MILITARY BOOKS

IDEAS FOR HEALING POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

By Michele Rosenthal

parasitesof.themind@yahoo.com

Let’s get the trauma out of the way right off the bat: When I was thirteen I survived Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis Syndrome, an allergic reaction to a medication. This rare, life-threatening illness turns victims into burn patients almost overnight. So there I was, blistered and bleeding head to toe. By the time I left the hospital I had lost more than just 100% of my epidermis; I had lost myself, too.

But my particular trauma is inconsequential. While we are all individual in our traumas, our Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms and experience is universal. I had a chat the other day with a Gulf War vet who experienced the same PTSD emotional landscape as I described myself. So there you are, PTSD is an equal opportunity invader.

When I returned from the hospital PTSD set in almost immediately. I developed a bad case of insomnia, flashbacks, and nightmares. I walked around every day terrified that another trauma would occur and this time, I would not survive. Various and subtle survival mechanisms got put in place. I was hypervigilant, hyperaroused and hyperaware. I attempted to control everything about my body and immediate surroundings. I strove to make myself feel safe – and drove myself crazy in the process.

Determined to get as far as possible from the whole event, I threw myself into life full force. I crammed my days with school work and extracurricular activities so there was no time to think, reflect, examine, feel or discuss my illness and its aftermath. A practice I continued for the next twenty-five years, this ‘run as fast as I can’ idea turned out to be not such a great strategy. I descended into a mute internal silence and a deep emotional coma. The fear I felt was overwhelming. The pain I experienced was tremendous. The memories were too forceful and so, rather than reach out for help, I burrowed within. I became completely emotionally isolated, dissociated and disengaged from the present moment, lost in a fiercely active anorexia and a deep depression.

I graduated high school, and then an Ivy League university. I had relationships (or pretended to since I never emotionally engaged). I held jobs (for a little while since I got bored easily and couldn’t decide where to focus my feeble interests). By my mid-twenties the toll of my first PTSD decade began to take effect. I suffered one severe, chronic illness after another. I had a few more allergic reactions to medications – nothing major, but enough to impede my health. My body and mind were now working in tandem to continually recreate aspects of the original trauma. I became bedridden by physical symptoms, even more depressed and lost my job after my body so completely shut down I could no longer work. This went on for another decade during which I recuperated, returned to work and then relapsed. Nightmares and flashbacks continued. I suffered impaired organ function, my hair fell out; my weight dangerously dropped. I couldn’t sustain relationships. I lived in a dissociative fog and a black depression. I slept an average 2-3 hours a night.

Second, I furthered the whole new identity idea by making a commitment to pursue joy. I did this for a couple of reasons, beginning with the fact that it is not possible to be joyous and depressed in the same moment. I wanted to develop a joy habit that would bring me into a sustainable, pleasurable moment and distract my (conscious and subconscious) enslavement to the past. For me, this activity was dance. I knew that every time I danced I couldn’t help smiling. I decided to dance a lot.

Third, I entered hypnotherapy. My PTSD habit was so entrenched joy alone could not eradicate all of the symptoms. While it alleviated many, joy accomplished something even more important: Over a period of months joy gave me the courage to believe I could be trauma/PTSD-free. That strong desire lead me to hypnotherapy, an event that changed my life. In the right frame of mind, with the right hypnotherapist, hypnotherapy has been scientifically proven to relieve PTSD symptoms. It eliminated every lingering one of mine.

So here I am, into my second year of leading a joyful, PTSD-free life. I am convinced it all happened because I wanted it to. Sure, for the two decades I suffered with PTSD I’d have told you I wanted to be rid of it (and I sort of, halfheartedly, would have meant it), but it wasn’t until I had facts, a plan and desire that I could let it go. Defining a self outside of trauma gave me a solid replacement for the self I depended on in the wake of trauma. This process, of understanding PTSD, developing a new self-perception, pursuing joy, and integrating traumatic memories into my whole identity allowed me to regain power over PTSD and my life. When I replaced the old self-paradigm with a new one I was finally freed.

All of this leaves me with the belief that the key to healing PTSD is the desire with which we approach the process. For years I shuttled from doctor to specialist saying, Heal me! But things ultimately turned around when I engaged in the process and said, I want to be healed.