The Doctor is In...side My Head

Ah, another good morning and another self-diagnosis. If I had a kit, I would sell it and make millions until the lawsuits took it all away. I also make a hobby of psychoanalyzing myself. Whew, long word there, had to stretch for that one. These habits or hobbies are not limited to PTSD sufferers or even your garden-variety anxious folks. Not sure why they're called that. I've looked in my garden many times and never seen any anxious folks growing there. My anxieties and I visit a couple of times each day, but we don't stay for long. Something usually drives us back into the house: too hot, too cold, too windy, too many bugs, too much whining, who knows how these things get started; I blame my anxieties.

As my pack of yapping anxieties follows me back into the house, I take the opportunity to tally up a list of my life-ending woes. A stray pain or two in the chest is grounds for a heart attack diagnosis. An ache in the shoulders is cause for some other surgery. My mind is good at diagnosing these things, it considers itself among the finest of analytical doctors. The fact that I have only just finished an hour or so of running the hoe or hand tiller is forgotten as evidence not worth considering by this self-proclaimed doctor. The major problem with this homemade physician running around making its diagnoses of doom is that it occasionally gets something correct.

At some point in my first series of visits to the mental health counselor, my portable psychoanalyst began to suspect that I thought surgery was the answer to all my ills, real or imagined. The reason for this was that I kind of liked being the center of attention and that I was now using the wrong methods, namely my various non-specific medical woes, to occupy that spot in the surgical ward. My therapist said something intelligent like, "Hermm.." and then reported my self-diagnosis to his real mind doctors back at the mother ship. They came back with, "That is one of the most insightful things we've heard a patient say." Whoa! Score one for the knuckle-dragger in the patient's chair. Unfortunately, that only encouraged the phantom quack in my head to strive to match the feat. But how did the ancient and not quite honorable tradition of self-diagnosis begin?

Some years before back in the day, Aunty Diluvia lived across the cart path from her nephew, one Noah of the Big Boat. Aunty and her nephew enjoyed the occasional earnest discussion over subjects such as animal husbandry or weather, but mostly they loved each other and enjoyed their neighborly chats.

"Aunty Diluvia, we need to talk about your velociraptors again!" Noah greeted his aunt with an affectionate kiss, even though his tone was more exasperated. "They ate the unicorns and bicorns last night, and I think I may need to put the hippogriffs down. I'm supposed to take all of these animals on the ark you know."

"The what?"

"The big boat over there, Aunty."

"Oh, I wish you would take that thing and your beasts somewhere. It blocks the sunrise on my gardenias, you know." Aunty D. motioned to her pets lounging on the couch beside her. "Chiron and Belial were just having fun. They're still just cute little rapties, dear, won't you sit down?"

Belial gave Noah a toothy grin filled with bits of what looked like horse flesh.

"I think I'll pass, the ark needs some more pitching up near the top." Noah backed away from Chiron who seemed interested in his leg in a culinary sort of way. "I'm going to slam the door on these two if they don't behave around my animals!"

"The what, dear?"

"My beasts over there. Are you going to get packed up Aunty? The Lord says the rain will start any day. The kids and most of the ani...uh, beasts boarded yesterday."

"Oh, I don't think I'll be going, dear. My foot has a little infection where Chiron nipped me, and I'm probably going to need heart surgery any day now, and my friend, Esmelda, thinks her gall bladder is going out, and..."

Noah made his escape before Aunty Diluvia's entire circle of self-diagnosers could be cataloged.

Whether Aunty Diluvia and her friends actually began the bad habit of self-diagnosis is open to some historical debate. Some scholars say that Eve mentioned something about curing a tummy-ache with an apple before all hell broke loose, but others claim that is a mere gut feeling.

Have a great day, manage your pain, distract the anxieties, and laugh off the depression. God bless you!
Bucky

Petey Esdy

Good morning on this fine Wednesday! Let me introduce you to my inconstant companion. Petey Esdy is not always with me. One morning I may go to the grocery store without the slightest problem, but on another Petey shows up and talks me out of going into the building. No, Monday is not a day Petey choses over any other. Sunday church services though are one of his favorites. It's possible that Petey is related to the Devil in some way, perhaps a distant cousin or some such. Petey likes a big crowd too, and that may explain his fondness for the church. I have not attended a concert or athletic event for many years because Petey has been known to clobber me a good one just for thinking about the mass of people at those places. Weddings are out, Petey likes nothing more than to remind me of loneliness in comparison to the happy couple. When it comes to a big celebration, Petey just isn't much fun to be around.

A funeral is not a celebration for the person named in the program, but the other people there try to make it one. With Petey consigned to the penalty box for the day, I drove to another town to attend the funeral of my friend Tanya. Twelve years since the accident, almost two since my company of twenty years eliminated my position and handed Petey a bigger club, but I thought that I had a good idea or two for dealing with my little buddy. Alas, Petey had a dart or two up his sleeve and as the funeral home's chapel filled with people, most of them seated behind me which I definitely don't like, I sounded the retreat and fled to the hallway. I guess you could say I attended the funeral, so many came to pay their respects to Tanya that I was not alone in that hallway, though I may have been the most comfortable attending from a little further back. Petey likes me to attend big gatherings from a step or two back, sometimes back completely outside the building. Petey took the time to remind me that Tanya died in an auto accident, that which pert near signed my ticket outta here! About six months later, I attended another funeral.

I knew only one or two persons at Tanya's funeral, we had gone our separate ways as young folks do in searching for a career or just a job we like, and more than twenty years passed in the blink of two decades. Ow, that's painful, remind me to whack Petey a good one for that. A coworker from my former workplace took his own life due to some very serious work and home issues that he tried to deal with at the same time. Petey was having a good time in those days. A funeral from an auto accident and then one from a suicide, I think I heard Petey laughing at me more than once. Anyway, at this funeral I knew nearly everyone. Many I had not seen in two years, position eliminated people become a bit shunned by those whose positions may be next in line for an execution. This is not intentional on their part, but it does seem to happen. Perhaps a superstitious dread that it may be a contagious thing, I can only guess. I had the most dreadful time at that funeral, but for a different reason, one that caught even ol' Petey by surprise I think. I wanted to go around shaking hands and giving hugs to the people I missed in my life, and yes, I suppose I found out that I love them that day. Unfortunately, smiles and hugs and 'good to see you again' is not generally what goes on at a funeral. Maybe we should change that. When I go, everyone come to my funeral to have a good time and see some old friends. Don't worry about what I think, I'll be gone! And I ain't taking Petey with me when I go to my home with Jesus.

I'll have to give Petey some credit though. He has shown me that I am not a misanthrope, or even a Ms. Anthrope. Petey, any more jokes like that and we will go a round a or two! I mean that I do love people, one or two or a few at a time. Any more peoples than that, and I feel the need to get outside and keep going. It may be a part of what I call situational claustrophobia, or the perception of being trapped in a situation. We'll get into that another time. Until then, if anyone wants to have Petey over for a while, feel free to let me know.

God's great blessings to you,
Bucky

How Did I Become One of Those?

I went and put the first one out there, and now the second must follow. A fallacy? You bet, many a movie sequel attests to the fact that sometimes it is better to stop with the first and leave the second alone. However, practice brings proficiency and I think that applies to a blog better than any fear of Halloween III or some phantom menacing a bunch of clones before the Sith has his revenge. Before someone finds me and beats me with a plastic light saber, what is the question that begs an answer this morning? Right, how did I become one of those old veterans suffering from phantom terrors in a peaceful life? Glad I asked!

First of all, there are many sufferers of PTSD who are not veterans. This disease of the mind is not exclusive to us. Fortunately for those of you in this other group, I am with you as well. If any bridge must needs be built between veterans of wars with PTSD and those who suffer having never served in the military, let it be me. As a veteran of Grenada and Lebanon with the Marines, I am a combat veteran, but I came out of that without suffering flashbacks, at least other than the one of Mike Suits holding up a Playboy centerfold for my educational benefit. No, the card that brought the house tumbling down happened when I drove my Dodge pickup into the side of a much larger truck. A semi tractor-trailer that was supposed to stop at a particular stop sign before getting in my way. Those commercials where the car dodges around the boulder or whatever to prove the car or tires are the thing to buy amuse me. Let's see one where the vehicle dodges, pun intended, around 72' of stop-sign runnin' semi truck, that's the vehicle to have!

The combat of the highways here at home caused me far more damage, mental and physical, than my service in the Marines ever did. Although I saw the heaped ruins of the Beirut bombing where more than 200 of my fellow Marines perished, death and mayhem became personal to me at a highway intersection in Iowa about 15 years later. I lost a good friend in that accident, and I felt the sting of failure in that I should have returned him home to his wife and three children. I felt responsible in that way though everyone I know gives me a pass on that. Why? Well, the accident broke me. I mean 3 out of 4 limbs broke kind of broken, plus all of the associated blunt force trauma as Dr. Ducky might name it. Sorry, had to put in a weak reference to a show I enjoy. Left wrist broken, both long bones about an inch above the joint, right elbow smashed, and my right femur broken in two. I knew about my femur first because I was playing with the bone ends while still trapped in the wreckage. I do not to this day know why that seemed to be the thing to do at the time, but praise God I didn't sever an artery with the bone ends.

All of that, and I still didn't get a helicopter ride to the hospital. Fog they say, but you would think a butcher's bill like that would get me a chopper ride with a lovely flight nurse. I have no idea if the physical appearance of the nurse in the ground ambulance would be considered attractive, I don't think I looked at her or anyone else until late that night after the first surgery. In fact, most of the time I kept my eyes closed and just kind of passed out... until that fellow shoved a catheter up my little buddy in the second emergency room. I figure him for a Navy veteran. The words I used I will take the blame for, though I maintain that I was calling on the Lord for help and not using His name in vain. Phew! Decades of medical research and all I got was a fake sounding, "I know it hurts" for my trouble. I guess there's no money in less painful catheters or perhaps less entertainment value for the ER staff. I still wince and that was more than fourteen years ago now.

A bit of a pause here to collect my wits, they tend to scatter when I recall the accident, as much as I can remember that is, and the aftershocks in the hospitals. The big rabbit that hangs around our neighborhood stopped by to visit my garden, I had to run out for some photos. That is what Marine veterans do of course, we drop the important stuff to run out and snap bunny photos. I also fed the kitty, so there! I guess one good thing that comes from earning the title and claiming the PTSD is that I don't much care what people think of me anymore. I'll pet the doggies, skritch the kitties, and talk about my malady without feeling the need to prove my manhood. Of course, maybe that is proving...aw, never mind.

The stay in two hospitals would total 36 days before I 'got out' as they say. Do you have a worse than story? Sure you do, I heard many of them starting with the guy who rolled his ATV over on himself and was awarded eight weeks in the hospital for breaking his pelvis. We'll get to the worse than stories on another day. For now, I want to give you some idea of how PTSD seems to sneak up on a person as a part of my revelation of how I became one of those. The recovery from three weeks of bed rest went quickly, though not without great pain. I remember the day that rehab began quite clearly. I felt confident and pain-free. The tubes stuck all about my body had gradually disappeared and the morphine dreams faded into the past. Just one of the Vicodin today, nurse, I'm doing well! I said something cocky like that, just before she did that thing wherein someone with education and experience on their side tells you with subtle head shaking and soft comments that you are about to be awakened to a new reality. Twelve pain pills would not have sufficed for that first day of rehab! Give me the morphine back, I'll take the nightmares; save me from the first day of rehab, it was wonderful! The first time you walk again after so many injuries and bed rest is a day not easily forgotten, but along with the celebration comes the return of serious pain. Did that or the surgeries help to start the ball rolling? I may never know. It is quite likely that everything to do with combat, the accident, the recovery and even other little things such as 9/11 had a little or a lot to do with the onset of what would become PTSD.

The first signs came from what a doctor person might call non-specific complaints. Chest discomforts, not serious enough to be called pains, but yet serious enough to have a friend take me to the emergency room one time. Vague feelings of illness coming on at odd times. For me it happened often in restaurants and church service, places I once enjoyed. Waiting in lines might cause these anxious moments, or having others waiting in line for my services(I worked in information technology for many years). At first, I did what most anyone would do, I went to my family physician. More tests and finally they popped my gall bladder out. Each test or surgery increased the symptoms ahead of the procedure, then seemed to provide some relief, but never for very long. Finally, the doctors and surgeons began hinting that it might all be in my head. I did what I tend to do when I need more information, I grabbed for books.

Books on the aftermath of auto accidents run the gamut from the high-brow scholarly that contain so much jargon a person cannot understand the text to books that are actually quite useful. In one (see note 1), I found a test. I took the test and then took the marked up book into my doctor. Where some questions didn't mean much to me, Dr. Cutright (his real name too, he should have been a surgeon, but I'm glad he stayed in family practice.) read through the list and said things about my state of mental health. "This one means you're not schizophrenic, this one here means you're not paranoid," and so on until making the diagnosis that I had a serious anxiety problem going on. By the way, every anxiety problem that produces physical effects enough to send you to the doctor's office is serious. The doc had his office set me up with a therapist who in time diagnosed an anxiety disorder, but not PTSD yet. I say this to let you know that seldom does PTSD just jump out overnight like it does in novels and movies. I suspect that like me, most sufferers do not know for some time that the name or initials apply to him or her. "Surely I don't have that! The cause must be something in my body that can be yanked out if we just do the right surgery?" Unfortunately, too many of us will join the ranks of 'those', the people who 'just need to get over it' as the ignorant say.

The second session of therapy began after I was called up for jury duty. I don't often 'win' lotteries, prize drawings, and odds-related things like that, so you just know that of the hundred or so people gathered for the call-up I would be among the twelve selected. The case involved an auto accident, of course it would, and I knew trouble was on the way. The judge began her questioning and arrived at me. "Tell me about it" she commanded from the bench. When I knew the date and other specifics years later, I still remember her compassion from the bench as I began to tighten up in my seat. I was dismissed from the jury in that case, and when my town did not re-elect her to the bench a few years down the road, I feel that we lost something that day. This was Kristine Cecava who made the national news over not sending a convicted man to the state prison because he was too short. Before this went down however, I sat out in the hallway of the county courthouse trying to 'get it together', I made an appointment to start seeing a therapist again that very day.

The stigma of seeking professional help in my years of PTSD has not affected me in the way that others struggle in this area. I suppose that having drill instructors get in my face and call me 'worthless maggot' and other terms of affection may have prepared me to not worry overmuch about what slimey, twinkle-toed civilians might think. So I bought a house across the street from an elementary school! Think I'm crazy? You should see how your kids act every day. Bwaa ha ha!

God's love and blessing to you on this fine day,
Bucky

Note 1: If you suspect problems in this area, try this one: Crash Course: A self-healing guide to auto accident trauma & recovery. Heller and Heller(2001)North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA.

Adrenaline Sickness

I don't have any better name for it right now, but I think that I have adrenaline sickness. The condition comes from too many shots of adrenaline into my system for too many years over nothing. Today it was the cat, again. The beast is very protective of his windows, the ones that are on my house. I suppose it's my house, maybe the house belongs to the cat too. The cat frightens the wits almost right out of me a couple of times each year. 'Wits' is the polite term for what is nearly scared out of me. The situation is approximately the same each time: enough time passes for me to let my guard down for just a moment. The cat is watching out one of his windows. I have something to do outside such as adjusting the sprinklers at the hose bib, and I raise my head to get the hissing of my life right in the ear. I manage a small act of levitation with both vertical and horizontal attributes as adrenaline shoots through my PTSD-overwhelmed system. Inside the house I am one of the good guys; outside I am the enemy. Why do I then make my amateur diagnosis of adrenaline sickness? The feeling of illness that comes from this little circus act does not go away as quickly as I think it would for a normal person.

As I take a few deep breaths and try to slow my heart rate back to something a little less insane, I feel slightly ill, a bit nauseous, and a bit more, uh, if 'wits' is what nearly escapes my body then I guess it would be, witty. My grass would benefit from fulfilling the feeling, but the town authorities tend to frown upon this sort of thing. The cat gives me a look from inside that says he knows an enemy when he sees one and that I had better stay clear of his windows. I apologize for involuntarily cursing out my own pet and stagger off to the back door to present my credentials to the guard. The same face that just shortened my life span by a year or so wants me to feed him. I'm on the inside now and back to servant or good guy status, take your pick. Later, the ill reaction to the adrenaline reaction takes hold. I want to cry, to shout, to poop, to pass out, or to just know what exactly is wrong with me. My theory is that I've just startled at next to nothing too many times. Admittedly, a cat's hiss is not the best of sounds and I'm already operating under this anxiety disorder. Perhaps the best solution is to give myself a break on the self-pity and self-criticism. I wonder how normal people do that.

Normal for the purposes of this little blog will be someone without post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. I named the blog Post Traumatic Distress because that is what I feel most of the time. I always wanted to rescue a damsel in distress, but I became the distressed one and the damsels all ran away from me. Along with 'Why me?' is the sneaking suspicion that I am all alone in this. That last bit is one of the symptoms of anxiety disorders. I am not alone, God is with me always and I have a lot of company in suffering PTSD. The VA supports me in spirit, if not in funds, and they will let me know, I hope, when the pill arrives.

We don't have the 'get over it' pill yet, and fortunately we have learned enough over the years to get away from most of the 'get over it' from the ignorant and stupid. I believe that in order to understand the distress of PTSD a person must know the suffering of it first hand, and I love my neighbors too much to wish that on them. A pill to just get over it would be nice, as it would with a whole bunch of illnesses both mental and physical. Until that time comes, or until Jesus calls us home, we suffer and learn and hopefully share to help each other. I started this blog some weeks ago, but couldn't write anything until today. Seem kind of stupid? Sure, that's why I agree that this thing is a disorder. I also agree that I should speak up more, or at least write up more. I hope to use some humor in this; there are more than enough blogs and discussion forums where all is serious about PTSD. Perhaps the next blog can be about the time I told the lovely lady in church that God brought her to me to be my distraction...without first explaining that distraction is a viable technique used in dealing with the maelstrom of anxious thinking. Oops!

God bless you,
Bucky