I've got quite a few friends with PTSD pretty bad. Most are military, but PTSD is not an exclusively military issue. Rape victims, abuse victims, witnesses to major traumatic events--all can suffer from PTSD. Some have coping mechanisms and many don't. Most don't have healthy coping skills and many really need to get there. Counseling is generally the only way someone with middle to severe PTSD ever can "recover". Time doesn't heal all wounds. There are Vietnam Vets living on the street because they still haven't been able to cope. But just because you can get someone into counseling, doesn't mean there's purpose behind it. They need to get passed the point of playing games and making excuses. Otherwise 7 years, or 20 for that matter, out of the suck and they haven't made a dent. Honestly, playing games with the counselors (or group), just going through the motions because the VA required it, well from my humble observations, probably makes it a little worse. They're not only bypassing themselves, but creating even less healthy coping mechanisms by thwarting the help. I'm not sure what to do now that I've met a couple of people like this and been pretty close to one of them. They tell you everything is great, but then they're still having massive breakdowns years after. My experiences and observations are not medical advice. I'm not claiming to be a counselor or have a medical anything. This is more like one person in a group therapy session saying look this isn't the right way. You're fooling yourself, and in the end, the only person you're going to hurt is you.
Expect setbacks. I was around the wrong group of people actually pretty recently. One of my best friends referred to them as "toxic", and she noticed the change in me immediately. Toxic people, those that refuse to help themselves, over time become instigators in breaking other people down and sending them into a deeper gully. Sever ties with people like this. You'll recognize them, because even if you've been fairly healthy for years, one or more of the PTSD symptoms will flare up. PTSD is not going away, ever. You're going to learn to deal and cope and eventually minimize, but it's never going away. My Grams died in 1989. She was the most important person in my life at the time. To this day, I still get teary eyed when I think of her. Nothing changes how I felt about her and nothing is supposed to. It's not that time heals all wounds. It's that we reach a point of acceptance, understand where we are at with ourselves, in the world, and can accept it. The PTSD symptoms for each of us can flare up. The goal is to understand ourselves, learn to cope, and minimize the flare ups and the effects that flare ups have on our lives.
Realize the baggage you came into the situation with was still with you while you were deployed and some of your reactions from PTSD symptoms are based on it. My ex used to tell me how fat I was and how no one else would ever want me. While deployed he really was not helpful, even saying to me once over the phone, "how do you know that I'm not getting a blow job right now?" Coupled with what I experienced while deployed, my frame of mind was at best, iffy, especially in relationships. I eventually stood up for myself and got divorced, so I thought I was coping pretty well. The reality is that I went into an even more emotionally battered relationship, culminating to a full on physically battered relationship. The choices I made were because I became very dependent on anyone that treated me right initially, which abusive people usually do. I ignored warning signs, because any amount of lonliness brought on anxiety, sometimes mild, sometimes breathe in a bag, sometimes full on anxiety attack. The need to keep my marriage in tact while deployed became part of my anxiety (one of my PTSD symptoms). The need festered itself over and over in the next couple of relationships. Counseling really helped me recognize two things: the anxiety when it was flaring up and that my relationships could be a trigger that could not only be detrimental to those around me, but to myself. I was choosing abusive men, because I literally was beating myself up that I had failed and the anxiety symptom was making it worse. It had become a vicious circle--relationship to squelch the anxiety which in turn became the relationship that fed the anxiety. Hell of a merry-go-round.
Expect to make mistakes or have made mistakes because of PTSD symptoms. Realize that they still are/were your mistakes, but recognize how and why and which symptom/s (if more than one is involved) that helped feed into the mistakes. We get home from deployment and we can't sleep. We're jumpy. We bark at our kids, our spouses, our friends. We often take it out on the people closest to us. The closer the person is to us, the more of the brunt that they are likely to take. First, don't beat yourself up about this. One, civilians, people who have never served our country, do this. It's human nature. Two, someone who truly loves you will try to understand. If they don't understand, eventually you're going to have to understand that coping with our situations are not for everyone. Do not pretend that you're in the right, point fingers or play the blame game. Twisting it around at the other person is not healthy and it will make you more miserable in the long run. It's not a coping when we do this; it's projecting. Projecting is a long way from recovery. The only thing that you can do is recognize your mistakes, apologize for them, and hope for the best.
Do not get lost in a picture. What do I mean? The easiest way for the mind to cope with PTSD is to paint a pretty picture of the way that we want it to look. We want to look "normal". We want to do right by others. Some of us will paint a picture in our minds of what "normal" is supposed to look like and live up to it. Then we start going through the motions. We fool ourselves into thinking it's easy to fake normal. It's not. We cannot make up a picture in our mind and set ourselves to it. It doesn't work. No matter how good the picture looks in your mind, from outside the bubble, everyone else can see your faking it. Instead of the picture, picture where you want to be, how you want to feel and work towards it. Not some Norman Rockwell painting, but simple stuff at first. For example, when I got home from deployment, I couldn't enjoy french toast anymore. I love french toast, but for some reason, my mind in its harrowed state couldn't taste it. The maple syrup wasn't sweet, the cinnamon wasn't right, the whole thing just tasted bland. This actually went on for years. It was what I really wanted back. Not the picture of the french toast with cardboard flavor, but really to enjoy the french toast. Pick easier things first. There's something that you used to really enjoy that the trauma took away from you and now it seems like everything is bland. Try to bring back those flavors, those smells, those colors back into your life bit by bit. You can paint a picture and live in it--4 edges confining you to the wall you nailed yourself to, or you can start to live again.
There are so many symptoms to PTSD. From my humble observations, I can say I've seen severe anger issues in a couple of friends, the exact opposite--clamming up and hermitting, anxiety, alcohol and drug abuse, sleeping issues, claustrophobia, a slew of various phobias for that matter. My thoughts are that the PTSD is actually, for lack of a better way of putting it, a microscope that enlarges problems that you already had coupled with its own unique ability to add a couple more of its own spicy problems to the mix. It's different for all of us, yet very similar in the fact that we shared somewhat similar traumas that got us there, at least for the military members. The end goal though, military or not, is to get to a place where we can recognize, cope, and minimize. Don't let PTSD be your excuse. Don't let it own you. Learn to accept it, cope with it, and eventually you'll find that have actually grown because of it.
WHEN CONSIDERING WHAT HELP TO GET:
First off, there's a little bit of a reality check when dealing with medical professionals one on one. Some counselors aren't that great or even good. It's a solid fact, just like some lawyers are better than others, and likewise, sometimes that great lawyer/counselor costs a hell of a lot more money than you can afford to spend. Plus, no matter what, you have to find one that suits you. A counselor that looks like the rapist of a victim seeking counseling is probably not going to work--no matter how great of a counselor because of the psyche of the victim. So, finding a good counselor that fits you can be like finding a good brain surgeon--complicated, tedious, and sometimes very costly.
However, group therapy usually results in people in different stages of the healing process being able to call each other out. I hear from friends, all Gulf vets of the last 20 years, that often a majority of their group therapy participants are Vietnam Vets. Think about this. It took them over 40 years to get help. It wasn't a "good" thing in their day, but if you're in one of these groups (or even if you're not), consider that if you fail yourself in getting the help in those sessions, that you could waste 40 years of your life struggling with things that festered and left a wake of garbage behind you. We, Gulf veterans, have it a little easier in the fact it doesn't mean that you're "less of a man" if you need help. It makes you a "bigger man" for being able to admit that you can't do it alone. The military is a team environment trying to accomplish the same objective; no one member can complete the objective alone. The team is only as strong as its weakest link. Group counseling is a team also trying to reach the same objective--reaching some sort of normalcy. Take group therapy seriously because someone in there is counting on you to be a strong link, for both yours and their recovery. That's the true reality check.
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