Post Tramatic Stress Syndrome

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I am no expert on this sort of thing, but IMHO most citizens of this country are "walking wounded" right now and in the days to come we need to be as loving and caring for each other as is humanly possible. We on this forum have often spoke of what event would end "life as we know it" and it would appear that perhaps this would be that event. On this day of national prayer and mourning I would hope that we could begin to help each other through this in every way we can. in love to all...........diane

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), September 14, 2001

Answers

I was thinking along those same lines this morning. I know that life will never again be the same for me. May God bless our great nation. Love and peace to all. Grannytoo

-- Grannytoo (jacres40@hotmail.com), September 14, 2001.

I think that mostly we don't recognize the exact moment that life changes. Often on reflecting back we will note some event that caused a change, but often it is a slow change over time. However in this case I think that when I saw that second plane hit the World Trade Center live on television, I changed forever. I will never forget the feeling that went through my whole body at that instant. May God help us. Our future will certainly bring heartache to many and substantial changes in our lives.

-- Melissa (cmnorris@1st.net), September 14, 2001.

I can think of several things almost as tragic and life-changing as Tuesday's tragedy; JFK's assasination, the Korean war, Pearl Harbor, both world wars, the Great Depression.

Folks now a days have forgotten how utterly horrible life can be, the folks under 50 don't have a clue as to the tragedies that have happened in recent history, heck, most high school students couldn't even point out Vietnam on a world map!!!

We as Americans have become complacent about life, life is so very precious and dear, and must never, ever, be taken for granted that life as we know it will happen tomorrow automatically.

Remember the past, so we might learn how to prepare for and deal with the tragedies and travails of tommorrow.

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), September 14, 2001.


As a survivior of a farm machinery explosion (face to waist) and a PSD paitent, I can assure you that our nation has not reached the absolute levels of total dispair that PSD dishes out.

We are sad, we are angry, we want justice but we do not have PSD.

Give yourself a break DON'T read the paper or tune in the TV. Instead pickup a good weekly periodical next week. The news will be more accurate and you will be saner for the break in information.

God Bless

-- Mark (Burnsurvirior@hotmail.com), September 14, 2001.


after virtually no TV for 8 mo. this weks events have had me glued to it about 18 hrs a day..today I realized that time is too precious and short to spend it this way..now is the time to think of the future and to decide what chages I need to make to be ready for what is to come..we are also as I write in the middle of TS Gabrielle..not too bad..just flooding and some wind..after the tradgeties of the week it seems small...

-- sandi (msjazt@aol.com), September 14, 2001.


My hubby and I both had PTSD prior to the 11th. Mine from severe abuse most of my life, hubby's from being a firefighter onboard ship and later being EMT.

I thought I was doing pretty good there. I mean, I had 49 personalities and fragments back in 92 and by the grace of God I worked my tail off and got integrated, but still had to learn stress coping skills the hard way.

This last 5 years has been stressful from job loss, lay off, disability and training to work in a new career feild. We thought we had faced it all until we found out that there weren't any jobs for what he was trained for. They halfway trained my hubby instead of allowing him to open his own business.

Anywho, we ended up in management and it has been very stressful this summer.

Just when we were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. BOOOOM!

We went down Monday and signed papers on our mini homestead. Realtor called us up with the good news Tues. morning. Hubby wakes me up in excitement, "We got it baby! He signed the contract!"

I got out of bed and stumble in to the living room sleepily but extreemely happy. Hubby had turned down the TV while he was on the phone. I sat down and looked at the screen and just blinked. He turned around and all he could say was, "Oh, my God!"

Neither one of us could believe it was real. For two days we tried to run the office through numbness, tears and a mind that just didn't want to work. Today, we have both been crying one minute and being angry at anybody, anything for any reason.

I've been having nightmares. This morning I woke up in the middle of a dream about Foodlion publishing a list of 'food shortages' for their store. We live and work right outside of Ft. Lee and a couple of the GI's have suggested doing a little stocking up.

The list of other attack sites were in Richmond VA, which is an ammunitions storage facility, about 30 minutes away.

So..we are haning in there and the only thing that has kept us both slightly sane is God and a lot of prayer.

-- Stephanie Nosacek (possumliving@go.com), September 14, 2001.


While I agree with you wholeheartedly, Diane, that we all need to be loving and caring for each other, I want to say that as a person who has been diagnosed with and is currently in treatment for PTSD, its not something you get from watching an event, no matter how heart rending it may be, on t.v. Yes, this is stressful and it is traumatic but Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a specific condition that must meet certain criteria for a specific amount of time. Not everyone in a certain situation will develop it-an example-two firefighters can go into the same disaster- one may develop PTSD the other may not. ( No-one is exacly sure why) I do think many people, on site in New York/D.C. will develop PTSD-though if you can get counciling right away, it can lessen the effect quite a bit. But you have to be intimatly involved in a disaster, not viewing it from far away, to develop PTSD. Having said that, I would urge people to talk to one another, if you are feeling really upset, by all means go see a counciler, or a minister or just a good friend who will listen, There are certainly other psychological difficulties people are going through right now such as grief, depression, dispair-no matter how far away from the site you may be, and those certainly need attention.

-- Kelly (Markelly@scrtc.com), September 15, 2001.

Well, my brain is functioning a might better and Kelly you sound like you are pretty intimate with PTSD, thank you for the input. I was told that on a scale of 1 to 10 I had a 10 and the doctor said he had never seen a case as bad as mine. He specialized in the treatment of MPD which clinically is supposed to be the worst case of PTSD possible.

I was the first one in the state of FL to be placed on disability that was not either incarcerated or institutionalized for MPD. Not that extreme PTSD or MPD makes you a bad person, just that it can cause you to have inappropriate responses to stimuli and stress. It usually rears its ugly head years or decades after the initial problem that caused it. With the mean age of 27 years old for things that happened in early childhood to cause disruption/disability. I don't know how long the reaction time is for someone who has been in a war situation.

There are mild cases that will go untreated because of the mentality of the person being, "I can handle it without help." Unfortunately, once the individual is traumatized to that extent it doesn't take much later down the road for it to start a snowball effect. It is usually something insignificant that will bring on the straw that broke the camels back. Usually something that, "feels like" what occurred earlier on and even though it is usually something totally unrelated, the 'feel like' will tell a person that it is the same.

I don't know if that made sense or not, but if you know someone who has a delayed reaction then more than likely they have some PTSD. The best healing possible is for that person to own their feelings and to greive. Sometimes that is difficult for people to do, especially if the feelings are percieved to make the individual in question appear to be weak, unable to control their lives/emotions or what ever loss they feel they have incurred.

-- Stephanie Nosacek (possumliving@go.com), September 17, 2001.


I am fortunate that I don't have a severe case. It is rather like a timebomb- it will pop up years after the initial event and you are absulutly right about something seemingly minor triggering it. In my case, I was fortunate to be married to a therapist who said-"you know, most people don't break down and sob when they are pulled over for a broken taillight." It was a tremendous relief to know there was a reason for nightmares, anxiety attacks and depression and that I wasn't just losing my mind.

Its a terrible shame that there is such a stigma in this country over mental health issues and mental health care. I suppose we have the "I'm tough and I can handle it" mentality-I know I did. I could have saved myself a lot of problems had I had this treated much earlier, but again,I didn't realise different agencies and resourses available. Ironically, though my husband is a therapist, his company's insurance policy dosn't cover therapy sessions! I'm able to get my sessions covered through a victim's assistance program. Those programs are out there, you just have to hunt for them. I trully hope you are doing ok this week.

-- kelly (markelly@ scrtc.com), September 18, 2001.


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