probably wont see, if I’m lucky.

History

Most of my family, friends and acquaintances, know that I have spent 23 years as a paramedic. Most of those years were at the highest clinical level. Some of you know that that means, but loads of you don’t . I will explain that further in another blog.

Most of my family, friends and acquaintances also know that prior to being a paramedic, I was in the Navy. I spent 8 years serving my country and the majority of the experience was absolutely fabulous – yes, I did make lifelong friends. What most of you don’t know though, is that whilst I was in the Navy, I was sexually assaulted, whilst at work, twice. By senior sailors. So if I cast my mind back to pre-assault and the person I was pre-assault, I think that’s where the PTSD life possibly started.

Navy Life

The first assault occurred at HMAS Coonawarra, in NAVCOMSTA Darwin, by a POROT. I will never forget it. I will never forget his name, or his face, or his filthy fetid brown beard. I had just turned 18, I was a small statured kid. I reported it to my boss and because i was ‘just a WRAN’, I was moved out of my job in the COMCEN and sent to the TTY workshop. Still in the same building, but not on his shifts. Then they moved me to Humpty Doo, thankfully.

I’d created a stir by reporting the assault, and that upset the applecart. I was not supposed to report it, because, you know, in 1988 it was just what happened to the young girls in the Navy….it was, you know, ‘just a joke’, and the boys just ‘having a bit of fun’.

The second assault occurred on HMAS Tobruk. Again, a senior sailor. Again, I reported it. But the result this time was that because I sat next to other men in the mess and hang out and stepped with other men, it really wasn’t an issue and I didn’t really have a problem with men being in my personal space.

I remember being devastated when I was told this. I also remember the fear when this leech followed me when I was on duty and doing my rounds. He eventually caught me alone a second time, pinned me agains a bulkhead with his hand around my throat and told me what a bitch I was for dobbing him in, that he knew he would get away with it because he was a married-ey (navy term for married man) and that he was going to make my life hell. And then he reported me for supposedly not doing rounds properly….

But the final kicker was after these two assaults. Because I wasn’t fucked up enough from that. From being a kid, assaulted by dirty old sailors, and subsequently not being protected from the same. I thought I would make myself safe, I thought I better take control, because the Navy wouldn’t, and so I quickly got married…..into a domestic violence situation, to a man with a love of guns. The marriage ended the night our neighbours called the police because they thought he was killing me. It wasn’t the first time.

When the police came, they took me upstairs and they found, sitting on my duchess two shells for his gun, which was downstairs, where he had held it at my head. Not sure who the two shells were for, because there were three of us. Me, him, our baby.

To cut it short, it went to court. The Navy sent our Divisional Officer with him to court, for support, but nobody was sent to be with me. I had to go alone. He had his gun licence removed and was forbidden from handling or using weapons. So the Navy put him on the Standing Sea Guard – which is a squad of sailors who do official parades etc, in formation, with rifles.

The standing sea guard practiced on Fleet Base at Garden Island, where I worked. He was legally not permitted to hold a weapon, and here he was, literally 20M away from me, with a rifle. I was terrified. So I did what I thought was right, and called the police. He was on a Navy base, so they had no jurisdiction, but they reported it to the Navy Police. My Chief also reported it to the Captain of HMAS Kuttabul, but he didn’t think it was a concern or a threat, having my violent ex-husband outside the doors of the health centre, with a rifle.

I’m glad he didn’t think it was a concern. I did. I’d come to the realisation that the Navy wasn’t going to keep me safe. That being a female in that institution at that time put me at risk and that I didn’t want to be near my ex-husband, with a rifle. So I discharged and ran. My Chief knew I was leaving and one or two friends. Other than that, nobody. I couldn’t risk being stopped from moving as far away as I could. I had to get myself safe because my employer wouldn’t. They could have, but they wouldn’t.

The real tragedy with what happened in the puss (Navy), is that it was not uncommon for this to happen to girls in those days. It was not acceptable, but it was accepted. I’m hoping that it is different for girls now.

So I think this was the start of it. This is what first started my ‘control’ need. I thought that if I am in control, I can keep me safe. If I am in control, I can keep others safe. Ive now discovered that that shit doesn’t work.

Devonshire Tea for Poor Health

Health

My mental health has taken a beating this past year and unfortunately, my physical health followed suite.

Ive just come out of hospital from my second gastric bleed in 3 weeks. I feel like a bit of a lab rat pin cushion and still don’t have a lot of answers. Histology of my stomach wall shows nothing sinister and while my Hb drops with each bleed, we cant find where or what is bleeding. Surgical team want to find something surgical and Medical team are of the belief it is gastritis secondary to PTSD. Oh well. Such is life.

I am very thankful for our fantastic public health system here in Australia. I received excellent care and when I was allowed to eat (about day 4) the food was pretty darn good! Yep, No free TV, not that I was up to watching, but I had my iPad with me and the free WiFi allowed me to watch what I wanted, when I was up to it.

I got out of hospital last night, and when I went to bed, I actually slept. I had forgotten how good sleep is. Its been so long. I woke up feeling a little blue and had more medical appointments in the afternoon, so dearly-beloved decided a drive in the hills was in order.

We headed up towards Beechmont to watch the paragliders take off and fly, while I contemplated life, the universe, everything (sounds like some sort of cliche). On the way, we came across this funky ‘Nook and Kranny Cafe’ and stopped for a look.

Location, Location, Location.

I hadn’t been to this area of the Scenic Rim before, and I will most definitely be going back. Beautiful windy roads, plenty of bush and spectacular views. Nook and Kranny is just off the road, and looks like a cottage that has been converted to commercial premises. It is set amongst the trees and offers indoor and outdoor seating.

The indoor section is reminiscent of a country cottage and we did notice the wood burning heater, perfect for sitting near on those cold winter days, enjoying a hot coff…er, tea. There are a few seating areas, with dining tables of various sizes and a couch area, to lounge back on with a drink and magazine – did I mention this place is licensed?

The outdoor area has undercover and open seating. An open garden kind of area, surrounded by lunch greenery with plenty of space. We sat undercover on what looked to be a porch area of the old house and watched the world go by.

Devonshire Tea

Anyone who knows me is well aware of my hankering for Coffee. Ive blogged about my affair with the beautiful, brown liquid from the gods. However, the doctors have ordered me off coffee. How dare they?! Don’t they know how important coffee is? Tea, though, apparently its ok – so I’m trying my best to make the switch without to much moaning.

Nook and Kranny offer Devonshire Tea for around $8.00, so that’s what I decided on. It was worth it. They have around 8 varieties of tea, catering to most tastes. I saw Camomile, Green Tea, Earl Grey and I cant remember the rest. We decided on a nice pot of English Breakfast and took a seat outside.

The tea was made with tea leaves – not a bag in sight! Ive not had ‘pot tea’ for years and I really enjoyed it. I cant work out why I can have tea and not coffee, but like I said, no moaning!

The scone was delicious. It was loaded with sultanas and slightly warmed, firm on the outside and with just the right amount of buttery flakiness defining a good scone. Topped with jam and cream, with my dearly beloved, in this tranquil setting,what more could a blue girl ask for to soothe the soul?

I didn’t check out the rest of the menu, although their wine selection looked pretty decent, from what I could see on the shelf. When we go back, and we will, I will check out the menu in more depth and see what is on offer. I did see that they have live music in the garden, every Sunday from 3-5pm. It looks like an idyllic place for a relaxed quiet Sunday afternoon wine.

Nook and Kranny – we will be back!