Veterans Day 2013

Thank you for your service to this great nation! For my Veterans Day movie this year I have A Bridge Too Far in the Blu-ray player tonight. Back in the day the Allied High Command drew a lot of criticism over this one. Mostly the usual, not moving fast enough, missing a great opportunity, etc, etc. Vision over the rear of the donkey being what it is, many voices called for heads to roll from the comfort of distance. We served though, and each of us knows that the movement of modern armies takes place in just short of forever time. The German general in the movie sums it up rather nicely, "We are retreating faster than they can advance." Cornelius Ryan's great book tells the story well too. The man on the ground pays the price for mistakes made at the HQ. Seldom do we hear of the planners and plotters suffering the effects of shell shock, combat fatigue, or PTSD, whichever flavor of distress your generation faced in their day, and endures even now.

I grew up the way many did in my generation. The war in Vietnam played on the television for our parents, safely distant from my young mind. The Korean War or police action sat comfortably forgotten too recent for the history books but too far in the past for news media. The war to read about, watch in movies, and play out in the back yard was the great one, WWII. Good guys (us) and the bad guys (them). The good guys won and the bad guys lost, what did those veterans have but pride? Ticker tape parades, kissing girls on the streets and beaches, that was the life of glory for the warrior. Flopping over snowdrifts in our large back yard, I remember holding my 'rifle', an aluminum baseball bat held backward-like, and taking down hordes of the evil enemy. Of course, the warmth and dry clothes of the house sat only a few yards away. No dreadful winter march with comrades dropping in the cold, never to rise again in many cases. I wonder today how many faces of the dead and dying haunt the dreams of that generation. I suspect they look on my childhood war fantasies with something like horror. Maybe and maybe not, it is hard to tell what a warrior of a bygone day might think.

My neighbor is a vet from that war. His stories are not quite so comfortable as they come out a bit at a time. As far as I know, he did not fall into that percentage of us who suffer the PTSD. However, as he relates the tale of a Jap kamikaze flying into an ammo ship as his destroyer stood off to save itself, I can see that the memory is as clear to him as my presence in his kitchen. On second thought, I might take fuzzy second place in that vision. A trailing ship in the convoy was too close when the ammo ship blew up, and his destroyer returned to pick up survivors. There were no bodies to see from the ammo ship. His story got me to thinking about jobs in the military. What devotion to duty lived in the hearts of sailors assigned to ammo ships? Did the crew suffer unusually high desertion, get extra pay? Look out for those sailors at the liberty port!

On this day we honor the real us, not that imaginary soldier who went in the house when his clothes were wet and the snow a little too cold, but those of us who served where we got assigned in the great lottery of the military service. Some saw combat face to face with the enemy, others from a bit further back. Some of us served in the Middle East, others in the Far East; some in cold or heat, humidity or tongue-swelling dryness, and some far back from the fighting. An ammo ship probably stayed far back from the ragged edge of the front, but phew, how many quarts of sweat did those sailors lose every time an unidentified plane flew overhead? What other necessary and inglorious, unglamorous jobs did other soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and the many other personnel of the military efforts perform back in the day?

I can answer for one, me! Every other day, I marched around from latrine to latrine with my swizzle stick, an engineer's stake, pulled out the cut-off barrels from 'down under' and burned off the shit to ash. Yup, that's me, Bucky, not-so-glorious war hero on the Beirut front, doing the job no one else quite found it necessary to trade for. As the bootest of the battery, the lot fell to me to assume the position of field sanitation engineer. I can tell you these 30 years later that it is dreadfully tough to ignite diesel fuel with a match. A bit of mogas (gasoline) on top does the job much better, but be sure to keep those eyebrows back at a safe distance. The mogas also served to stop the dropping of lit cigarette butts into the barrels after one of the gun bunnies treated 'Petey and the Twins' to an accidental barbecue one night. The job took all day as each gun platoon had a 3-holer and the Seabees had a facility of their own. I trudged quite a few miles over those three months between, um, duty stations as the barrels burned and I stirred the flaming mixture to assure complete combustion. I thought I deserved a medal for this duty, maybe a little gold toilet seat or something.

Years later, I came to realize that this duty may have kept me safe from snipers. Bullets don't grow on trees, evidence in Lebanon to the contrary, and how many snipers worth the title would waste one on the shitter private? I don't seem to recall any of my great war games back in the yard including this sort of thing though. Real war is not often portrayed very well in the movies, though some are closer than others. The duties that keep the army moving forward or cleaned up in the firebase may not gain the recognition in the movies of glory, but we appreciate those jobs as only veterans do for each other. Appreciation, I think, helps much to alleviate the mental distress all parts of combat cause in those who serve. Those who cry over too many medals and awards for a military action probably have never seen the front, or the backside.

Semper Fi, Bucky

The King Steps Down

Happy Halloween to you! A pretentious statement maybe, but I am the king of self-shaming. Many will claim this royal title, and indeed this is one very long throne. We gain this crown through the words and actions of parents, teachers, and other authorities who enter our lives for a season or longer. These authorities teach us to shame ourselves through the simple fact that not all of us can be first in every race or situation. Soon, many of us came to that day in our past when we said, "I'm no good" in so many words deep in the heart. Thus began the long road to crowning ourselves kings of self-shaming.

The documentary on the Navy Sea, Air and Land team training perhaps says it best with their little motivational barb, 'second place is first loser.' This is one of many absurdities in military training, for even the highly selective Seal teams want to graduate more than one new operator out of each training class. Anyone who graduates to the Seal trident can hardly be called a loser. The difficulty of basic training programs is to get the stupid mistakes out of the way in training. The problems come later when some of us hold on to that first bit of training, the breaking down bit where everyone is shamed for the slightest error or failure. We begin to carry around the voice of the drill instructor or training chief or whatever with us to shame the self for perfectly normal errors nearly everyone makes the first time something is attempted. Some may develop a social anxiety because of this negative perfectionism we learn.

The social anxiety grows from the I'm-no-good thinking to the self-shame of negative perfectionism until finally the person cannot but run from social situations where we are the least bit disadvantaged. Seeking a new job, opening a bank account, a government function, or any other circumstance that turns us into a supplicant or grants us the weaker position from ignorance and lack of experience becomes difficult to overcome. A buddy in Beirut, Mike, often used the saying, you think you're the best thing since sliced bread. What is the opposite saying? I guess we come to the plate thinking that we are the worst thing since powdered eggs. Maybe someone out there likes powdered eggs, but we had them like every day in Beirut and I can't stand that taste to this day. The battle is joined!

This blog entry is a great example. I have doubts about what I have written. Who am I to say what is what about PTSD or anxiety or whatever? That is the negative perfectionism I have referred to. If I can't do it perfectly, then I want to quit. I am in a disadvantaged position because I don't know everything about PTSD and I don't have the services of a professional editor for this writing and I will post it without a week to review and rewrite it. Time to flip it over! Who does know everything about mental illness? If there is one, he or she had better quit goofing off and publish the cure. A blog is a blog because it is personal without benefit of professional editing and time-sapping rewrites. I can write something that will help others who suffer similar problems in social situations. This entry probably won't win any prizes in the perfect essay contest. I could spend a year doing research and rewrites, but people need help now. Even if I can offer nothing more than a sympathetic, informal writing that lets someone out there know that he is not alone in suffering, I need to think well of myself and get it out there on the web.

There is the key, I think, to our rebuilding. We need to stop the self-shaming and begin thinking well of the self, including our performance and ability. No, I won't do everything perfectly, only God is perfect. Flip over the bad thoughts that say you and I are no good, or first loser, and think of the good we have to offer. You survived another day with PTSD, a victory! I went to a new place and bought a newspaper, said hello to the clerk too! A clear victory over the urge to stay home. It is time for the king of self-shaming to abdicate! Record every accomplishment, no matter how small you may think it is. Wait a couple of weeks and look back over those daily accomplishments, and we may be surprised how far we have come. Constant vigilance! as Professor Moody advised Harry Potter and his classmates, we need it too in eliminating those negative, perfectionistic thoughts that cause quitting or not starting. It almost seems sappy, but start looking in the mirror and telling yourself how talented and good you are. Where has that other thinking got us?

Bucky

Getting There IS The Battle

The 30th anniversary of the Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut arrives on October 23rd. On my Facebook newsfeed, I noticed that some veterans made reservations, purchased tickets, and completed other preparations necessary to attend the reunion, but then faced the real battle - getting there. I don't mean hitchhiking or seeking an overbooked plane flight, but the battle of the mind we face in making the trip as the anxiety grabs the heart and guts with a nasty twist. As a veteran of Grenada/Lebanon, I can sympathize with that particular agony.

This anxiety is not your run-of-the-mill nervousness most folks feel when going away for a weekend. This is more like the onset of the stomach flu. That time before eruptions have begun, but you know something is very wrong down below. The guts seem to twist around themselves into a Gordian knot, and then they reach up and give the heart a tug, or a push, or something that just feels, well, like you're going to die.

I forgot to count how many times I have got up on a Sunday morning, showered, shaved, breakfasted...you know the drill. Dressed in my church clothes, I sit and wait like a good Marine vet, prepared well ahead of time. Then, the thoughts begin, followed by the feelings down below. Head call, potty break, whatever you want to call it, one after the other. It would just be easier to not go, and often that proves my only option. Immediate relief? No, often the symptoms require hours or an overnighter to burble on back down to a more normal level of tension.

Don't eat the day before, so the guts have nothing to twist on? Tried that; add hunger to the awful feelings churning down below. That combination reminds me of the prep for surgery; not exactly a remedy for calming the nerves and placating the mind. Problem solving helps, and it is an activity the non-sufferers love to engage in, God bless 'em, but listen up now: sometimes we lose the battle of getting there.

Avoidance of situations happens. It is one of the symptoms of the malady. There is no shame here, or at least there shouldn't be any, but sometimes we fight that too. There are times that I even lose the battle of writing about it. Surely that should be a time free of anxiety? No, I suffer less physical symptoms, but the maelstrom of the mind doesn't always shut down so easily. I wish that I could give every PTSD/anxiety/TBI/separation anxiety sufferer, veteran or civilian, a pill that immediately stopped the churning, fearful feeling we face so often. But I don't have one yet.

I once faced some hard words at my workplace after I almost made it to the airport for a work assignment, but then had to turn around and go home when the symptoms overwhelmed me. The loss of money from the plane ticket and other non-refundable deposits they could compute and see on the spreadsheet, and the company was not happy about it. The PTSD problem I don't believe they ever understood. Words they tried and spoke, but over time the PTSD cost me, of that I have no doubt. Does it cost me in getting another job? Sure, the same problems I have getting to church or struggle with in going to a reunion assault me each and every time I think about applications, interviews, and other such jobber things.

Some nut from back in the old country, Nietzsche, if I'm not mistaken, once said: That which does not kill us makes us stronger. Well, that psychonut was full of horse manure. That which did not kill us can make us truly miserable the remainder of our earthly lives. Praise God it doesn't happen all the time, and at times we do win the battle of getting there. When the trip comes and one of us gets mugged by the beast on the way and must return home, let us gather to support and not condemn. Those without the PTSD will condemn with looks and ledgers, but let us defend our fellows. And, I'll keep looking for that miracle pill.

God bless and defend you,
Bucky

Is Fearless The Right Answer?

Confusion reigns! I watched a movie yesterday in which an actress plays the role of an actress playing a role before interviewers in order to pad her acting resume. But that wasn't the thing that alarmed me. In the role, the actress claimed to have been a victim of extreme fear until she committed suicide and was revived after five minutes of death to "come back" fearless. One of the interviewers leaps up to call her a liar and strip the mask away. Very dramatic, and I'm glad the writer or director of the film stopped that nonsense before we watched a real horror begin. Imagine the trauma to the world if such a thing was reported to have worked. News cameras and their little talking heads covering thousands of victims of extreme fear lining up to be killed for a few minutes in order to return fearless...not good. Extreme solutions to our problems may sound good in a movie, but let's not go there, please.

Is fearless the answer to our problem? At first glance, to cure a fear or anxiety disorder via taking away all fear fits the bill nicely. However, fear is not always a problem. When we speak of fear as a caution, such as not fearlessly placing a hand on the hot burner of the kitchen range, then we have a fear that we want and need for our survival, or at least the survival of the skin of a hand or two. I once fearlessly placed the end of my finger into a car cigarette lighter. I had watched my mother do it before that, in case you asked. Adults know how to skim a finger over a surface quickly to avoid a burn, kids do not. Of course, the lighter 'lit' the end of my finger, though not enough for me to smoke it. I calmly placed the lighter somewhere on the floor of the car, exited the vehicle in a slightly anxious manner, and made it to the kitchen sink after running over one cat and taking the screen door off its hinges. As I ran cold water over my still sizzling digit, I got chewed out for dropping a hot cigarette lighter on the carpeting in the car; the vacuum of my departure evidently failing to clear the hot little beast from the car entirely.

Another kind of fear is closer to the point. The fear played on in the horror movies I watched yesterday that is, or fear of the uncanny as C.S. Lewis named it. Supernatural fear or fear of the ghost in the next room is what I speak of here. These days, thanks to reality television, some of us run in fear from a report of a ghost, others run to see it. The reason such a thing is uncanny is that a ghost should not be seen at all. A thing that does not exist should have the courtesy to not be visible to us. If the thing reflects light and is seen by the naked eye - clothed eyes being somewhat difficult to see with - then it exists. If the thing is 'seen' by our mind or soul, then why do our eyes (or camera) need to be pointed in its direction? And for that matter, why should it be more visible in less light? Uncanny that. I'm not sure we can cure that sort of fear, but it may bear a likeness to the fear we do want to remove.

The fears that arise from mental illness are phantoms in their own way. Anxiety shows us future visions that never come to pass. PTSD flashbacks show us visions of what was and is no more. Certainly, to be fearless of these sorts of visions is a goal worthy of achieving. A flash of vision back to a combat situation should not be freighted with terror for us, but it is. A view of some circumstance that is unlikely at best and impossible in most of our anxious visions should not cause avoidance of an event that should be a time of pleasure for us, but that too causes extreme fear. The vision of the mind is not real, but is it reality?

The body may rest in bed, but if the mind is walking a trail in Afghanistan, Iraq, Beirut, or Vietnam then reality is what the mind says it is. In the moment of the flashback, and the same with the intense daydream of the anxiety vision, the reality is where the body believes it is and the reactions to the fear are real. Severing the mind to body connection might provoke undesirable consequences, so that probably isn't the solution we seek. (There's your "D'oh!" for the week.) Can we make the vision fearless then? Has anyone found a cure for a nightmare?

As long as the mind drags the body along for the ride, I don't see how we can make it fearless. What we are left with is eliminating the vision, or modifying the reaction. If practice alone provided the answer, then all of us would now be experts in flashback effect modification or anxious vision reaction suppression. Unfortunately, my body continues to react to the phantoms, and fearlessness remains a dream for the movie scripts.

Bucky

Blam, Blam, Blam, Veteran Goes Off

Maybe not one of my better titles, but I'm going to talk about it anyway. Another shooting incident, rampage, or mass murder has occurred, depending upon your political views and how you want to color it. A veteran took up a firearm and killed people for no apparent reason at the Washington Navy Yard. A location made at least a little bit famous by the show NCIS. I'm a fan of the Veteran's Administration (VA) medical care, but I don't particularly like their press release. The VA released a circle-the-wagons and hide-the-bureaucrats sort of statement that we, I believe, are fully justified in hating. "According to VA records, he[Alexis] never sought an appointment from a mental health specialist." Uh, does one just get up one morning and realize that mental illness has arrived like the flu?

In speaking with a sister I had not seen in many years, I found out that she has suffered two major bouts of depression. I was curious to know how she was first diagnosed, and found similarities with my own experience. At least from two examples the answer is: No, a person does not just get up one morning knowing that mental illness has arrived like a flu bug. Try calling Human Resources or a boss and using that excuse. "Sorry, I can't come in today. Mental illness is going 'round the family this morning. Two kids have come down with it and I'm pretty sure I have too." On the other hand, we have a fear.

This fear is brought on by some old Hollywood movies, more than a few B or C level movies, and the occasional novel (maybe more than occasional). In this scenario, a man or woman (more women in the C movies) arrive at some grim hospital and are given some sort of mental health examination. In the baser movies, the examinees are typically young and attractive women and the examination involves removal of clothing, apparently to check for some sort of mental illness tattoo in private places. The character is diagnosed with a mental illness and locked up forever in the Devil's Hospital for the Persecution of the Lead Character. Unfortunately, there is an historical basis for this sort of novel plot or movie script. Some hospitals and institutions for those judged insane or mentally ill in the past were true horrors, and thus we have this fear.

How do we fix the conflict between the stigma of seeking help for a mental illness, the fear brought on by the old stories, our desire to have a firm diagnosis and get well, bureaucratic blame avoidance techniques, and a citizen's protection from unreasonable search and seizure? From all of that, I can hypothesize without too much fear of disproval that there will not be an easy answer.

For veterans and the VA it is unfortunate that we have another story of a veteran going off to live down. For the VA bureaucracy, they will spend some time doing the bureaucratic blame/spin/avoidance game for a while. For Congress, they can form a committee and call in the VA chief to ask for his top or bottom end as a sacrifice. For all of us, we have many victim's families to pray for and comfort as best we can. Mr. Alexis' mother had perhaps the best reaction, in contrast to the VA bureaucracy, she apologized to the victim's families right away and noted sadly that she could not ask her son, "Why?" Many of us I think can sympathize with that last question. We have done the same in many other shooting incidents. As of yet, no definitive answer is forthcoming.

Due to the stigma or the fear, Mr. Alexis did not know to seek help for mental illness or was afraid of being locked up for it. He may have been ignorant of his condition since to diagnose ones mental illness with the very mental organ that is ill is difficult at best. I sought help from God in prayer. He responded with a piece of an advertisement in my home that said in large, red print, "Get Help!" I got the message and took a mental health status questionnaire into my family doctor. Others have sought opinions from close friends. Very close friends and in private, since mental health questions are not generally received with less than absolute mirth and hilarity in an office or locker room setting. If you broach the question at a party, try to do it after several drinks and use a big, goofy smile. Dr. Phil is another option, but not everyone gets an all-expense paid trip out to New York to meet with him.

Walking up to the VA clinic or a mental health clinic to ask for a mental health evaluation still bears a stigma. Those of us with some experience have worked to eliminate or mitigate it. Shame from those with no understanding (and complete ignorance) does not help those in need to seek out the appropriate help. Be alert for those who might approach you with a quiet, "Can you help me..." Accompany someone to the mental health clinic or professional. If you have overcome the stigma, tell everyone else the visit is for you and the person in need is helping you out. Yes, it is a lie, but imagine that person failing to get help and 'going off' as Mr. Alexis did on Monday.

Love your neighbor as you love yourself, Bucky

I Want to Pay Taxes Again!

Now that's just crazy talk. If any more proof of my mental illness were needed, that title should provide all that is necessary. I stand by my statement. I want to pay taxes again. First, you may need to try going without a tax burden for a while, as I have, to experience what it is like living on the ragged edge of financial disaster. In 2012, I paid with my final credit card the outstanding tax due on my January 2011 401k withdrawal. We complain about our amount of taxes more than actually paying them in America, and a final 401k withdrawal is a good way to realize what is meant by tax burden. I owed no income taxes for 2012 or thus far in 2013, because I have no income. Before 2013 comes to a close in a little over 3 months, I have decided that paying income tax is a better way to go than earning so little (or none at all) that I do not have to pay. This is not a purely financial decision.

The Social Security system is supposed to be a good investment. The removal of the investment amount from the paycheck without asking is a different matter, and I'll leave that debate alone for this blog. However, we pay income tax to purchase government services, including helping those who through unfortunate circumstances cannot pay their own way for a time. We pool our tax money and the government provides defense forces, judicial systems, regulatory authorities and a myriad (it seems) of other stuff we may need. The government also sometimes adventures overseas in various ways and pays off the occasional dictator, but that too can be set aside for now. I served as a part of those defense forces, and in a couple of those military adventures. However, I did not in the four years of my service expect that was nearly enough for a free ride for the remainder of my little life. Medical care, sure, especially if they poisoned me through the drinking water on Camp Lejeune, but a free ride, no, I want to pay taxes again.

Taxes can sound like a dirty subject in our popular repartee. We do not want to hear about paying more taxes, and sometimes we think it would be nice to not have to pay them. I am guilty of that last bit, and I got the chance to experience life without paying. No income = no income tax is not an equation a person wants to find himself living, please take it from me. Paying taxes keeps roads under the truck tires, prevents enemies from overrunning our nation, and allows the printing of a truly prodigious Code of Federal Regulations. What would we do without our dear government? Some folks have an answer to that, but I choose to get back in the system and help out in my small way. Easy words, how do I translate them to action?

PTSD limits my access to some jobs. The job of emergency services in most places involves responding to many auto accidents. This service includes EMTs, police, fire and rescue, dispatchers, and hospital medical staff. Serving in any of those capacities might not be a good idea for me. A person in dire need of medical attention from a car accident does not want to hear his first responder ask for a timeout to deal with PTSD symptoms. I can understand that. Such a thing may not happen, but why take a chance with a person's pain or life? Cross some jobs off my list. Check. Other jobs may require too much hypocrisy. Cold calling, or what is known as outbound telemarketing is not for me. Any job where I feel trapped by the situation may trigger ol' Petey. Basement offices, windowless cubicles, a shift job where I cannot leave, all may trigger the symptoms of uncontrolled anxiety. Of course, schools or restaurants with their noise and racket probably won't work for me. But, still, I want to pay taxes again.

All that and there are still jobs for me. Just need to find one in the remote wilderness of Colorado. I may indeed be a proven nut, but bring on the income tax, I'm tired of living poor!

Bucky

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

I'm Surprised You Ain't a Drunk!

The kids across the street at the day care center are playing their 'man down' game this morning. The game is conducted in such a quiet and reserved manner that only half of my remaining hairs stand on end. The shrieking game on the other hand causes every hair to stand at attention and my buttocks to levitate above the seat a few inches. I don't much like either game, perhaps the kids could take up knitting or a rousing game of Zirkon Tank Defender III on their little computers. On second thought, knitting might cause them to grow up unacceptably violent, a real danger to society and their peers.

Somehow the subject came up at one of the counseling sessions during my first attempt to eliminate the anxiety of PTSD. Ah, those days of hope and naiveté when I thought that this could be cured with a little talking and a few pills. My counselor gave me a nice thought to go home with one day, something like: I'm surprised you ain't a drunk! Of course, Jason, my counselor during those sessions holds a master's degree and is a licensed mental health person so he said it more eloquently than that, but my version is more fun.

It isn't that I didn't give serious thought to an unauthorized form of medicinal treatment. I think that every person suffering from PTSD would try almost anything to relieve the pain and distress. Like athletes, we can be a little stupid that way when it comes to chemicals. However, at least with alcohol, God blessed me with a stomach wholly unsuited to binge drinking or long-term experimental self medication. Terrible heartburn just isn't worth adding to the pains I already endure under PTSD. Therefore I can claim no towering self-discipline or will power in this. I'll have a beer or two every now and then, but most of the time it's just easier on me to do without. Drugs are a different story, but not in the way of amateur pharmacology studies like the folks you may see laying around the streets and alleys.

My one experience with a narcotic pain reliever didn't suit me. As a part of pulling me back from the brink, morphine was administered under prescription and intense supervision. I think the intensive part of the Intensive Care floor comes from how many times they wake you up at night to check if you are sleeping. "Well, I was..." For about a week I got to enjoy what I named horizontal morphine dreams. A better term, now that years have passed and I'm trying to sound smart, would be sequential morphine dreams. I dreamed the same nightmarish dream three times in a row until I cried to wake up and didn't want to sleep again. Vertical morphine dreams are those used in the old A Nightmare on Elm Street movie, or if you need something from this century, Inception used the same method. This is a dream where the victim awakens into another dream and then another until he cannot tell what is real and what is a dream. Praise God I didn't have to deal with that! Come to think of it, nested morphine dreams might describe that better. I'm renaming Bucky's Theory of Morphine Dreams on the fly!

A good round of placebos helps some folks with their symptoms. I heartily recommend placebos; Peanut M&M's are a favorite of mine. If we must get addicted to chemicals, then placebos are a better solution than something that causes horrible side effects such as weight gain or bloating. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups Miniatures are another good placebo that fits the bill. Surprisingly, Amazon lists these in Grocery when they are obviously a Health and Personal Care item. The expense of placebos is only slightly less than a cocaine habit, so be sure to take it up with your physician or counselor to get a prescription. Renting a costumed kid to walk around with on Halloween is a good way to stock up on placebos. Be sure to take an extra bag for little 'Ferdy' who is sick at home.

Chemical or drug solutions to help with the symptoms of PTSD are necessary for some folks. My first therapy round included one of the anti-depressants, Celexa, (my spelling may not be correct), that helped mute the ups and downs of emotion until cognitive behavior therapy methods combined with my faith in Christ helped get things mostly under control. I'm not just interjecting my faith here, that was noted by my counselor as well. Whether that came before or after his backhanded suggestion to get drunk, I don't recall. Until the next time, God bless you!

Bucky

The Tag Team of Personal Terror

Why, may I ask, do I come after myself with a tag team of personal terror? The characters in this tag team go by the names Shame and Self-pity. The team does have quite a bit of material to work with; we all face challenges and problems in this life, and we fail more often than we would like in new situations. The problem as it relates to PTSD begins when I bring up those past failures, beat myself with a little recalled guilt, feel shame all over again, and then inject a good dose of self-pity that I am ashamed of something long past. Guilt begets shame, and shame is what starts the fear cycle of public humiliation. If I see something shameful about myself, surely everyone else can see how worthless and weak I am as well. This kind of thinking is neither honest nor accurate, but I do it all too often.

PTSD ends in disorder for a good reason. Now, I realize there is a suggestion on the psychological table to eliminate the word 'disorder' so that someone is not offended, but I think it should remain. Letting shame and self-pity beat me down, keep me from enjoying a good meal in a restaurant with friends, or thumping me into a panic attack is a disorder of the mind, and let's call the moose a moose. We can't really change the name to Post-traumatic Lack of Happy Feelings When I Really Want to Feel Good, can we? Think of the horror of PTLOHFWIRWTFG. That's like some sort of texting nightmare. All right, I've gone right off the deep end now.

Shame and self-pity are a couple of things we just don't need to add to PTSD. The past haunts us enough as it is with combat flashbacks, accident anxieties, and other such dreadful thoughts. To bring up every mistake, faux pas, and social gaffe from the days of yore, wallow in the embarrassing memory for a while, and feel shame all over again just hurts too much. It is time we learn to forgive others of course, but also to forgive me and you, the person hurting the self with all those bad memories.

So you stomped on that girl's foot at the sophomore dance, let it go. Of course if it were just tame little memories like that few of us would have any real problem. What we tend to bring up again are those times that we really hurt someone. The events that suddenly come to mind during a dark night and we wince in shame asking, "Why did I do that? The memory may include a crime or something that got a person fired from a job. The fact that you paid the price according to the law does not mean that memory or shame go away quite so easily. With PTSD, that kind of thing just makes it all the worse. We must find a way to gain forgiveness, from the one hurt if possible, but especially from that one doing the accusing. His or her name is usually Me or I, or however you want to refer to yourself at 0300 when the thoughts won't let you sleep.

PTSD is enough of a problem without making myself miserable through shaming and self-pitying. All of us have good qualities and bad, times we performed poorly and times when we did well. What we must not do is constantly rehearse the times we fell flat on our social noses or hurt someone, and begin to look at what we can do now, today, to help others. One of the best therapies is to give. Time, money, effort, or whatever, give and seek no return for yourself. The first time you attempt something, even in helping out or volunteering, you may screw it up. Things often happen that way in a new job or task. Go at it again though; we are not trying to build up more memories for shame and self-pity to beat us with. Give and give some more, selflessly and with a good effort. Who cares what the world may say; we work to build up some good memories. Memories of good works that we can sleep on.

God bless,
Bucky

Proper Perishing

Now this is a difficult subject to inject humor into! Through religion, training, society, or whatever, we all know that suicide is not the proper way to perish. Yet, so many of those who served our nation are choosing this way as of late. Like many of you, I would like to stand forth today and state that I have the solution to this problem. Trouble is: I very much do not have a solution and would be a liar to claim that I do. People solutions are difficult because each of us is both different and similar to everyone else. Those enduring the tribulation of PTSD have similarities, but not all is the same with us either. Veterans may be a smaller subset of PTSD, but we too have differences in experience and circumstance. Then, just when we might focus in on some set of factors, people without PTSD also commit suicide.

Proper perishing might involve the sacrifice of a life to save others. This situation does not arise very often though. Certainly not enough to make some web site with a list of potential life donors for harrowing rescue operations. Besides, it just makes better news when both the rescuer and the damsel in distress come back alive. For those of the politically correctness persuasion, we can also rescue the dimsal in distress. Dimsal and damsel doesn't sound quite right, or maybe it does to you. The spell checker is telling me to quit inventing new words. Some have tried, and succeeded, in the suicide-by-cop scenario.

To involve another person, particularly one who might in turn suffer PTSD from setting me free does not seem to be proper. Through shame and self-pity PTSD can be a selfish thing, but even the possibility of spreading the sickness to someone else should make us reconsider. Those who suffer a thing generally do not want to force others to endure the same thing. Misery may like company, but it is nice when the company is in a position to help and not simply there to add to the cacophony of whining. Does saying 'No, no' work?

Some religions or denominations of religions use the Thou-shalt-not method or the eternal condemnation threat in an attempt to stop suicide. It might seem to work only because it is hard to gather witnesses to give testimony that it did not in fact work for them. I don't want to report in to God that my final act in this life was to end the life He has given me. But is that the best way to prevent suicide? I think that any method must center on life to work, much like a successful marriage is not an avoidance of divorce but a celebration of all that makes marriage good.

One day, while taking my morning stroll through this little town, I decided that offering to die for Jesus was not what He wanted most from me. By utility column 399 on the corner of Thompson Park, I decided to offer not my death, I had done that more than once, but to live for Christ. For those of us suffering from PTSD, to live is the more difficult path and thus the greater offering.

Those who suffer from combat may think that it was not proper that he or she did not perish with those mates who fell in the battle that will not allow him or her to sleep at night. Others see car accidents in their imagination (guilty). Those who suffered a crime may see stalkers, rapists, or murderers around every corner. Some may not remember what caused the PTSD due to buried childhood trauma or injury to the brain. However, somewhere within all of the pain is a reason to celebrate life. I found it in my faith in Christ. Saying 'do that' is a surefire way to cause rebellion against whatever I say, so I will simply tell what works for me.

Seeking humor in a situation helps me. I want to be in control of every situation, but PTSD says, "You ain't in control of nuttin', Jack!" Friends are a reason to live. How can I be so selfish as to deprive a friend of my life and cause him greater pain than he bears already? There is much to learn in this life. I enjoy learning, but there are those times when nothing seems worth knowing. Recognize the symptom of depression and fight back by laughing at it. Perhaps the ones to solve this suicide crisis are not the psychologists and psychiatrists who have no real stake in it save to become famous and make lots of loot, but those of us who are on the front lines. There is a joy in helping others and we stand to gain most in this. We can in fact regain our very lives.

Who knows better than us what another PTSD sufferer is feeling? God has given us understanding to use in helping one another. Want to regain some control? Set up a network through whatever means you like to others in need of help. The VA is doing this, but not all of PTSD is in the VA system. Learn from each other; learn to talk and learn to listen, often we who suffer in this thing must learn both skills. Life is not unmanageable for us, but we may need more help than some in managing it. I think that accepting help is one of the most difficult obstacles we must overcome. Having a friend who understands the experience is very helpful. The solution we seek may be within us, but we may need all of us to find it and bring it out.

Well, I haven't been very funny today, but in my defense this suicide crisis we face is not a funny subject. I fear that we are losing the best of this generation from this problem, though not all of it because if you are reading this, then I can assume that you are still here with me in the land of the living. Please stay, I want to hear from you, and so do your friends and loved ones. God loves you, and so do I!
Bucky

Digestational Difficulty

A subject in America that typically is allowed only between old folks in casual coffee conversation - to beat the alliteration thing into the ground - is the digestive tract difficulties that we face in PTSD. Now which is the cause and which the effect is what is affecting my meager miniscule mind this merely muggy morn. Some days it seems that the gut begins the grumbling which in turn leads to the anxiety that I will anti-gravitate my latest burger bomb in a public forum to my humble humiliation. Other times, the anxiety or depression seems to begin the aggressive attempt by my alimentary contents to appear in my immediate area. Many times, I just don't freakin' know what started it.

The fear of public expectoration is partially related to a hiatal hernia. This is a hernia at the other end, so to speak, wherein the stomach wants to climb up above the diaphragm. This condition usually appears at times of impending performance such as standing up to speak, addressing the judge, singing the national anthem before the Children's Patriot Day celebration or any other public trigger event that puts stress on even those without Petey Esdy as a casual friend. (As a PTSD sufferer, I of course do not actually do any of the aforementioned things.) The old stomach-in-my-throat thing is actually a diagnosed medical condition for some of us.

Other things that can pile on us along with the PTSD are chronic bowel inflammation, Crone's Disease, oops, that's Crohn's Disease,(the other one is only for certain old folks), diverticulitis, spastic colon, food allergies, ulcerative colitis, and many other things that cause the yards of tubing in the gut to swell up and complain with the pain. I enjoyed several orthopedic surgeries, but only one internal invasion, and guts I can tell you do not like to be uncomfortable, cut on, or messed with in any way. Feelings of fear rise up with the guts and you know the thoughts: 'I'm having a heart attack!' or 'Cancer! It's got to be cancer this time.' Perhaps your imagination comes up with other thoughts having to do with doom and internal destruction on a gastric scale. We the sufferers do it to ourselves too many times to count.

The purpose of this little discussion in gastric grossness is to remind us that some of the feelings we think are just the fear and anxiety are in fact rooted in physical symptoms. I once was the happiest stomach flu sufferer in the company. A silly thing to claim, but after several incidents of running for home from work only to feel better almost before I could climb in the truck, it was a relief to have an actual physical ailment to report. Bosses understand the flu, the stomach flu, gushing out both ends, hacking up a lung, and other 'real' symptoms. The pains from PTSD, though no less real to us, do not rate the same amount of belief on the ol' boss scale of perceived pain and suffering sufficient to avoid slaving away for the greater glory of the corporation.

God bless you!
Bucky

Bored or Fine? T'aint Neither!

The assault of anxiety got me yesterday. That, I think, is the assault weapon we should work harder to ban. Firearms don't frighten me; I'm familiar with them and enjoy shooting as a hobby. A restaurant - this seems to be a trigger place for me - and a growing feeling of anxiety extending even to panic slowly building up within me. Various feelings within my guts competing with anxious questions in my mind. People talking behind me or meeting new people at lunch, both can contribute to my feeling of panic. Waiting for the food, the pressure of making a choice from the menu, eating slowly in hopes of settling the stomach down, but in the end only leaving the immediate environment worked. And that, only after my friend finished his business and we left the premises. If one or two of the conditions caused my symptoms every time the anxiety arrived, I think that I could control the problem. If I had the same reaction every time I ate at a restaurant, that would also provide an obvious solution. However, as you know it just isn't that simple.

As I sat out on the back step of the restaurant, one of the kitchen employees came by and said that I looked bored. Usually, it's a comment like, 'You looked fine' after the battle is over, but this time it was the cousin - bored. Boredom of course was about as far from what was going on in my mind as could be. I prayed, talked, tried to sing (quietly, no sense in frightening the natives), stretched, tried a little muscle relaxation exercise, even tried to imagine a new start for my novel that needs a major rewrite. I heard God say, "I'm here with you." Did that mark the time I rotated fully around the bend? I don't believe so. Of course different people believe different things, and brother, am I ever different!

I gave some grunt or grimace in response, but that is one of the interesting things that goes on in PTSD. I may look normal, fine, or bored to the casual passerby, but on the inside I'm fighting an emotional rebellion. While my face maintains its emotional distance, my mind is causing pain and other uncomfortable sensations in my body. Perhaps this is payment for the years in my youth when I tried to be like Spock. Maybe I wrote that already in another blog. The Spock character dealing with PTSD after that episode, The Galileo Seven, wherein Spock made life or death decisions for a small crew marooned on a planet while the Enterprise appeared to abandon them would make some good television.

Spock was the model of self-control, something that seems to flee my grasp the harder I struggle to close my fist around it. Vulcans crushed their emotions with logic, except for Spock who being half-human, suffered occasional outbursts. In the first movie, the character seeks to quash his emotions once and for all only to be contacted by V'ger, who apparently thought he was some kind of machine. The logical priestess mind melded with Spock and then tossed him from the program in the final test. Spock didn't get to sing The Logical Song or something like that, and as a punishment had to rejoin the Enterprise. I think I'm mixing up my retro-references a bit, but doesn't that bring to mind an idea. What if we could open our minds to a doctor or therapist and let them join us for a bit in the pool of panic? Of course that might make them crazy too. Imagine the Vulcan logical priestess running off into the wilderness screaming, "Gah! The anxiety! The FEAR! My mind is broken!"

I would hate to be responsible for causing the poor old gal to suffer six months of mental traction. Imagine the delays while Vulcans waited to take their final logical test. Imagine me getting back on topic! I guess any more discussion of my self-control is kind of useless after that little journey far off the beaten path. Truth is, when my buttocks are parked out behind a restaurant or in some other odd place, I am neither bored nor fine. Getting away from the immediate situation is a temporary solution at best, though sometimes we find it necessary in our struggle with PTSD. For some this method might cause their assaults of panic. I don't have the answers to every situation. Certainly, I desire that God should take this cup from me, if you will pardon the reference. A restaurant should be a fine, social place to gather for a meal, not a test to be endured.

God's blessing to you,
Bucky

Those Devilish Details

Yes, I'll confess! The tale of my infamous truck accident is a bit lacking in detail. I learned to do this after repeating the story in perfect detail one too many times, or maybe it was one hundred too many times. The physical reaction to this post-trauma retelling began to gain notice, even in my distracted mind. To combat the stress, I began telling the story with less detail, altering the chronological order of some things, and generally staying away from a witness-stand style of recalling and reenacting. After all, I wasn't on trial, so why reinforce the PTSD! The great beyond to this life came closest when my lungs filled up with bone marrow.

Now that little detail is not often told in after-accident stories. If a bone is broken, the marrow sometimes escapes into the body. Kind of makes sense when you think about it, but more often than not only doctors think about such things. As I had no less than four long bones broken, a lot of goop entered the blood stream and began looking for a place to settle down and make a new bone, or whatever it is that bone marrow likes to do when it gains its freedom. Should the bone marrow settle out of the blood in the heart or brain, the patient is one of those who 'die of complications from injuries received in an auto accident' as the hospital spokespersons like to state. The patient may also perish if the marrow settles in the lungs; sort of a drowning in goo thing to use medical terminology. Heh, heh! I think the quack used fatty embolism, which I took personally, to describe the condition. In any case, the cure was to stick the doc's Craftsman 40-hp shop vacuum down my throat, at least that's what it felt like, and suck the gook out.

Another detail of this procedure is that the patient must be paralyzed because he will reject the schnozzle of the vacuum. Gee, da ya think? My desire to return the favor notwithstanding, the procedure worked and my condition improved quickly. I have no idea which of the docs performed the violation, so I guess their drugs had the desired effect. There you go, another detail of the recovery process. Now I'm going to run away from it again for my own sake and sanity.

Years later, details still cause trouble for me occasionally. Join any ol' line at the unemployment place without checking the little signs, as the Danny DeVito character did in Renaissance Man, and the patient, oops, we're past that now, the unemployed person may wait uselessly in the wrong line only to find out the horrible news at the front of the line. Strangely, this is one of my fears, and it is strange because it is not the end of the line that causes the anxiety, I'm okay there, but the pressure of the people waiting behind me. This is not a personal expression thing from cranky mugs or something arising from sharp-tongued loose lips of those in line, but sort of a pressure that builds in my mind. I do not know why this is, but I have felt relief in letting others go ahead of me. This can indeed cause baffled comments such as, "what a nice guy!" or "Have you gone loony?"

A detail that I relate in these blog entries may help you in your struggle. I can only hope, since telling every weakness of mine is to hand an enemy ammunition for whatever weapon he or she would use against me. Fortunately, I don't know of any enemies other than the spiritual ones. Well, there is the guy who asks after my mental health using archaic expressions, but he's just part of my inner dialogue.

God bless,
Bucky

Guarding Against Disinterest

A few days have passed since my last post. Therefore, we might ought to talk about one of the symptoms of PTSD and depression; a general lack of interest in pretty much everything. Of course, this is most noticeable in those activities that we enjoyed prior to the disinterest setting in like a cloud of gray, stifling fog. I enjoy writing, but suddenly I don't have any wind in my writing sails. A few days may pass before I realize that another foggy doldrums has arrived. Other activities may mask the lack of interest in what was a primary activity. Perhaps you love watching football games, but after a couple of weekends doing something else you realize that on the third weekend football games seem boring. You just cannot bring yourself to watch another football game, it seems like, ever again.

A change of this type may be a cause for rejoicing in a spouse, we won't say which one, but it is something we as PTSD sufferers must stand guard over. One of the first signs of full-blown depression is a lack of interest.

Now, the usual answer is that I must try the activity, to somehow force myself to be interested in what I have no desire to perform, or watch, or whatever. This comes from that old immersion therapy thing. If someone is afraid of water, the practitioner of this form of witchcraft takes the victim and tosses him into a pool of water, or hands him over to the CIA for a little waterboarding, or has him watch reruns of Waterworld, or some other torture. The final extension of this theory is that we can completely cure water phobias by drowning the phobiacs. As the corpse settles to the bottom of the river, the therapist shouts out his success at curing the malady, forever and permanently. When I have no interest in writing, staring at the computer screen for hours on end does not cure the problem, it only makes me more keenly aware of my shortcomings in fixing it. Which, makes me more depressed and causes even less interest in the activity, and so on.

Strangely perhaps, I think the best way to regain my interest and avoid the depression is to not force myself to write, for example, but to find things or activities that do interest me until the interest in writing revives. I don't have control over the when or how, at least not that I have observed, but trying to write more when I don't want to write at all does not seem to be the answer. In the football example, one may have to record several weekends of games until the interest returns. During the weekends off, take a shot at distraction much like we do for the anxiety attacks. Get away from the monitor, read a book at random, do something selfless, talk to a wall for a while, or talk to a cat (it's pretty much the same thing). Take a wild step and talk to God, that is, to pray. You might get an answer!

Bucky, your friend in post-traumatic distress

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