PTSD Alive Day

by Chaplain Kathie

When the troops survive a serious wound from bullets and bomb blasts, they call it their alive day. They know they will have to live with the wound the rest of their lives but they are focused on recovering and healing.

When the troops end up wounded by what they endured, the wound is not on their body but within their body. This wound is because they survived horrifying events. Friends died. Civilians died. Children died. Too many enemies died. They almost died. For them, the time between the event that was one too many for their soul to "get over" and the time they deal with all the symptoms of PTSD to begin to heal, it is much like a slow death.

PTSD can cause many symptoms

These symptoms can be grouped into three categories

1. Re-experiencing symptoms

Flashbacks—reliving the trauma over and over, including physical symptoms like a racing heart or sweating

Bad dreams

Frightening thoughts.

Re-experiencing symptoms may cause problems in a person’s everyday routine. They can start from the person’s own thoughts and feelings. Words, objects, or situations that are reminders of the event can also trigger re-experiencing.

2. Avoidance symptoms

Staying away from places, events, or objects that are reminders of the experience

Feeling emotionally numb

Feeling strong guilt, depression, or worry

Losing interest in activities that were enjoyable in the past

Having trouble remembering the dangerous event.

Things that remind a person of the traumatic event can trigger avoidance symptoms. These symptoms may cause a person to change his or her personal routine. For example, after a bad car accident, a person who usually drives may avoid driving or riding in a car.

3. Hyperarousal symptoms

Being easily startled

Feeling tense or “on edge”

Having difficulty sleeping, and/or having angry outbursts.

Hyperarousal symptoms are usually constant, instead of being triggered by things that remind one of the traumatic event. They can make the person feel stressed and angry. These symptoms may make it hard to do daily tasks, such as sleeping, eating, or concentrating.

It’s natural to have some of these symptoms after a dangerous event. Sometimes people have very serious symptoms that go away after a few weeks. This is called acute stress disorder, or ASD. When the symptoms last more than a few weeks and become an ongoing problem, they might be PTSD. Some people with PTSD don’t show any symptoms for weeks or months.

If after a traumatic event, these feelings do not start to ease then you need to seek help.

PTSD takes control over them, over their character trapping in their capacity to feel good emotions often leaving only anger to escape. Yet when they are provided with support from family and friends with knowledge of what they are healing from, therapy as well as medication from experts on PTSD, they arrive at their own alive day when they recognize the person they see in the mirror.

A day comes when they laugh again and feel it. When they can hold the person they love most on this earth and they feel it. When they can find hope for tomorrow being better. When they can find the return of their faith in God's abundant love for them. All this comes when they are helped and they arrive at a day when they are not the same as they were before, but better than they were before. This can be your alive day even when you cannot be cured of all aspects of PTSD. It comes when your soul has healed.

It comes when you have a nightmare and your spouse gently wakes you up instead of shouting at you or shaking you awake. You know she/he understands where that nightmare took you back to and that you are hurting inside. It comes when you have a flashback and are gently brought back to here and now. These simple acts of loving kindness begin to heal your soul.

It comes when your child understands why Dad or Mom react the way they do to sudden noises and they know it is not their fault any more than it is their Dad's fault or their Mom's fault.

It comes when you find the tricks to get around short term memory loss and stop feeling as if you are an idiot.

It also comes when you think you are getting worse because you cannot understand where all the tears are coming from. As you begin to heal, all the emotions that were trapped behind a wall begin to leak out from the holes of healing. They are reawakened when once all you could feel was anger.

It comes when you know the pain you carry inside of your own skin and then use that knowledge to help other veterans get to where you are, able to feel again and be alive again.

Once again you can remember the person you always were, recognize your character reawakened. Your level of compassion opened the door to PTSD but this same level will also open the door to healing and feeling and then use that sense beyond self to help others.

When it comes to PTSD, your alive day can heal many others because they will see their own sense of hope restored. They can find the faith they thought was gone forever and know PTSD is not a curse of the wretched but a wound to the compassionate soul.

Talk to your family and let them know you need help to heal. You do not have to go into detail but you can let them know what "changed you" and that you need them to help you be "you" again.

Heaven Knows They Need You

Posted to Great Americans by NamGuardianAngel on December 14, 2009

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Chaplain Kathie

Senior IFOC Chaplain

407-754-7256

web site

www.namguardianangel.com

blog for the latest news on PTSD and more videos

www.woundedtimes.blogspot.com

Nam Guardian Angel is a Charter of the IFOC, (501c3)38-3446353

FL CH31378

"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington