Why PTSD Won't Let Go of Me

I am a big believer that we have the power to choose our thoughts. One of my favorite quotes about this comes from Abraham Lincoln—“Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” I practice this every day. Every morning I wake up and make a conscious choice that today will be a good day, that my thoughts will be positive and my mood will be joyful. What results more often than not is a good day, sometimes even a better day than I imagined or at the very least a challenging day where by the time my head hits the pillow at night I’m still able to smile.

But when it comes to choosing your thoughts, there is an exception to this rule for those who suffer from PTSD.

I’ve never met anyone with PTSD who did not want to let go of their past. If anything, I’ve only met people who have wished it was that easy, to somehow stop the memories from flooding back at inopportune times or even silence them forever.

“PTSD: It’s not the person refusing to let go of the past, but the past refusing to let go of the person.”

I saw this quote online and after I read it I immediately thought YES! That’s exactly what it’s like.

And I think it’s an excellent quote to help people understand what PTSD is all about.

It’s so easy to say to someone experiencing the flashbacks from PTSD just let it go!....as if it’s possible to have complete control over those thoughts. I know this because I’ve heard that before, and I’ve also heard from other people with PTSD say they’ve been told the same thing. The truth is every desire within that human wants to do just that, to stop the flashbacks that are one of the most common symptoms of PTSD from ever occurring again….but it’s not that simple.

So to help you better understand what may happen in the mind of someone with PTSD when they’re exposed to their triggers, let me take you inside what has happened for me when I see and hear intensely strong winds, which is one of my triggers. Typically, before anything happens, I’m like my usual self—positive, happy, going about my day in a productive way—until that storm rolls in along with a really strong gust of wind. What then happens ranges in intensity, but I’ll give you an overview. Immediately I see myself back on the porch of the house I grew up in watching the scene of my father being struck by a tree during a freak storm. Sometimes, I think of a ton of intense details about what I saw and heard, such as the 9-1-1 call I made or the first responders tending to the scene. Sometimes, it’s a quick flashback of simply standing in that exact spot on the porch. Sometimes it lasts minutes. Sometimes only seconds. All the time, no matter how much therapy, yoga, meditation, acupuncture, running and whatever else I’ve discovered along the way that‘s helped me cope with my PTSD, I have flashbacks. Those have never gone away, and for me I’ve accepted that they may stick with me for the rest of my life.

The good news is this…. What I’ve learned over the last nineteen years that I’ve had PTSD is what results from those flashbacks doesn’t always run my life. For me it’s not about stopping the flashbacks from happening. That’s the past that’s refusing to let go of me. It’s how I choose to deal with their effects, and that’s where I have the power to stay strong and find my way back to my normal positive, happy, productive self.

I recognize I’m lucky in this regard, because my triggers are not everyday occurrences. But for those who suffer from flashbacks frequently because they can’t easily get away from their triggers, perhaps because they are a part of their job or the trigger is a rather everyday thing, think about what PTSD must be like for them. 

Can you see now why it may be challenging to simply let it go?

Traumatic Details in News Stories - Are They Worth It?

Back in August of 2005 while in Beijing, China studying acupuncture, I remember flipping on the television in the hotel room while my roommate Heidi showered. I put on CCTV News, which was the government controlled news channel. A brief story about a hurricane in New Orleans showed people sitting on rooftops of houses surrounded by water waving banners asking for help. 

As Heidi came out of the bathroom, I pointed to the television. “It can’t possibly be that bad,” I assumed, thinking the news in China would not be accurate or perhaps skewed. 

“Yeah,” Heidi replied. “I don’t think that’s right.”

We knew a hurricane had hit the gulf coast, but distracted by acupuncture classes and sightseeing, our entire group of around twenty acupuncture students were completely oblivious to what was happening. It wasn’t until a few days later when a few of us went to a computer lab to catch up on email that we ran into a friend we’d made who was from New Mexico and here for acupuncture education as well.

“Make sure you read the article in The New York Times,” he urged. “It’s really tragic what’s been happening in the aftermath of the hurricane.”

Each of us went to that website first. Immediately we realized this was real….that Americans were feeling neglected and forgotten, that women were handing over their babies to those who came to rescue everyone but were widely outnumbered by those who needed help, that people were dying in the Superdome, that people were abandoning their pets in order to evacuate and that out of desperation for food and water people feared crime would spread to neighboring states.

Reading this story alone was traumatizing.

After that experience, I cut back on the amount of news I watched and read. Up to that point, I was a news junkie. Every morning as I got ready and had my breakfast, the news would be on. If I was near a computer, I’d check the news. At 6:30pm, I’d watch the evening news. I liked being that informed.

But reading that one rather graphic story alone, which perhaps felt more impactful given I was immersed in an entirely different culture soaking up a lot of interesting experiences, taught me a lesson — there is a delicate balance between being informed and allowing the news to affect my psyche.

It seems like the last few weeks the news has been nothing but traumatic. For the brief fifteen minutes I typically spend on watching the news, I’m finding myself covering my eyes as reporters warn that what they’re about to show is graphic. There’s more and more days where I don’t turn on the news or look at a news website. Between videos of people being shot to what happened in Nice, France yesterday, it seems like the traumas of our world get the attention, and I wonder how much that trauma feeds into the mindset and actions of those who choose to watch and read about them. 

It was sad enough to learn that a box truck intentionally barreled through a crowded who had just finished watching fireworks in honor of Bastille Day. I’m not sure it was necessary to hear the reporter this morning on one of the major network morning shows reveal that there were strollers and a baby doll strewn about the carnage….and yes, even including that detail in this article makes me cringe at the idea that I may even be contributing against the point I’m trying to make.

I am aware that there’s a lot of work to be done in our country and around the world, but being aware of every grisly detail of every tragedy that the news seems to focus on more and more lately is not worth my energy. I am committed to remaining calm, healthy, focused and positive because people depend on me for their health care. As someone who used to suffer significantly from PTSD, doing anything else would prevent me from contributing to the world in the most positive way that I can. 

I doubt that I am alone, so I ask you this…. Is what you’re receiving from exposing yourself to a lot of these news stories contributing to your best self or dragging you down? Are you becoming a better person by watching these stories? Can you spend that time doing something more valuable for yourself and your community? If so, DO THAT.

Write it Out — Allow Paper to Hold Your Trauma

 

Nineteen years ago while sitting next to my father’s hospital bed in the intensive care unit, I knew I needed help. Thirty-six hours earlier, I had witnessed an accident that brought him to this place of being hooked up to more machines than I ever knew existed, which kept him alive even though his body was closer to death. 

It was a freak accident. One second the weather was perfectly beautiful and in the next second a powerful gust of wind from a line of thunderstorms blew in and ripped apart a tree in our front yard, striking my father as he walked towards our house from getting the mail. I was about to step off the porch to deliver the portable phone to him since one of his golf buddies had called. A simple, mundane moment became completely chaotic.

Seeing that and hearing the sound of the tree rip apart smacked my entire being. Nothing felt still; my mind raced, my body quivered, my tears wouldn’t stop. The order of events continuously repeated in my mind like a loud out-of-tune and off rhythm guitar riff at a bad rock concert. The tree, the rain, the wind, the flashing emergency lights, the first responders. The song and the experience was stuck in me.

Thirty-six hours later, believing at the time that my father would survive, I knew I needed help. I asked my mom if there was someone I could speak with, and a nurse happened to hear my request. Less than a half hour later, a counsellor appeared.

She took me into a quiet room adjacent to my father’s in the intensive care unit. I explained what was happening in my mind and that it felt impossible to quiet the noise. She told me to write it out. She found a pad of paper and a pen and encouraged me to write down every detail that was replaying in my mind. She left the room, and for forty-five minutes I wrote down everything.

When I was finished, I felt different. My mind was unequivocally quieter. My breath, which had felt tight and shallow, now sunk a little deeper. My body was no longer shaking. The tears stopped. The paper now held the memory of the trauma, and it gave my brain a break from thinking about it.

Looking back, I realize that was the beginning of my life with post-traumatic stress disorder, also known as PTSD. I’m not cured of it, and I’m ok with that. I know I’ll always be susceptible to re-experiencing flashbacks, anxiety, insomnia and social withdrawal if I’m exposed to my triggers, which are falling trees and intensely strong winds. However, I am thankful that those triggers are often rare, and when they have come, I’ve managed my reaction to them….for the most part.

Three years ago within the same week, two friends on two separate occasions approached me and asked the same question—how did you do it? What they meant was how did I go from struggling with PTSD to having a thriving acupuncture practice and a happy marriage. I didn’t have an immediate answer for either of them, but the more I thought about their question, the more I realized I had a story to share. 

I started writing my memoir about my journey with PTSD a month later. At that point, I thought I was very secure and clear with how to cope with my triggers. Revisiting those moments of trauma was challenging, but remarkable things began to happen. The more I wrote, the stronger I felt. The anticipation of a strong storm didn’t bother me as much. I was able to watch a friend cut down a tree, which mimicked sounds I heard way back when, without feeling any nervousness. 

I encourage anyone who has experienced a trauma that still haunts them to write it out. Allow the paper to hold the memories. Write it out over and over again if need be. Don’t worry about grammar or spelling. Don’t type it out on a computer. A good old fashioned pad and pen will do. Get every single detail out. What you saw, heard, smelled, said. All of it. It’s not about writing a story. It’s about getting the trauma out of your soul.

Many times while writing I thought back to that moment in that small room in the hospital with the pad and pen. It reminds me how grateful I am for that one piece of advice when I really needed it.