O Seeker of Attention, How Dreadful Your Burden

In the introductory posting, I noted that part of my problem may have grown from a seeking after attention in the wrong ways. Today, that thought occurred to me once more, and so I thought a little beating up on the ol' self is in order. After all, who is here to beat up on me except myself? If I suddenly shrunk down to mouse size, the cats would cheerfully beat the stuffing out of me, as they do with their toy mice. Other than that rather remote possibility, I am currently low on bullies in the immediate vicinity.

Actually, I have been moving upstairs to get out of what appears to be a toxic environment down in my dankish basement. A little rest for my weary and ill body may help this afternoon. Moving bookcases is among the more labor intensive of activities. First, unload all the books onto something else, and stop to wonder why I am keeping some of them; then, move whatever is in the way of where the bookcase will go, move the bookcase, and reload it with books kept and books from the next bookcase to be moved. Finish unloading the next bookcase... and so on, until the old injuries, age, weight, and other factors demand a break. This is the third day of this sort of thing, and a break to write up a blog sounds pretty good right now.

While the aches and pains built up to a crescendo of anxious thoughts, I recalled how we as PTSD sufferers tend to make things bigger. Many persons deny the early warning signs of heart disease or cancer. Anxious folks, on the other hand, tend to have an indication of dreaded diseases each and every day. The problem is that part of me wants to have some dire event so that I can get some more of that attention thing I enjoyed back in the day. This is especially strange given that most of the time I can't stand to be noticed and get anxious about even the possibility.

For about a year, perhaps more, people often asked after my health. Not the shallow 'how are you doing' greeting that we all get in hallways and parking lots at work, but actual concern and interest in the latest surgery or healing. The carnal fellow inside kind of thought that he could get used to this attention thing, and he wanted more of it. Unfortunately, it was in the time immediately after the accident when gifts and cards rolled in - Christmas gift-getting that year lasted from about December 4th to around May - that the fellow deep inside that wants and likes, and doesn't know stop or reciprocate, learned to like attention of this type in a big way. His suggestions for how to get more of this gifting and asking with interest was in the wrong way of injuries, hospitals, and other imagined disasters. The body that must suffer these things along the way to the good part was not asked for its opinion.

Obviously, a body in this life cannot continually suffer auto accidents of the magnitude I suffered or one day, in rather short order I should think, the body will not get the chance to do the rehab and recovery thing. Gifts in that case are usually donations to some charitable fund that the honoree does not get to enjoy. This desire of seeking after attention is a dreadful burden. I work on stopping those anxious thoughts before the imagining makes me hurt again. If the attention-seeking imagination would just take a moment to remember the pain of that catheter in the emergency room, he most certainly wouldn't want anything to do with another visit to that place! However, trying to remember pain is probably not the best solution to anxious visions.

Some days it seems that in the anxiety-depression cycle there is never room for nice visions. You know, the daydreams we once had before the trauma made every day a struggle? Some of those would be nice for a change. No, no, not the idle ones about the attractive classmate in fourth period biology. Those daydreams tend to cause trouble of a different kind. Put down the video game and make one up. If you like fishing, make up a nice fishing vision, and leave out the parts about rapids on the River of Death, or the mugger with the .75 caliber recoilless pistol. Stick with a nice imagining; it may take some practice to regain this skill for those of us with PTSD. Just remember not to live in your vision. The real world is a tough place, but we do need to operate there.

Praying and hoping that your struggle is victorious. God bless you!

Bucky

Ah, The Terror of Checkups

Yesterday they caught me. I had used cover and concealment, tried a little camouflage, and ran as fast as I could, but the nurse caught me. I think not seeing me for more than a year is thin enough reason for another blood draw, but it is part of the annual physical. I speak metaphorically of course. Once caught on the magical VA computer, I am obedient to come in for my annual physical or other checkups that the medical folks like to do. That does not mean, unfortunately, that the terror leaves me alone.

My guts churned and shook. I felt a strong urge to run home and call the whole thing off. I prayed, sang songs, and did physical motions to distract myself, but the appointment still arrived at the appointed time. The dratted things tend to do that it seems. Of course, and this is the good news side of PTSD, the actual blood draw was and seldom is as bad as the anxiety that whoops on me beforehand. The remainder of the physical examination amounted to a life sentence, as in "You're gonna live." Then came the question: Have you ever had thoughts of suicide?"

Has anyone suffered chronic depression, anxiety, or PTSD, and not heard the occasional whisper of a thought go by regarding that option? I suspect it would be dishonest for me to say that I had never thought of what may appear to be an easy way out of my problems. What is barely controllable or uncontrollable in mental illness, may at times compare favorably to the perceived control of a suicide. If a person does not think that anything comes after this life, then the answer may seem obvious, selfish though the act may be to those left behind. For me, I believe that God has much in store for me in this life, much more in Heaven, and I do not for a moment want to report in to my Lord having just ended the life He has given to me. Besides, I have found that I love persons. Just now and then, I have trouble with groups of people, or places where I think there may be too many people, or even totally imaginary situations that never occur. God gave me a great imagination, but why do I seem to beat myself up with it so often?

The VA checkup was in a small clinic. No mobs of people to fear, and the two primary providers were a nurse and nurse practitioner I met last year. I also got signed up for some more psychotherapy sessions. I know they don't call them that to us, but what the heck. Therapy for psychos, I can understand why they would think I need it. They snuck in an extra needle too, and that one kind of smarts a bit today. Hopefully, they did a good job neutralizing the bugs and I won't come down with the very thing they are trying to prevent. Every year I think someone tells me that the flu vaccinations are some government plot to give people the flu. In a way they are correct, but not in the way they are obviously trying to get my anxious imagination to believe. This extra needle was for pneumonia, I still have the anti-influenza needle to face later this year, but let's leave my imagination out of it this year, you fear mongers you!

Have a wonderful day and may your PTSD be under control,

Bucky

Weak in the Knees

Watching another documentary, a woman experienced an emotional-physical symptom she thought was something writers like me use for dramatic effect. Nope, my writing ancestors didn't invent the weak-in-the-knees thing, as she discovered, emotions can cause a physical reaction or symptom. The viewing of a dead body can make a person weak in the knees. Others have similar symptoms in quite different situations. Those of us who suffer from the PTSD have felt the effects of dark emotional thinking in our bodies. I have been unsure about using the stairs to the basement at times when my lower parts didn't feel up to going down, so to speak.

Fear of the stairs is one of the symptoms of mental illness that must be fought or treated. Caution when using the stairs is a different matter, after all many accidents do happen on stairs in homes or buildings. Older homes, such as mine, seem to have been designed with a premium on space. They didn't want to waste any on safety apparently, so a set of stairs can bring to mind a ladder more than we might like. When turning the corner to go down to the basement makes even the cat pause for a moment's reflection, a bit of caution is vital for the big and clumsy human. Of course, I am fleeing the writing on the main subject because writing about the connection between my dark thoughts and bad feelings in the body means that I have to think about it and that in turn can bring the symptoms back and... Ah, well, ruck up as the Army says and get it done.

The mind to body connection is not something we always understand, but it is something we know from experience. The PTSD gets the maelstrom of dark thoughts churning, and soon we feel the physical effects in the throat, head, neck, chest, stomach, guts, bowels, joints, and pretty much everywhere else. No wonder doctors have trouble diagnosing our problem. The mind can make the body feel downright awful. One might think that his time has come; the Lord is calling me, er, I mean, him to come home. So far, the one has not been correct in this kind of thinking. A little concentration on writing or a movie or most anything else to derail the maelstrom, and all of the symptoms - mental, emotional, or physical - ease on down, at least most of the time. Stopping the thoughts may not relieve the physical effects right away, and then the whole process can go back the other way too. A bit of vague pain in the guts, and the anxious or depressed thoughts jump in like a horde of kids hitting the city pool on opening day.

There have been times when I thought that a good clunk on my head might just interrupt the cycle enough to get me free. Of course, those of you coming at this from the TBI side know better. More damage to the mind or body is not what PTSD suffers need, what we need is a pause in the painful thoughts so that we can suffer less pain in the body. The obvious answer is a good old-fashioned prescription for drugs, but that answer may not be the best solution. All drugs have side effects, and while most of the ones that cause Alien-like things to sprout from a person's midsection are stopped in testing, we shouldn't be quite so quick to reach for the pills. Distractions, as we are taught in behavioral therapy, keep the mind occupied with neutral or even good thoughts, and often the strength returns to the knees or the guts calm down and I can stop eating oatmeal for each meal.

Have a better day,
Bucky

One of Those Teachers

Come with me back into the dim ages of time, yes, that time when little Bucky, then known to the world as Denny, attended high school. In that bygone age, I enjoyed the services of what every student hopes for but few are blessed with, a special teacher that makes a subject stick in the mind. Our school of somewhat less than thousands of students used teachers to the fullest, and so a senior taking the Advanced Chemistry, Advanced Biology, and Glassblowing courses that year saw the same teacher three times in each school day. Add in Photography, and half a student's day could be spent in the company of that one hard-working teacher. However, this was not a disadvantage in the case of Mr. Meyer. I am old enough that my teachers all had one of three first names in common, Mister, Missus, or Miss. We, as young and simple students were not permitted to know them as Frank or Joe, Martha or Abby, as student in school today know their teachers. Mr. Meyer taught us that most obscure of languages in Advanced Biology, medical terminology, and it was all Greek (or Latin) to us.

The amazing thing is not that our little school taught such a thing, but that 20, or 30, or so years later, I can still recall most of it. What I thought today is how great it would be to have a PTSD teacher of that caliber. You know the feeling I'm sure. We would like a mentor of such surpassing skill in the teaching arts that methods and knowledge of how to deal with this thing of ours would flow into our minds to stay. A teacher skillful enough that in the moment of a panic attack, I can recall a method or means to concentrate my mind, slow the breathing, and calm the heart rate before that awful feeling of adrenaline sickness overwhelms me once more. Where do I find one of those teachers?

One obstacle to overcome is time. How often do you see a therapist for PTSD? Once or twice each week, bi-weekly, perhaps once per month? Remember that great line from The King's Speech? "I shall see you every day!" That teacher from long ago saw us five days each week for nine months. He stood a far better chance of inculcating lasting knowledge than therapists do with a one-hour session each week. However, that brings up the second time problem, who among us can afford an $80 tab for an hour of each day? At just over minimum wage, that is a 10-hour work day at eight bucks an hour, leaving nothing for food, clothing, rent, and other such niceties. That hourly rate is of course several years out of date. Some of you, or your insurance company, probably pay a lot more per hour for your therapy. In the treatment of mental health conditions, time is money, and it can add up to a lot of money.

Even if the treatment is paid for by the taxpayers, such as in the case of returning warriors in a DoD hospital after service in Iraq or Afghanistan, a third time problem arises, that of the dearth of doctors or therapists to perform the treatment. Like a college course of one hour, each therapy session requires hours more behind-the-scenes kinds of work. Review of notes, research into similar cases, consultation with psychologists and psychiatric nurses or other therapists all require additional time. Group sessions and professional study account for more of the therapist's time, and then there is the late-night or early-morning phone calls from patients in crisis. Oh, and the therapist might like to enjoy a little family time or hobby activities or other things we call 'a life'. So, once we discover Supertherapist, unless he or she is some kind of time traveler, we are going to run into this obstacle as well.

I didn't use Superpsychiatrist because it would be to hard to say, much less spell correctly. One slip up and the poor doctor would be forever known as Superquack, and we don't even want to go there! Imagine the horror as hundreds or thousands of PTSD patients laughed themselves to death. Superquack, for Pete's sake, I must be losing it.

Bucky

Deep In My Mind or Right At My Feet?

I reached for the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator to blast the weeds near the alley only to find no water pressure. Of course there was no water pressure, I had just shut it off to add another hose to reach that same alley. Trudging back to the valve, I thought about our little problem with ol' Petey Esdy. It is true that in some cases, after exhausting every test he can think of, a doctor will turn over the patient to the mental health folks because "I can find no physical cause for the symptoms, therefore it must be in the patient's mind." This is a defense mechanism to prevent the medical professional from being caught in that most dreaded of conditions, being wrong.

If the patient does indeed have a mental illness, such as PTSD, then the doctor is right and correct, but is that always the case? I wonder if some patients do not have a mental illness at all, but are instead suffering a long-term (chronic) infectious disease. As I have no medical degree to defend or medical-school induced pride to stand on, I can say that I don't know without shame or excuse making. I get to freely explore a vague hypothesis that not all diagnosed mental illnesses may be correct. Some of these diagnoses may have a physical basis or cause.

The lack of water pressure at my fertilizer applicator - pretending its a Martian explosive space weapon is a lot more fun - was a fact, not a symptom of the mental illness in my mind. Whatever you may think of me after reading the previous posts, I didn't look in the nozzle to check like the dolts do in the comics. I simply ran the little Martian's delays quote through my head a few times. Physical symptoms may have physical causes, in fact they probably have physical causes. I don't think any MD would dispute that as their medical coding and billing staff ring up the bills and bills for each physical test ordered. The problem comes when the tests are 'inconclusive' or many of them give conflicting results. The doctor may move from investigation to condemnation: "The tests are good, therefore the patient is mucking about with me."

Chronic infections are flat-out denied by some scientists and doctors, others may deny their existence only in some diseases or cases. The action of biofilms may not be the same for all virus or bacteria infections. I suspect this type of infectious agent behavior is not well understood by medical science. (Certainly it isn't by me!)Yet, treatment may be denied in one patient with his or her doctor (more likely the insurance carrier), and given in another case. Sometimes I have watched a doctor or nurse marvel at what the patient knows, other times I have felt a Yosemite Sam paraphrase lurked just below the doctor's verbal plane, "Patient's is so stupid!" As one who almost qualified as a professional patient for a couple of years back in the day, that learned attitude was frustrating.

Most patients have an earnest, and honest, desire to be healed, and they will help in their case as much as possible. I'm not writing about the smoker patient diagnosed with lung cancer never, ever having a cigarette ever again, but that patient who goes home, fires up the Internet connection and begins serious research into the condition or lack of a concrete diagnosis given to him or her by the doctor. Yes, there is a danger in Internet self-diagnosis. A few hours with WebMD or HealthSouth and a person might just think he has a list of diseases and conditions a foot thick and might as well start the treatment by making out his last will and testament. That's why we have quacks to tell us, "Ain't nothin' wrong with you. Go see your mental health counselor next Tuesday!"

In PTSD, or other mental health conditions, there most certainly is something wrong with us, but just for today, give a thought to what is or appears to be mental and what may be physical. Is that gut spasm or cramp caused by an anxious thought, or is it the cause of your anxiety? After years of this, I'm still not sure which kick starts the process. While Paul the Epistler may say that all things are lawful for me to eat, not all things may agree with me tum-tum. It may be that a restricted diet will help me avoid some panic attacks. It may be that there is a PTSD virus that lurks undiscovered in the biofilm. Of course, if a scientist or doctor reads that statement, snorts, and dismisses it as impossible, then he or she will never become famous for discovering that new virus!

As a patient, I can become learned. This is what I have, I have learned all about it, and there is no cure so pity me and don't try to suggest I try this or that. Once there, nothing in medical science is going to help me. We all must continue to read, write, converse, research, and help in whatever way we can in this thing. If the scientists and doctors become learned quacks, then we'll just have to go around them. Becoming stuck in a position closed to all ideas or inquiry helps no one, and that goes for a whole lot of so-called incurable diseases and conditions.

Pay attention to your dreams and ideas, something there may help us all. God bless and keep you!

Bucky