by Band Back Together | Dec 10, 2018 | Anxiety, Anxiety Disorders, Coping With Anxiety Disorders, Feelings, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Resources, How To Cope With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Mental Health, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Trauma |
No one person is exactly the same as another. Mental illness affects everyone differently.
PTSD is defined as a condition that occurs in some people who have suffered through traumatic experiences. These feelings of anxiety, discomfort, and being scared can happen to people in their normal everyday lives, and those who have PTSD learn that these symptoms doesn’t go away. We suffer from many different symptoms on a regular basis.
Medical professionals feel PSTD is when someone has these lingering feelings for “at least a month or so.”
I can’t remember a time in my life that was “before PTSD”.
I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when I was in my early 20’s. At the time, I didn’t really think too much of it, and I didn’t research it. I was diagnosed with some other issues at the same time and I thought they were the important things I should be dealing with. Looking back on my life, I realize how much PTSD has affected me when I had no idea what it was. Clearly the PTSD is what I should have been dealing with this whole time, as the others are all by-products.
One thing I’d like to touch on is that people without PTSD tend to think that the 30+ year old trauma is what is haunting me today – however I do not normally have flashbacks or nightmares of the very old traumatic experience. It’s like my brain got programmed when I had the first trauma to overreact to all trauma so now, many years later I experience a major reaction to trauma. What may seem small to a non-PTSD sufferer, can be major to the brain of someone with PTSD Your brain tells your entire body to react to this huge event.
Some of my friends could (and probably do) describe me as being a negative person. I’d describe myself as realistic; I try to see all sides of a situation, good and bad. When friends are being very optimistic and point out good things in a situation, I will point out everything – all sides. Pointing out the bad things is why I often get told I’m pessimistic. I try not to, but I live with a constant feeling of fear, worry, and anxiety so it can be difficult for me to feel like things are going my way and everything will be fine. While I try not to spill it, sometimes it still slips out.
Persistent instability to experience positive emotions is described as a symptom of PTSD.
I don’t watch horror movies, and yes I’ve been mocked because I was a “wuss” or a “baby.” Honestly, I just brush it off, because they don’t know what it’s like to wake up in the middle of the night to a flashback. It’s not a dream, it’s not a nightmare, it’s everything you’re afraid of. There are always things in the back of your mind percolating.
Dark closets and corners hiding things that you forgot about or didn’t see as a problem. Today is day when it becomes a problem, and you’re going to remember it in the most traumatic way (even if it didn’t happen that way). It’s going to scare the living shit out of you, and linger with you like a cloud following you around ready to suck you up at any moment.
Every time your mind starts to wander for the following days or weeks, it will go back there and BOOM.
Sweating, anxiety, heart is racing, your body is shaking. You calm yourself down and after a while you feel back to normal again. Just when you think it might have gone away and left you alone, you walk around the corner and see something, hear something or smell something that reminds you of it and BOOM.
Back into high adrenaline mode. You take some time to calm yourself down. You go back to work, or whatever you were doing. You go on with your day. You’re cleaning up dinner, the kids are in bed and you think “I’m tried, it’s been a long day, I’ll head off to bed now too”. You crawl into bed and drift off to sleep. Then when your guard is down and it’s the middle of the night.
BOOM.
You wake up crying and shaking and sweating and scared. I did not know that these feelings were part of my disorder until recently. Flash backs and re-experiencing the trauma including “what if” scenarios through nightmares is a common characteristic of PTSD.
Most of my early life (pre-20) I don’t remember. I have relied on others to tell me what happened, even though I was there. I generally tell people that I have a bad memory and can’t remember much from my childhood or adolescence. I can sometimes be reminded and recall a memory, but I often can’t remember much.
I had no idea that repression and “lost memory” was my brain trying to protect me from my traumatic events.
It is very well known in my circle of friends that I’m easily startled. Most of them find it quite hilarious.
I often find myself at work and round a corner or open a door that has no window to find someone on the other side. I will jump out of my skin and usually let out a high pitched shriek which will usually get a reaction from the other person (either startle them or they laugh or both). This is a characteristic related to the hyper vigilance aspect of PTSD because I’m often on edge or on alert. It is also common for PTSD sufferers to have an exaggerated response when startled.
When something traumatic happens in my life, I can have flashbacks or re-experience the trauma, or sometimes my brain will play out “what if” scenarios. This usually occurs with the newest trauma but sometimes can go back to something that happened many years ago. If the trauma is very fresh, I can’t get to sleep.
Every time I try to close my eyes the event will replay itself and I’m in a state of panic.
This will continue all night and when I finally feel like I’ve fallen asleep I’ll have to get up and go to work, which leaves me feeling exhausted and unable to cope with getting through the day. This as PTSD-induced insomnia.
Another characteristic of PTSD is self blame, feeling hopeless ,and may including having negative thoughts about yourself.
I’d like to let you know, if you’re reading this PTSD is not your fault. If you are feeling this way, I encourage you to seek medical attention and the support of your friends or family. If that is not an option, there are helplines and even chats you can speak with someone.
There are other things that are on the “common list of PTSD symptoms” that I have not listed. Some I didn’t want to talk about and some I don’t normally experience.
I know that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can affect people differently so I decided to write how it affects me.
by Band Back Together | Dec 7, 2018 | A Letter I Can't Send, Anger, Ask The Band, Feelings, Mental Health, Mental Illness Stigma |
I am finally coming to accept that my mother has a variety of mental illnesses.
I’ve known all my life something was wrong.
Mostly I have ignored it, and even joked about it, trying to blow off steam.
Nothing was ever good enough for my mother. If I came home with B’s on my report card, she would want to know why they weren’t A’s, saying that “I could have done better.”
My father only talked to me about how to fix something. He never shared much about his life, other than stuff about his job. He would tell stories for hours that went on about nothing. In lieu of parenting us, my mother just bought stuff for my sister and me.
Mom was also a bulimic. Day after day when I was growing up, I would hear her in the bathroom throwing up after every meal. If we asked about it, she would deny it and change the subject. Dad defended her and said it was “none of our business.”
My grandmother knew they were incapable of parenting so we stayed over at her house as much as possible. My grandmother basically raised me from the time I was 12 years old. I moved in with her and took care of her after her first heart attack.
Sadly, I was an adult from that day on. I cooked, cleaned and ran her house. We had a great relationship.
Then, my grandmother found out I was gay. She told me I was a sinner, an embarrassment, and told me I wasn’t her grandchild anymore unless I was “healed.”
So I moved out on my own for the first time. We didn’t speak for years.
After Granny died, and later, my father, Mom was on her own. For the first time in her life, she had control of the bills.
It took her less than two years to spend all of the money in the saving accounts that both my dad and granny had left. She then mortgaged her home in order to go shopping and go to the bingo halls. She recently moved in with me because she had no choice: it was me or the streets. She couldn’t manage her money and had gambled it away.
Mom has always been controlling, She gets mad if I leave the house without telling her where, when, and why, even calling my friends to find out where I am. She argues with me over everything: the food, and even the type of trash bags I buy.
She claims that “I owe her” and refuses to chip in with the utilities.
If she is driving in the car with my sister or me and she doesn’t like the music or the conversation, she tells us that she’s going to ram the car into a tree.
She is home all day alone while I go to work. When I get home, if she hasn’t already called me ten times, she has had the whole day to get worked up about something – anything. She will unload on me as soon as I walk in the door.
She gets “nervous” about some story on the local news, or something she heard on the police scanner she listens to all day, or something horrible a friend told her about, and has to tell me that it could happen to me so I must be careful.
Almost every night is a war and a screaming fit complete with her shaking her fists and slamming my door. The next day, she says “Good Morning,” like it never happened.
Tonight she screamed at me, told me to go to hell, and stay there and slammed my bedroom door. I can’t stand it anymore, she refuses to go to a doctor. Tonight I told her if she didn’t get help, I would call an ambulance and force her to see a doctor. I have no support, no family to help.
She badmouths me to her friends, and they always act like I’m such a jerk.
Despite how it sounds, I love my mother.
I know there is help for her, but she will not go. She says therapy is stupid, and she just bites her nails when she gets upset.
Is anyone else going through something similar? Does anyone have advice for me?
by Band Back Together | Dec 5, 2018 | Anxiety Disorders, Coping With Anxiety Disorders, Coping With Depression, Depression, Feelings, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Resources, Major Depressive Disorder, Mental Health, Postpartum Depression, Prenatal (Antenatal) Depression |
Depression and I have been dancing partners for more than a decade now. Sometimes it’s a slow waltz, sometimes a spinning reel, and sometimes I get to sit off to one side and take a nice relaxing break from my dark friend.
Over the years I’ve learned to observe my own triggers and put safety valves in place. For example, I go to therapy once a year, even if I’m not depressed, just to keep tabs on the way I’m feeling. As soon as I discovered I was pregnant in 2008, I knew I had to keep a watchful eye on myself. I was prepared – absolutely certain – that I would end up with postpartum depression, and I was terrified of feeling as low as I could go with a baby to look after. When I hit rock bottom, I can hardly care for myself. How was I supposed to look after this tiny new person as well?
So, I lined up a therapy session at 34 weeks of pregnancy, aiming to build myself a nice set of mental defenses against the coming storm.
I went to my first session, wanting to talk about my anxiety over going on maternity leave. I loved my job, and I didn’t know how I could stand to be at home all day every day with a baby. We talked about it. I cried a little.
No, I didn’t. I cried a lot. I cried so much that I couldn’t even talk. I just sat there on the couch, sobbing so hard that my unborn baby started squirming, and the psychologist had to go get a second box of tissues. I did that for a whole hour, all the while trying to gasp out explanations for my behaviour. Hormones, obviously. Stress. Fear of change, of the unknown. I knew all my triggers.
Didn’t I?
Later that night, I was at home when there was a knock at my front door. There was a lady standing there who I recognised, although she didn’t know me. She was the niece of a work colleague – and she was a drug addict who was mixed up in all kinds of bad things that I’d been hearing about for weeks at work. She asked me if I could give her a lift into town. Odd request from someone you don’t know and I blurted out the question, “What for?”
She informed me that she was out of her anti-psychotic medication, and if she didn’t get to the pharmacy as soon as possible she was going to end up really sick.
Yikes. I threw out the first excuse I could think of – I told her I was pregnant and tired, and I couldn’t do it.
Mistake. Her eyes shot to my belly, and she spent the next couple of minutes telling me how lucky I was, and how she wanted her own baby, and… And by that point, my other mental dance partner was knocking loudly on the door of my brain – anxiety. I got her to leave, to go ask a different random stranger for that lift, and then I stayed awake. All. Night.
Convinced, utterly convinced, that she was coming back with a knife, and she was going to try to take my child from me.
By the time my next therapy session came around a week later, I wasn’t just a bawling mess- I was a shaking, hysterical, terrified mess, convinced that some kind of evil was heading my way. No ifs or buts about it, something bad was going to happen – from this girl, random strangers, an accident – I was sure that either my baby or I was in trouble, and no amount of logic or reasoning could sway my reptilian brain centre from this fear response.
And at that point I realised that this time, my depression and my anxiety had snuck around that safety valve, and I was in the extremely intense grip of something they hadn’t talked about in any of my childbirth classes:
Antenatal depression.
Before the baby arrives, you’re supposed to be the glowing mother-to-be, fondly looking forward to the arrival of your new little one, taking it easy, enjoying your last days of freedom. Sure, you might get depressed once you’re sleep deprived, struggling to breastfeed and awash with postpartum hormones, but before the birth – no, that’s all supposed to be sunshine and moonbeams.
I was ever so glad I’d gone to that first therapy session, because otherwise I would have been running up against all these feelings with a baby in my arms. Or not, as the case so happened – it turns out I wasn’t wrong about my dire predictions, and everything did in fact go horribly wrong. But by that stage, despite a crash c-section, my baby being airlifted away from me, a month in the NICU, I found myself able to handle some of the greatest stress I’ve ever experienced without breaking down. By that stage, I was seven weeks into my therapy course, taking antidepressants, and acknowledging my fears.
From the simplest (fear of being bored) to the most complex (fearing that I’d end up being too much like my own mother and would turn my daughter into just this kind of wreck), I had faced down those issues, broken them into pieces, examined them, and found that they weren’t as scary as I thought. I’d come to understand some of the most important rules of becoming a mother; first, you can’t control what happens, so you just have to roll with it; second, your best is absolutely good enough; third, you can’t predict the future, so there’s no point guessing.
So, I guess this leads me to a few points about my experience of antenatal depression:
- It exists, and it’s not always the hormones. If you feel down, anxious or sad to a degree where it starts affecting your life or your enjoyment of life, go see someone about it. Your doctor, your therapist – it never hurts to talk, whether you conclude in the end that you’re depressed or not. You might end up with post-partum depression and be glad you put those defenses in place nice and early.
- I was terrified of taking antidepressant drugs during pregnancy for fear they might cause problems for my child. There are safe antidepressants you can take, and my personal experience was that the pregnancy hormones meant I had greater need for the medication than on previous occasions. My daughter’s problems, FWIW, were most certainly unrelated to the drugs, although when I weaned her from breastfeeding at 18 months, I was still taking the medication and as a result she went through a withdrawal process over about a week. She was a most unpleasant character during that week, but both before and after that, she was/is the same happy, delightful little person she’s always been.
- There’s no law saying you have to be delighted about everything baby-related. Birth? Bonding? Nappies? Cracked nipples? Pah! But in addition to those, of course, you get that milky new baby smell, smiles and cuddles, first words and steps and everything else that’s wonderful about kids. Taking a realistic view of the potential downers is important. Don’t expect it all to be utopia, but don’t expect it all to be terrible, either. Parenthood is, of course, a buffet that serves up a little awesome, a little awful, and you never know which you’re going to get.
by Band Back Together | Nov 29, 2018 | Anger, Anxiety, Denial, Fear, Feelings, Hope, Loneliness, Love, Military Deployment And Family, Sadness, Stress, Trauma |
I read a book the other day about a soldier’s account of his time in Iraq. It told of his missions and what he saw and what went through his mind while he was overseas. It was interesting, it was scary, it was so sad. It gave me an inside look, a first-hand account of what my husband went through in the year he was gone. It made me wonder. How would my book read, my first hand account of being a mom on the homefront, holding down the fort? Maybe it would be an interesting read, maybe it would flop. I really couldn’t tell you, but I figured I would try.
I believe Dan got word that he was on alert in February of 2004. That was a scary day, we spent the day at families houses telling them the news. I held it together, mostly, I was really okay until his sister asked me “How are you holding up?” I lost it! I cried because I was mad, I was hurt, I couldn’t believe it. But we still didn’t know when he could leave, it could be tomorrow, next week or next month, we just did not know and that was probably the scariest part. Would I have time to tell him goodbye. Would the kids understand what was happening? What was I going to do? I spent a lot of time crying, always in private, sometimes to friends, but mostly into my pillow. I had to stay strong, I had to make everyone think I was going to be OK, when really I wasn’t sure. I mean, how could I be?
We never really talked about him not coming home, but it was always on my mind. I didn’t think I could handle that, being a widow at 24!
I tried not to think about it, but it was always there… just under the surface.
Finally word came.
The official orders, I am sure I still have them saved on my computer somewhere, along with every email and IM conversation we had while he was gone. He was going to leave on Veteran’s Day 2004. Kinda fitting right? We prepared as best as we could. And bright and early on November 11th we headed out to the unit to tell our soldier, my husband, my kids father, goodbye – perhaps for the last time. All of our best friends and our families were there. It was a tense atmosphere, so much crying from everyone around, talking, laughing, and just a lot of quiet thinking.
Finally the time came for the soldiers to line up and get on the buses that would take them to the airport. There were hugs, and kisses and more tears. Then we all got into our cars and headed to the airport to watch them board the plane.
It was so very cold out. But I don’t remember being cold. We all gathered at the fence at the air strip. Dan was on every single news station. One of my favorite moments, I have on tape somewhere, Dan leans through the fence and kissed Nick goodbye. The whole QC got to see that. That was right after Nick proclaimed that Daddy had to take Blankie with him so he would not be scared, which brought tears to everyone around. Instead we tore a piece of Blankie off and Dan put it in his breast pocket, where it stayed until he came home. We said some more goodbyes and tried to hug through a fence, which was incredibly awkward by the way. Then they had to board the plane. We stood and waved, all of us until the door closed. I was still not ready to say goodbye so I didn’t get back in the car, I stood on a small hill and just watched, soon I was flanked on either side by my mother and my mother in law. That too was caught on video and aired on local television. And we waved, somewhere there’s pictures of us waving until the plane looks like just a speck of dust that is on a photograph. I don’t remember much after that. I don’t remember driving home. I don’t remember going to sleep that night. I probably cried. I don’t remember but that’s probably a good thing.
I remember waiting, a lot of waiting.
Waiting for mail, waiting for phone calls, waiting for the computer to beep that he was online and of course waiting for the call saying he was coming home.
But those are all stories for another day.
by Band Back Together | Nov 28, 2018 | Anxiety, Anxiety Disorders, Fear, Grief, How To Help A Loved One Who Self-Injures, Mental Health, Self Injury |
It was with a loud crash that she hit the floor, her knees gone weak with fear. “Help,” she cried, to no one in particular, a sort of mangled prayer to a god she never once believed in.
“Help me,” she whispered, hoping to see someone there, yet there was nothing but vast darkness, her hands clenched tightly.
There was a hollowness in her soul, an icy chill that ran through her veins when she hit this point. The bottom, again, a place she promised to stay away from, spun so quickly up to greet her. “Help me,” again she whispered, desperate.
The cold steel seemed to awaken in her hand. It was so strong, so faithful, and so delicate. She closed her eyes, tears falling hot and fast, such opposition to the cold running through her heart. One line, then another, cutting across her flesh.
“Help,” she whispered, partially to her ever trusty blade, partially to the blood now trickling down. It was warm like her tears, and safe, a reminder that she was real.
Exhausted, she weeps.
This was never how it was supposed to be.
by Band Back Together | Nov 22, 2018 | Family, Happiness, Hope |
I took The Boy on a date today.
The Husband and I decided we wanted to interject more whimsy into our family routine. Our calendar has many blocked and iterative events dictated by outside organizations like school hours, assigned homework, sports practices, lessons, games and tournaments, music lessons and performances, as well as church and community events. Though we are in almost constant motion, we realized there’s sometimes more march than joy in our steps.
Our parental plan was a simple one. When they were least expectant, we would bombard them with the unexpected.
As such, this morning, I enjoyed an iBed breakfast while The Husband took a sleepy-eyed crew to Spudnuts. For the uninitiated, Spudnut donuts are made with potato flour. A moist, sweet delight, they blissfully surrender a happy, glazed melt down the eager throat of each blitzed-out consumer. Spudnut donuts are more than donuts, they are holy confections with a sense of history in our small town. The Husband took happy kids to school who were thrilled to further anticipate an early dismissal at noon.
Unbeknownst to The Boy, I had made arrangements for all the other children to be playdate engaged so that I could surprise him with a lunch invitation. To his credit, he was more than amiable, even before he learned Five Guys and a trip to Barnes & Noble were on the itinerary.
Lunch was pleasant. Nothing lubricates adolescent conversation like hot grease and ketchup. Conversation was easy and blessedly without an agenda. The Boy shocks me these days as he has so experienced such dramatic physical changes in the past couple of months. Even his face has taken on the angles of a man’s chisel, complete with <gasp> a discernable mustache. However, as he greedily slurped his root beer, I could almost see the little boy I remembered hiding just behind his red straw. It was fun.
Tight tummied, we made the short drive to Barnes & Noble. In a gesture I mistook for chivalry, The Boy preceded me to the door excitedly telling me, “Look!” as he opened the door for us. He opened the door and stepped in so quickly that the door literally closed in my face. What I mistook as excitement over a book display or café novely was actually his joy to find one of his best buds in the store. As it happened, his buddy was there alone waiting for his mother, and really appreciated the company.
Again, to The Boy’s credit, he apologized to me before he ditched me cold for his friend. He said, “I know we are on a date, and I didn’t think it would end this way, but, well, we can finish our date later and…. I gotta go!”
I assured The Boy that I understood and went to the café to sketch a couple of ideas I had from the night before. When it was time for me to go, The Boy’s friend was still solo, so I allowed my son to stay so that his friend would have a buddy. The Boy used his Barnes & Noble gift card to buy his friend a drink (that he had promised to treat me with) at the café. I don’t know he could have looked more pleased with himself if he had used a Visa to buy concert tickets.
When I returned for him, his friend’s mom was there to pick up her son.
A spontaneous overnight invitation was extended to The Boy, “We’d love to have him,” the mom agreed, grateful that her son had company while he waited for her return.
Once again, The Boy pulled me aside to apologize our date had been interrupted, but he really, really wanted to go.
Sometimes math is really simple. I had one really thrilled boy who was happy with the outcome of a date with his mamma. He enjoyed the food, the perks and an unexpected surprise ending. His joy was sincere and contagious and equaled a successful maternal mission.
I got stood up in the middle, but it was one of the best dates of my entire life.
