Question:
It seems to me there was some awfully clear and reasonable presentations made in reply that took just a few minutes. I takes me 10 minutes to spell check a post. I am sure these folks are in potential distress and they are stable (I don’t know what that means) right now. I’ve tried a great many Meds that didn’t work. Some people found Meds that did work… I guess. Some folks seem too rational and organized. I have two Docs, for comparison. One is the best PTSD Docs in Wisconsin and ran the PTSD program at the VA for 12 years. In a letter to the VA he wrote, "The battle experiences Mr. Trucks has experienced were as intense and severe as any I have ever heard about during all my encounters with Veterans." I’m sure most of these folks are in real distress but like you, I feel a bit more "broken", not that I’m counting marbles but both my expensive, experienced Doctors are stumped. I have developed some coping strategies and my anger is not as bad recently. I still have no idea how to deal with this ‘hole in my heart’. Meds, therapy, trying to love, being with my family and on and on…nothing takes the hole away. I was horribly beaten for years as a child. The blood would drain into my shoes. My father was crazy and chased me poking holes in me with scissors. On the street at 12 I was gang raped twice at 13 by bunches of faggots. I was abandoned. I had nobody. I became a superstar in the Special Forces and my Service Jacket shows 43 kills, 20 w/knife and 7 w/bare hands and shot 16 but for sure more that were unconfirmed, I know that for certain. We fought at night and I’d lite off C-4 and blow everything to hell. I just can’t think and be normal. I’m sorry. I spent years in absolute mortal fear as a child. I don’t remember a peaceful moment. Then, fool that I am, I volunteered for very grizzly duty in North Laos, South China and North Vietnam. We operated from the Gulf of Tonkin and went ‘in country’ without MediVac or Air Support on Search & Destroy missions. We’d locate munition trains ( water buffalos carrying Ordnance with their NVA tenders) and destroy them before they got to the war in the South. It was hard and deadly work and only 48 of us. I got ‘hooked’ on the sickness of it and did 3 tours ( 37 months). In Laos, we found children, mothers and older men gutted and flayed open with a stick and hung in the trees to dry. I thought they were a warning example for years then I remembered we later found several thousand dead and rotting bodies and an Interpreter told us the wells in the Northern Sector had been poisoned by Americans. Apparently in an effort to keep Laos from switching camps, the CIA has done all that. I had wondered, I was one of the few to go to ‘Quick Kill School’ and most there were CIA and wouldn’t say more than Hi to me. So we are all equal. huh? OK… I’ll go with that. The guy that wrecks his car is as traumatized as I am…OK. I have no problem with that because I don’t ever expect to think about it again. What I am doing is grasping a word here and there that may help me have a touch of balance. I do have a problem with being "instructed" by rational, functional humans who are light years from where I’m at. I have no problem with sincere interest or even mild critisims from those who have been in the trenches. By the way… my GAF is 28 which is an "INPATIENT" rating but I am very well off and so nobody bothers me. I have functioned like this for many years. Lets all get along, OK. Bill
Response:
> By the way… my GAF is 28 which is an >"INPATIENT" rating but I am very well off and so nobody bothers me. I >have functioned like this for many years. Lets all get along, OK.
I’m all for getting along!! <g> I have functioned the way that I have for many years too. With the help of therapy and meds, I do not get as angry as I used to, but I have a long way to go. I continually work at it. Since I tend to "isolate" I don’t like groups, meetings, stuff like that. Typical PTSD sign too. I do well with one-on-one with my therapist. I am also close to my sister but don’t have many others that I am close to in my life. I guess my biggest gripe is when fellow PTSD’ers or PTSD wanna-be’s tell me to read their favorite self-help books or tell me to go to meetings cuz this is something I cannot do as my symptoms don’t allow this. It triggers me, and I start to get pissed. I’m sorry as I don’t mean to insult or upset anyone here. These are my feelings though. Luanne
Response:
There’s a hell of a lot of anger in this list at the moment. Why does it seem that your trying to claim that your ptsd is ‘better’ because you’ve been ‘more’ traumatised. Severe ptsd is PTSD. Mild ptsd is still PTSD. If someone has treatable cancer do you berate them because someone else is terminal. PTSD is an illness. No illness is better than any other. Sure your pissed, but try not to misdirect it. My life has been shattered by some of my experiences, but in no way does that invalidate the fact that someone else has been traumatised by something like an auto accident. Everyone reacts to things in different ways. What happens to one person could well cause PTSD, to another it could be a catalyst to performing great things. Some people need to read, to find something written down explaining why they feel the way they do. Do you remember what it was like to discover you had PTSD? For me it washed over me like this huge relief. I wasn’t crazy, I was feeling these things, they were real. OK let people know what your feeling, but don’t judge what people say here when they’re talking of their own experiences. This place is meant to be about support.
Response:
LuanneP wrote in message <19990101025151.00853.00005…@ng-fi1.aol.com>…
snip >I guess my biggest gripe is when fellow PTSD’ers or PTSD wanna-be’s tell me to >read their favorite self-help books or tell me to go to meetings cuz this is >something I cannot do as my symptoms don’t allow this. It triggers me, and I >start to get pissed.
would all the wanna-be’s please stand up!!!….I don’t think were a real popular club. There is so much material to read on the net ….you can do it from home better. And we meet here everyday….this is a huge plus. James "For the Rose, there comes a time when it is more painful to remain a bud than it is to blossom to full flower." – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->I’m sorry as I don’t mean to insult or upset anyone here. These are my >feelings though. >Luanne
Response:
Mairtin wrote in message <76i5k2$su…@newsource.ihug.co.nz>…
snip >There’s a hell of a lot of anger in this list at the moment. Why does it >seem that your trying to claim that your ptsd is ‘better’ because you’ve >been ‘more’ traumatised. >Severe ptsd is PTSD. >Mild ptsd is still PTSD.
All of us varie and are unique in the cause of our traumas. All of us our similar in the effects of of the traumas It is the effects that we should be here for. James "There ain’t no future in the past"
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