There's a lot of awareness about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder these days. There are a lot of posts on Facebook urging people to remember those battling PTSD, but I've yet to see anyone step up and admit that they have it. No matter how much we struggle to help and understand the people living with it we can't escape the simple fact that there still seems to be a stigma around it. So I'll let you all in on something about my life - I'm living with PTSD.
I finally admitted that I needed help and I've been in counseling since November. In a way I was actually relieved to find out that's what it is because at least now I have an answer to all of the symptoms I've dealt with for almost 2 years. Mine isn't severe and doesn't require medication, and I hope that someday I'll be free from the disorder.
Let's take yesterday for example. We were at my parents' apartment and there was a movie on TV. In the movie a family was trying to make it through the wind outside to their cellar as a tornado was approaching. You could hear the wind as they sat down in the cellar waiting out the storm. When they came out everything was gone. I told myself that it was okay. I wasn't experiencing the storm - it was just on TV. There was no threat to my life. And for someone else that would have been enough. Not for me. I had a nightmare last night that I know was triggered from watching that scene.
In the nightmare I was walking through the house, only it wasn't the house we have in real live, and the tornado siren sounded. We weren't expecting any severe weather, so I was nervous. I didn't know where the storm was, but I started telling Brandon to help me get the cats in their pet carriers. (We do that now in real life because I can't bear the thoughts of losing another pet in that way. One of my biggest fears is that we won't be able to find them all in time and we will have to leave one of them behind in a warning). Of course, Brandon goes to the bathroom and stays, and stays, and stays. (I've done that in my nightmares before too. I think the bathroom part of some of the nightmares comes from the fact that on April 27 I didn't go to the bathroom before the tornado came through. I thought the warning would be over in a few minutes and I would go then. I paid dearly for that decision and it shows even in my dreams now).
So Brandon is in the bathroom in the dream, and I was trying to get the cats into the carriers by myself. I kept yelling at Brandon,"We have to go!". Of course that didn't help. I managed to get Hammer and Miller into a carrier together (we put them in the same carrier in real life because Miller flips out when he's in one alone). I put Daisy in another. I yelled at Brandon again "we HAVE to go NOW!". I knew every minute we waited the tornado was getting closer and closer. Finally I decided to go ahead and take the pet carriers out and put them in the shelter and come back and get Lily since I couldn't take her down first and leave her. I couldn't get Furball in a carrier so I had to leave her inside.
Outside the sky was so dark, and I knew the tornado was coming. Brandon appeared outside the shelter while I was taking the carriers down. He asked me what to do, and I yelled for him to bring Lily down. As we all sat in the shelter waiting for the storm to hit I kept thinking about having to leave Furball behind. Thankfully, I woke up before the storm hit just like I usually do.
NIghtmares like that have plagued me not just for almost 2 years since the tornado, but for my entire life. Long before April 27 I had nightmares of living through tornadoes though they were a LOT less frequent in those days.
Most people, even after April 27, hear about the chance of tornadoes and they might be a little worried, but it doesn't affect their life. When I hear about I get anxious until they threat is over, even if the forecast is several days in advance. I wait for it in dread. When most people hear that forecast they think "oh, it might get bad tomorrow", but when I hear it I think "I don't want to die tomorrow", and in my mind I feel like I'm going to have to fight for my life every time a thunderstorm comes through.
I was so numb after the tornado - that's how your body reacts so that you aren't too overwhelmed by the grief. There was so much to be done with the cleanup and insurance and starting over that I kept myself pretty busy so I didn't have to think about everything and feel all of those emotions. Well, that was fine in the beginning, but eventually I reached the point where I couldn't slow down. If I wasn't constantly doing something - like cleaning - then my mind started letting things in and I would get anxious and nervous. It reached the point where I didn't know how to relax. If I sat down to just watch TV or read I would get antsy because there were so many things I felt like I should be doing instead. A lot of times if I wanted to read I'd do it while walking on the treadmill, that way both my mind and my body were busy. I think I drove Brandon crazy constantly asking him to do things around the house that didn't really didn't need to be done right that minute, but if I saw something I could do that would distract me I couldn't stop thinking about it until it was done. I'm so grateful to be married to a counselor who realized what I was doing and kept encouraging me to talk to a counselor. Brandon and I never argued during those moments, he was just the voice of reason gently convincing me that we didn't need to mop the whole house at bedtime, or whatever strange thing popped into my mind.
I'm doing better. I can actually sit down and relax now. If I couldn't, I would be cleaning the entire house right now instead of writing this. It's still hard though. There are times when I want to do something to keep myself busy instead of relax, and I know I may never get completely away from that. But I'm trying. I've acknowledged that I can't do it on my own and that's one of the most important thing for anyone who lives with any form of PTSD - admitting that you need help and even more important than that is knowing that there is absolutely nothing wrong with admitting you need help.
Maybe tomorrow I'll write Part 2 about the rest of the things I've dealt with - the memory loss, seeing things that aren't there, and how overwhelming even the simplest things can be.
In the mean time, if I deal with these issues because of a natural disaster, just imagine what our returning soldiers, who've been through the horrors of war, are going through. My heart goes out to them. I hope they get the help they may need to adjust back into life outside of the war zone. Somehow we have to lose the stigma surrounding PTSD. Maybe it starts one person at a time.
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