Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder (PTSD) – upon hearing the term thoughts of military personal
returning from combat with psychological wounds springs to mind. Although this is true, PTSD effects are much
more pervasive and touch a much broader base than many imagine. It can include individuals who have faced or
witnessed life-threatening events, sexual assault victims as well as members of
oppressed cultures. June has been
designated the month to draw awareness to this area so I thought what better
time to share than now.
I have PTSD
born out of complex and multiple traumas experienced at an early age. Without going into all the sordid details I
have spent much of my adult life in recovery from emotional, sexual and
physical abuse which led me into a religious system whose theological
perspectives created a context where spiritual abuse was sometimes operating…..more
on that later. What I want to focus on initially is educating;
and then sharing a small piece of my story of what it is like living with the
repercussions and navigating what I call ‘my two realities’.
The science
behind PTSD is comprehensive and much too complicated for a blog post. I will try to provide just enough information
to shed a light on my personal experience, but if you have a loved one who
suffers or an interest I would recommend several books; A Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment
by Babette Rothschild, Spiritual Crisis
Surviving Trauma to the Soul by J. LeBron McBride and my current read, Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach
to Psychotherapy by Pat Ogden, Kekuni Minton, Clare Pain and Daniel J.
Siegel.
Trauma wounds
the very core of a person’s soul. The
following is paraphrased from McBride’s book Spiritual Crisis: Upon seeing innocent children burned alive, Elie Wiesel
wrote of his traumatic experience; ‘flames consumed my faith forever, murdered
my God and my soul.’ Others said the
experience is when ‘the spirit went numb and soul development stopped’; it has
also been defined as a ‘disorder of hope, a spiritual night and a loss of faith
that there is order and continuity in life’.
PTSD is a
biological response brought on by life threatening events that trap the trauma
within the autonomic system; in other words, it freezes the trauma allowing for
an echo of the original trauma to reactivate the initial response making the
person feel like they have traveled back in time and are re-experiencing the primary
threat. It is not a form of amnesia, but
an experiencing of two realities in the same moment. Sometimes the sufferer is aware they are in
the midst of an episode; most often they aren’t until it subsides. To put it in other words, the person’s system
is reacting to a past event within the context of a current situation that has
little or nothing to do with it.
Needless to say, it is disorienting for both the sufferer and those who
are their intimates, specifically for those who have gone undiagnosed.
Ogden writes, “The function of the
‘mind’ – that extraordinary human capacity to observe, know, and predict – is
to inhibit, organize, and modulate those automatic responses, thereby helping
us manage and preserve our relationships with our fellow human beings, on whom
we so desperately depend for meaning, company, affirmation, protection and
connection.”
What PTSD ends
up doing is inhibiting the brains ability to function in this manner; rather it
activates the response that fuels chaotic emotions reinforcing the devastation
of trauma’s prior event. Hormonal
secretions (a subcortical response) explain why responses to certain triggers can
seem irrational or irrelevant and even harmful in the context of the present
moment. Episodes lead to blow ups in
response to minor provocations, freezing when frustrated; and helplessness in
the face of trivial challenges. Without
a historical context to understand the somatic and motoric inheritance, their
emotions seem out of place causing significant shame and embarrassment to those
who experience them.
Neuroimaging
of traumatized people under stress reveal that the sensory trigger of past
trauma activates the emotional brain to engage protectively changing the
sympathetic and parasympathetic system that ultimately interferes with
effective executive functioning. This
leaves their brain with less control over behavior and causing behavioral regression. With well-functioning rational compromised;
the individual reverts to ‘fixed action patterns’ as well as reactivating the
physical response of terror, abandonment and helplessness in excruciating detail.
In an effort
to simplify, McBride defines PTSD as leaving the sufferer without hope and
disconnected from self, others and even God by destroying the ability to
integrate their experience into their personhood. The outcome is a loss of having a safe place
to retreat to within or outside of oneself in order to deal with frightening
emotions and experiences; and leaving them to relive the impact of trauma
repeatedly; therefore compounding and reinforcing trauma’s affects.
Yes, I have
PTSD.
It brings sorrow
and tears as I reflect on how its operation in my life has hindered and aborted
the very forces needed to heal; the unending consequence I pay for wrongs done
to me, the time it has robbed and ultimately for the pain it inflicts on my most
intimate relationships. My journey has
been much more problematic because I went undiagnosed long after the original
injuries leaving me to blindly navigate it’s symptoms for many years. Even when I was finally diagnosed in 2000 I
was so embedded in a religious system that spiritualized every ill under the
sun that the realities of what I was dealing with never fully landed. In its wake I was left feeling incompetent, defective
and hiding under shame’s shroud.
In the early
years I was barely functional suffering from anxiety and fear levels so high I
was borderline agoraphobic. Any event in
public pulled deeply on internal resources that would lead me to shut down for
hours, even days following in order to regain my internal equilibrium. I would never travel too far or into unfamiliar
places; and when I did I wouldn’t go alone needing to know the minute details
of where, when and how in order to keep my anxiety in check. Walking through a garage or entering into an
elevator was an act of heroic proportions.
With my system in a permanent state of alert; the process of getting
myself up, out and to work while navigating the eight hours at the task I was
hired for left me with very little reserves pushing me deeper into isolation
and into trauma’s prison.
It was that
same confinement whose constraining nature pushed me deep into depression; yet
eventually the sheer monotony of life stirred a deeper need than the anxieties
I was dealing with drawing me slowly back into life. Over the years my boundaries have expanded and
passing time taught my system that daily events are not dangerous reducing the ever
present anxiety to low grade hum until unforeseen triggers send me back into a
full blown episode. The saddest part of
this narrative is the realization of its full implications and the way in which
it has colored the actions of my life didn’t land until a decade after the
original diagnosis. But, this
understanding has also helped me move away from survival mode and into a thriving
life.
The metaphor
I use to paint the picture of this journey is I have gone from a place in my
internal world that was pitch black, darker than night as I blindly bumped into
the walls of my 2 x 2 x 2 PTSD cell. In
time light started to shine making all that I saw shades of grey and revealing
that my cell was expanding. Hours rolled
into days and days into years when splashes of color would accent my black and
white world. Now the key has been turned
in the padlock, the bars of my cell have swung open and I have walked into a
world alive in all its Technicolor glory.
With that there is so much beauty, but at the same time it overwhelms my
senses as I learn to navigate brand new challenges. Entering into intimate relationship is drawing
out the deepest trauma injuries triggering me in unexpected moments and in
unexpected ways.
I wish I
could end this blog with a testimony that says full recovery is possible; but
that is not the current statistic. PTSD
is a chronic condition whose effect on the system can improve, but will never
completely leave. Yet, with new studies
in neuroscience and the infant field of brain imaging is providing hope to
those who suffer. EMDR and other somatic
therapies are showing strong promise and my feeling is that at some time in the
near future I can say I am no longer triggered allowing for my system to fully
heal.
Until then, the
journey of recovery continues……………..
