Changing yourself: Day 15 of National PTSD Awareness Month

Learning to listen instead of talk was probably the hardest step I ever took. I only did it after I picked up a book, Parent Effectiveness Training, because I thought it would teach me how to effectively train my son, then 14, to quit arguing with me... Hahaha! It suggested learning to listen and let him find his own solutions, which was good. It also had a section on listening to pre-verbal babies, which I used with Bob because by this time he would not talk to me. I realize, today, that it wasn't safe to talk to me, because I corrected him all the time, "You shouldn't feel/think/act that way."
I had to let Bob have feelings I didn't like and that scared me. I had to work on myself which took up all the time I'd spent obsessing about him and Jack. This gave Bob space to find things that helped him recover. It was a really painful time for me. Change is scary. Bob hated it when I started going to recovery meetings. I developed a broken record in response to the unspoken question, "Will you still love me if you change?" which guys never actually say. It comes out more often as "Why the F. are you going to that meeting/therapist/group, etc?" I translated that and said, "I am going to the meeting because it helps me feel good about myself and I love you and I'll be back at 9." After 6 months of that, said in a loving manner, he stopped asking.
One of the things I hated about the program I went to was that they suggested acceptance as a good strategy for dealing with people you love (or anyone else). I thought this was so wimpy. You're supposed to try to improve people. NOT.
So I learned acceptance. Bob is who he is and I can't change that. I also learned to ask for changes and let go of the result. I don't have to hang around and be yelled at. I also can't expect to ask for a change and have it instantly happen. When I try to change, it isn't instant and I recycle old behaviors a lot! So will he. Now in the times of year that are difficult for Bob, I try to listen and let him be where he's at. Compassion and kindness are more effective than nagging and getting huffy and self-righteous. The bad times pass sooner. I remind myself "Would you rather be right or happy?" At one time I would rather have been right (no kidding!! I never admitted I was wrong in the first 25 years of our now 50 year marriage). Now I would rather be happy.
Many family members have been through hell and are extremely angry at the veteran. They don't see how what they may be doing can be keeping him or her stuck. I have a lot more suggestions at my web page http://www.patiencepress.com/patience_press/PTSD_Help-For_Spouses.html. More tomorrow.

Stuck! Day 14 of National PTSD Awareness Month.

Often after I had been trying to rescue Bob for a while with some new book or herb (Really, someone told me chamomile would stop his wakeups, so I got it and made tea. I was so furious that it didn't work, I can't stand the smell to this day.), I would shift into the persecutor/prosecutor role.
If you just did what I say, you would be fine! (Haha!) I felt each time that I had found the right solution, but I didn't know what the problem was (PTSD) and I didn't know whose problem it was (his), so my solutions, even on the rare occasions when he tried them (he did drink the tea) did not work.
We got into a really painful pattern, the final stage of which was VICTIM. Let me tell you (back of hand on forehead) what Bob did to me this week!
Then back to rescuer.
This is a common pattern in relationships where one person is perceived to have the problem and the other is perceived to be fine. It becomes stable, but usually over time things get worse and worse.
I felt that Bob was driving me nuts, but I had no idea that I was perpetuating the problem with my rescuing, which also consisted of "Don't be mad/sad/" or whatever other feeling I could not tolerate. Like I said before, I thought that was my job. I had no idea I was getting more and more controlling, impatient, self-righteous. I took everything personally.
It never occurred to me that he could be upset by anything but me, and since I was trying so hard to be perfect, if he was, say, depressed, I was furious with him because it meant I was a bad wife and making him depressed. (I think this was depressing, but so were things in Vietnam that he was remembering).
I misunderstood what was going on with him. For instance about 4 times a year he would get cold and distant and I would figure he didn't love me anymore. After I was writing Recovering from the War, I learned about anniversary reactions: The Ia Drang, Happy Valley, Bong Son and the month before he came home! These coincided with his cold periods.
More tomorrow.

Detach with love, Day 13 of PTSD Awareness Month

With all the additional information on PTSD ( although none of it is presented the way I see it) it is hard not to get annoyed when people will not go for help. Why is that? And what can a spouse do about it?
People are human and American, and human Americans do not like to think they need help. They are fine (F*ked up, insecure, neurotic and egotistical, but they don't know it) and you are somewhere between nag and nut case to think they are not.
Detach with love.
Let him be where he is at. Let her be where she is at. Our society tells us we can change people. If this were true, there would not be a new self help book out every week. The only person I can change is me, and that is slow and hard and I have not lived through a war and had the symptoms of PTSD hammered into me by traumatic events, over and over.
So if change is hard for me as a civilian, it is going to be harder for a veteran. He will have to face pain, devastation, horrible memories of blood and guts and fear and despair and anger and vengeance and destruction. It is easy to think he should man up and just do it.
We start out as rescuers: Oh, honey, you should go get help, or read this book, or do that. We do not know what healing from war involves. We have no way to know. I had a lot of advice for Bob, none of which he took, so when I was writing the book, I realized that not taking my advice was evidence too. 
In combat, things are out of the person's control. Wishes will not stop bullets or explosions or someone bleeding out. Those are just words to us. As Bob once said to me when we came out of the movie Platoon, "It's worse when it's real." 
Not following directions is evidence that following directions put them in danger. 
It is evidence that they need to regain a sense of control in their lives and if they do what you say they lose that. 
So even if what you are saying is the right thing, saying it may be the wrong thing.
More tomorrow.

So, I took Bob's feelings personally, Day 12 of PTSD Awareness month

So, I took Bob's feelings personally. I thought if he was mad, it was my fault. I must have done something wrong, so I would try to change. That never worked, because his problems were not my problems, but I saw them that way. I didn't know what the problem was (PTSD) so I thought he was the problem, MY PROBLEM!
I misunderstood what was going on because there was no information on PTSD. My efforts to fix Bob were really ineffectual. So I tried harder. We spent 15 years after he came back thinking we were losers, crazy losers, and I thought it was all my fault because I wasn't trying hard enough to fix him and make him happy. Sometimes he agreed. We had no idea what the problem was or that it was getting a name. In 1980, it became Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. My mother, Constance Hartwell, MD, was a VA psychiatrist who talked to veterans, and she would tell me Bob's problems had to do with the war. She sent him big bottles of Vitamin B-12 and told him to drink less and smoke more pot.
Our VA in Gainesville was fond of giving valium, and told Vietnam vets to go to the Vet Centers in Jacksonville or Tallahassee. Bob actually went up and got a pamphlet from the Vet Center, the DAV's Readjustment Problems among Vietnam Veterans. (The DAV had actually funded the first study, The Wounded Warrior Project, of  Vietnam vets. No university, foundation or government agency would fund it.) We read the pamphlet and I cried all the way through it. What was happening to us had a name.
Nowadays there is much more information about PTSD, but none of it is formulated like this description of the symptoms as built-into-your-brain normal survival skills which keep you alive. Instead they are described as if they were a random collection of weird behaviors starting with re-experiencing. Then most of the current literature is slanted towards "only a few people will get this," "we can make you resilient," and "we can cure it." Like they can change human nature...
So the spouse thinks a. you won't get it, b. it can be cured, and c. here are the directions.
What I have learned is I did not cause this, I cannot control it, and I can't cure it. That is his job. It will be painful because he has to go back through painful experiences and I have to let him be in pain, be mad, be consumed with grief and guilt or whatever else he feels. So I had to learn to let go. I got help learning this from a couple of 12 step programs for people who want to run other people's lives.
More on this tomorrow

Before I start writing about how PTSD affects families, I want to mention that PTSD can have a delayed onset and it is also the gift that keeps on giving, haha.
PTSD can hit you when they start the next war. If you have had some help and are doing well, it can hit you again when they start the next war. Other traumas bring up the symptoms, your spouse gets sick, someone else is raped, a natural disaster. This is called human nature.
You know what the young soldiers will be going through and it hurts you and brings up pain you may have thought you had dealt with.
My suggestion is if something helped before, go for more of it. This does not mean the therapy didn't work. It means PTSD comes back in normal people when there are further traumas.
PTSD can be held off for years by acceptable "efforts to avoid thoughts or feelings associated with the trauma," like workaholism, hidden sex addiction (affairs, porn), religiosity, food, exercise. The list is endless. Then it is the 50th anniversary of your war and Boom! PTSD.
You can also be hit by PTSD when you reach a point where you can't drink anymore, or your wife gets sick or dies, or you get sick and feel helpless.
I am not going to be able to cover all the effects on families in one post, but I will start out with what happened to me.
I had no idea that war was anything but glorious, having been raised on WWII movies, documentaries, and books. I actually wanted to be either Combat Kelly or Sgt. Rock of Easy Company...
At 14 I realized wishing would not make me a boy, so I gave that up. It didn't occur to me to join as a woman. They couldn't be infantry.
In that era we were brought up to believe you could do anything if you tried hard enough, and you were responsible for the happiness of your family. If they had problems, you could and should fix them.
So when Bob came back from Vietnam, thinner, jumpier and leaping up at night, I started trying to fix it. Booze helped him sleep, so I got it. I made friends for us because Bob started isolating. I read self help books and passed them on to him and got mad when he didn't read them and immediately get better.
I also spent a lot of time telling him "Don't be sad" because I thought if he was sad it meant I was not a good wife, "Don't be mad," because if he was angry it meant I was not a good wife, "You shouldn't feel that way," if something annoyed him.
All of these stop recovery. Vets need to be mad, sad, annoyed and whatever else they feel, but I was always there helpfully trying to cheer him up. This is because I could not tolerate his pain. I did not see it that way. I saw it as being nice and as my job.
More tomorrow.

Duration: Day 10 of National PTSD Awareness Month.

The final note in the diagnosis is that the symptoms have to last more than a month. Hahaha!
This is so ironic for those of us who went through psychiatry's denial and delusion period (1968-1980) when they dropped the diagnosis of "Gross stress reaction," meaning if you had been through a gross (big) stress it could affect you. The examples were a concentration camp or combat.
Based on NOTHING but arrogance, in 1968, in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual II, the only stress reaction available was a "transient situational disturbance" which could only last 6 months. Any longer than that proved you were screwed up before you went and it had nothing to do with the war.
This caused a lot of deaths and is one reason why some Vietnam vets still won't go to the VA.
People were given personality disorders, a pre-existing condition so the VA was not responsible for your problems, bad conduct discharges, when people were having PTSD reactions. It was an ugly shameful period in the treatment of veterans.
The new veterans are getting the same crap, too.
Studies of people who are traumatized show that most of them have all of the symptoms of PTSD right afterwards (critical stress reaction), but some of them don't go on to get PTSD. That means it is a disorder of healing. As I have pointed out, telling your story is healing but if no one wants to hear it, if they just want to drug you or run you through a 12 week program that will "cure you", or any other one size fits all treatment, it is very hard to recover.
Denial rears it's head here. I'm fine, and you're nuts if you think I need help... Ever said that? Thought it? Sometimes people can see stuff you can't. Plus FINE is an acronym for F*cked up, Insecure, Neurotic and Egotistical.
It is very hard to accept that you might need help. It is totally un-American these days, but remember, people used to have much more time to talk before computers, Facebook, and cell phones.
On the plus side there are lots of online places to get help.
Tomorrow, how this affects families of people with PTSD.

More Reexperiencing symptoms, Day 9 of National PTSD Awareness Month

Another symptom is "intense psychological distress when exposed to external or internal cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the trauma."
If you go into a rage when some clerk down at the VA acts like a lifer/REMF/FOBbit, it can cause problems.
If you get nuts when it gets hot and muggy (Vietnam, WWII Pacific Theater vets, Iraq vets) or cold (WWII European Theater, Korea) that is an external cue.
Anniversaries apply here. Veterans find holidays hard because of what they went through on holidays and because of the knowledge that lost buddies' families will be missing them.
On top of that there are private anniversaries (which you might not even know about yourself if it was too overwhelming to remember) which can turn you numb, angry and hypervigilant. The day Joe was killed, or the last hot and heavy lift (lots of helicopters [heavy] going into a firefight [hot] to drop off troops) you were asked to fly the day before you came home from Vietnam, which still affects my nearest and dearest.
The sound of kids crying can be torture to someone who had to clear villages. Grilling meat brings up associations you'd just as soon not have.
This is part of the brain's better safe than sorry system. If you find yourself flaring up, ready for anything and you don't know why, check for progression of triggers, but also check the date. And check the attitude of whoever is with you and the type of thing that is going on. Sometimes being out with people can remind you of the insensitive things people said when you got home.
if you lost your ability trust authority figures in the war, you may find that authority figures make you feel crazy. If you were protested, protestors may upset you. If you were cheered, cheering may upset you. This is a very individual type of thing. Being thanked can hurt as much as being scapegoated if you don't think you did enough.
You may also not want to be around other veterans if someone or some group let you down.
The last symptom in the re-experiencing group is having a physiological reaction to something that reminds you of the war or whatever trauma you suffered. Many Vietnam vets respond to the sound of a Huey with a surge of adrenaline. The new vets get surges of adrenaline at the sight of trash by the road (IED) or cars coming near them among other things.
Even though this is part of the brain's better safe than sorry system, it can be very upsetting, especially if you don't know what the trigger is or think it shouldn't trigger you.
The part of the brain that is doing this can't speak English, so you can't reason with it, and it can't tell time, either, so it does not know you are home.
Tomorrow I will talk about the last diagnostic criteria, duration of symptoms...

Flashbacks: Day 8 of National PTSD Awareness Month

The most well known form of re-experiencing is flashbacks. This is when you feel you are back in the trauma of war or rape or whatever you have lived through.
Everyone knows about this symptom. When an event happened so fast and was so overwhelming, it stays in the reptile brain as bodily memories, emotions, flashes of visual information, smells, sounds, touches. Any one of these can trigger a flashback. Smells and sights are especially triggering because of the direct connection with the brain. This is another form of the brain warning you of danger, but it can also cause danger if you think you are somewhere else for a few minutes and act on that.
One of the biggest problems with PTSD is that survival skills that have kept you alive can become your biggest problems later. This one is mostly a problem.
One of the funniest moments in our life, Bob's and mine, of trying to help people with PTSD happened when he was giving a writing workshop years ago at the Portland, OR VAMC. One of the guys told the group that when he got back from Vietnam he went to a community college and for English he had to write a journal. He got an F on the first one, and said to himself, "F*ck her, I'll make it personal. I'll write one of my night mares." He did. She corrected it and handed it back. He rewrote it. She corrected it and handed it back. He rewrote it. She gave it a good grade. He rewrote it a couple of more times just to make it completely accurate. Then he noticed he was not having the nightmare anymore. That night Bob said to me, "You know I have not had any nightmares since I wrote Chickenhawk. I never noticed..." That is what happens if you can turn those non verbal memories into some form of narrative memory, by writing, talking or any other way that works for you.
If someone is having a flashback, don't jump them. Try to tell them they are safe at home.
One of the quickest ways to get out of a flashback is to carry a safe scent with you, like vanilla or lavender, something you identify with as a good smell and that has nothing to do with the war zone or whatever danger you faced. The direct connection between brain and nose can help you short circuit the flashback.
The next symptom is when you have intense reactions to things that remind you of the trauma or symbolize it in some way. I will talk about that tomorrow.

Day 7, Reexperiencing

Reexperiencing:
So here we are at the set of symptoms which are first in the diagnostic criteria for PTSD. I put them last, because you can't reexperience anything unless you have first experienced it and it has made a big traumatic impression!
Like I said, PTSD makes more sense if you see yourself reacting swiftly and effectively to danger using skills built into the primitive part of your brain. Then you re-experience the events in various ways.
When I started out, I felt reexperiencing was a cry from your inner self for help. I have been through something that is too much for me! So it keeps reminding you of what happened in unpleasant ways. I learned that those parts of the brain store non-verbal memories. (If you want to see a non-verbal memory, hold a ball up in front of a dog.) One of the ways to get those non-verbal memories out of your head is to encode them as narrative memories, which means to talk it out or write it out and get the details right. That is why therapy works, but so does writing a book, like Bob did, or other kinds of writing. I will talk more about that when I get to things that help.
Here is the first symptom: intrusive unpleasant recollections of the event(s). This is like going over and over the plot of a movie, trying to figure it out. Your brain needs to figure it out. That is one of the brain's functions. What happened? Why did it happen (to ME)? this is the better safe than sorry part of your brain which wants you constantly looking out for danger so you won't get hurt again.
People do not want to keep thinking about those experiences. They intrude! Shove in where they are not wanted. This can make you feel quite nuts. Why can't I stop thinking about it, or dreaming about it (the second type of reexperiencing)? What is wrong with me?
PTSD symptoms are proof of survival. You can't re-experience if you don't live. However re-experiencing is disconcerting, painful, devastating, depressing and often horrific. When you can't stop thinking, seeing feeling or dreaming about painful events it makes you cranky or outright angry and it can turn you towards self-medication. You may be unable to sleep because of nightmares or afraid to sleep for fear of having them. To me, your brain is telling you something does bother you. Since military men and women are not supposed to be bothered by anything, it seems like your brain has to whack you over the head with re-experiencing to get you to notice that it did bother you...
Tomorrow I will talk more about the other reexperiencing symptoms.

Loss of interest and Can't remember Day 6 Of National PTSD Awareness Month

Recovering From the War

a few seconds ago

The next to last symptom in the numbing and avoidance set is no longer being interested in things that used to interest you. This is another survival skill because what you are interested in is avoiding triggers at all costs.It helps to understand the progression of triggers. A second generation trigger, like the gun, beer and friends in my example yesterday, can lead to third and fourth generation triggers of things that are around when one of those triggers you. If things trigger you that seem not to make sense, try to figure out when you first felt this way...
Even without second and third generation triggers, people who once had lots of friends may now avoid them. People who loved hunting, now can't hunt. People who were out and around now stay home all the time. Movie lovers don't go to movies anymore.
People who loved sex, don't want to do it anymore. (One of the truths no one ever mentions...war ruins sex for many men for various periods of time after). Naturally wives don't know this so they feel undesirable and get mad. Guys don't know this so they start looking for someone more exciting. Believe me, it is not you spouse and it will pass. I have only talked to men vets about this, but I suspect it is true for women combat vets, and I know being raped ruins sex for anyone.
So when you lose interest in outside things, you may find yourself staying home and advising your wife on how to wash dishes. This is dangerous, guys. Snarling often results. If you did stuff together, she may feel abandoned when you won't participate anymore.
The last symptom in the numbing and avoidance category is when you can't remember all or part of the traumatic event(s). Traumatic amnesia is common. Traumatic events often happen too fast to be laid down as a narrative memory, which is what your fore brain does. Your are reacting with what used to be called the reptile brain in my high school science classes. This is protective. Some events are so overwhelming they would incapacitate you, so evolution or God has given you this capacity. Hugh Thompson, the helicopter pilot who tried to stop the My Lai massacre, forgot it until the Army investigators came to interview him two years later. My husband Bob has a picture of himself in front of a bunch of dead VC at Plei Me, but he does not remember the event. One of my favorite vets tried to kill himself the same day ten years apart, so his therapist decided they should check the unit records. Turned out 28 guys in his unit died on that day. If you find yourself doing odd things the same time every year you may be reacting to an anniversary which leads me into the third set of PTSD symptoms, re-experiencing, which I will start on tomorrow.
If you follow the facebook page Recovering from the War, I think you will get these automatically. I will be posting every day this month. Or you can follow this blog. I cross post.

Efforts to avoid activities and situations Day 5 of National PTSD Awareness Month

Recovering From the War

about a minute ago

Efforts to avoid activities and situations that remind you of the trauma: This is another protective symptom. Avoiding triggers becomes the most important thing.
You may avoid being given orders or a job to do because it can get you killed, so you don't take out the trash, because on some level that you can't even identify, it may get you killed.
You avoid crowds, because one rule in war is "Don't bunch up. Makes a bigger target."
Cookouts bring up memories of burning flesh, parked cars or roadside trash bring up memories of IED's, family parties bring up memories of those who died and don't get to be with families. Sometimes parties are also full of people who want to know why you aren't over it yet, too. Not helpful so you avoid them.
The sound of children crying in the war zone has made you unable to listen to your own kids cry so you avoid that. If you and your family don't understand what is going on, everyone gets mad.
There is also a progression of triggers. Say you are shopping in Wal-Mart and someone drops something big making a loud bang and you hit the floor or some kid is crying and you have to leave. Walmart can now be a trigger you have to avoid. Or you see someone who looks Iraqi or Afghani, while chewing gum and drinking beer in the park with your friends and have a moment of terror. Now gum and beer and friends and parks can become triggers. Needless to say, being triggered by gum is going to make you feel nuts because how does it relate? Not everything will be a trigger, but odd things may become triggers. It helps to see if you can trace them.
Some of the problems veterans have with the VA are based in this symptom. Good old hurry up and wait or SNAFU's, so common in the military, can trigger people in the VA where waiting and SNAFU's are also common.
Tomorrow: Loss of interest in old activities you liked before the war or trauma.
Please share with anyone it might help. You can also follow my Facebook Recovering From the War page to get all the posts this month, National PTSD Awareness Month. I will post every day.

Foreshortened future and efforts to avoid... Day 4 of National PTSD Awareness Month

A sense of a foreshortened future is also realistic. Live in the now! You see other guys or women your age blown up by IED's or whatever was common in your war, why would you expect to have a long life? People die all the time in your experience, suddenly and in ugly ways.
It is also self-protective. Why plan and hope when you could be dead tomorrow? This can lead to a lot of behavior which looks irresponsible, and often is. It ties back to emotional numbing, because often people are so numb the only time they feel alive is when adrenaline is pumping through their bodies. Everything from screwing around to getting into bar fights or driving fast motorcycles, jumping out of airplanes, becoming a cop or firefighter can be a way to get the adrenaline going.
I forgot to mention yesterday that emotional numbing to deal with war also numbs your ability to feel good emotions. Feeling nothing is common with vets, and when you feel nothing about your wife or husband or if your mother dies, that is a symptom, not proof that you are a bad person. You wouldn't have to feel nothing if you didn't care...
Anyhow, back to symptoms: "Efforts to avoid thoughts or feelings associated with the trauma," means that if you think you were at fault, you may spend the rest of your life having to be right. If you lost people you loved (and no one is closer than buddies in combat) you may try never to love anyone again, If you trusted the government or your branch of the military and were hung out to dry or betrayed, you may never trust anyone again.
You may live in denial (It's not just a river in Egypt, haha) and believe that the war didn't affect you. Everyone else is screwed up, but you are fine (f*cked up, insecure, neurotic and egotistical is how I see it...for me.)
Finally the most common way to avoid thoughts or feelings associated with the trauma is to stay drunk or drugged. This used to be considered "willful misconduct" by the VA, but now is considered secondary to this symptom of PTSD. There are other addictions too: food, sex or relationships, gambling, internet gaming or porn, religion, adrenaline, anything you can think of.
The reason for this symptom is self-protection. The pain of what you saw or did can be so great that it is overwhelming. It is illegal to be in pain in America. People want you to be over it now, or at least by tomorrow... And when thinking or remembering or being reminded of what happened, you can be triggered into rages, startle responses, and other disturbing behaviors that cause you a lot of trouble, so avoiding triggers becomes a priority.
Stay numb. Avoid everything. Seems logical, but it is usually pretty ineffective.
Tomorrow: efforts to avoid activities and situations that remind you of the trauma.
One request: If you like my posts, please share them with others.

Numbing and avoidance, day 3 of National PTSD Awareness Month

Before I start on the cluster of numbing and avoidance symptoms I want to make it clear that I think each PTSD symptom starts out as a useful effective survival skill. They keep you alive. They also can become your biggest problems, but they start out as lifesavers.
Under numbing and avoidance there are 7 symptoms. They are based in the brain's built in capacity to rapidly adapt to whatever is going on and on its built in need to be in control.
So, in my opinion, the first one, not having all your emotions, comes from a combination of attention to threat (so feelings fall away because they can actually interfere with survival), the need to be in control (no distractions), and the brain's ability to rapidly adapt to what is going on so you can survive. You may puke at the first kill you see or do, but it will become just another everyday occurrence quickly. It helps you do your job and survive, and it also protects you from a depth of pain most people never have to face. After all, we are all brought up to think we have to get over things and move on, preferably rapidly. This has no relation to the actuality of mourning friends and other losses, but it is a common idea. Being numb helps when there is no space or time for mourning and it helps later when people say, "Aren't you over that yet?" It is practically illegal to be sad in America.
The next symptom in this cluster is "feeling detached and estranged." This is REALITY. You are different and other people can't understand. I realized this when I was writing Recovering from the War and thought I was beginning to understand and then Bob and I went to Platoon. After, I was saying how awful one of the scenes was and Bob looked at me oddly and said, "It's worse when it's real." Holy shit, I thought! I can't understand because I am simply hearing about it, seeing it on the screen, reading. I can't smell it. No one is shooting at me. I'm not there!
This was an epiphany for me, and I share it whenever I speak on PTSD. Do not say you understand, because you can't. Say you want to understand.
Anyhow, feeling detached and estranged form others is appropriate. For one thing your locus coroleus has changed and become hyper-responsive to danger and stress, which inevitably ties back into the hypervigilant symptoms I talked about in the first posts.
This is also an effective survival strategy after the war is over because people say such shitty things to veterans: Arent you over it? How many people did you kill? Or even, like happened to one of my WWII vet friends who hadn't eaten at a table for a year: where are your manners? Being detached and estranged in these circumstances is protective.
I will talk about a sense of a foreshortened future tomorrow.
This will be cross posted at the usual places, My book page on FB, my author page, my personal page and here at blogspot

PTSD Awareness month; days 1 & 2

Just posted this on Patience H C Mason, my author page and Recovering From the War, my book page:
Since I just found out that June is PTSD Awareness Month, I think I will try to publish something each day here and on my Recovering from the War page. Don't ask me why I have two pages on Recovering. It seemed like a good Idea at the time.
I find the professional literature on PTSD lacks insight into human nature.
When I was writing this book, I kept asking myself why would a person have this reaction? What is its purpose?
To my way of thinking, the symptoms of PTSD arise out of survival skills built into all our brains: not into the thinking, speaking parts, but in the more primitive parts which react before thought.
PTSD symptoms are grouped in clusters, but the order of the clusters in the official diagnostic criteria make them look random and weird.
My order is arousal first, then rapid adaptation and avoidance, and then re-experiencing, which can't happen till AFTER, after all...
When someone attacks, your body reacts instantly, shutting down or fighting back or running (freeze, fight or flee). It's instinctive. We don't have conscious access to this ability. Sometimes a highly trained soldier will find himself unable to get up and attack because this part of him knows he won't survive. It is not cowardice.
The most common response is to flee. That is why soldiers have to be trained to fight.
So I start with the brain's built in ability to pay attention to threats. Wave your hand in front of a snake or bat at a kitten to see this in action.
We, too, react that fast. There is no thought involved. People who don't understand danger call this an "exaggerated startle response," instead of an "effective startle response," which kept you alive.
Threat creates an emotional response. Emotions are designed to keep you alive. Threat creates anger. Irritability and outbursts of anger are a pretty natural response to people trying to kill you, or otherwise traumatize you. More tomorrow.
So I got as far as "irritability and outbursts of anger" yesterday, a part of the cluster of symptoms which arise out of the brain's natural ability to pay attention to threats, to act instantly in reaction, and then to become constantly wary, checking for more threats. Normal brains do this, become hypervigilant, especially if the threats are constant, or intermittent and prolonged, both of which are a good description of many war experiences (and violent families). Anger can keep you alive and help you endure the privations of war or other traumatic events. "Inability to fall or stay asleep," is the next symptom in this section of the diagnostic criteria. This will also make you irritable as well as being the most effective form of torture, too. People do not sleep soundly in wars. It can prove fatal. The last symptom in this category is the "inability to concentrate," which is another misstatement. The veteran is not concentrating on normal everyday stuff. He or she is concentrating on who has a weapon, how will I get out of this room, is that an IED on the road ahead, etc. Concentrating on survival leaves very little room for listening to your spouse or a new therapist or some clerk at the VA.
When you look at these symptoms the way I do, you see them as an effective set of responses to war and other traumas. They are not weird or weak or abnormal. As a matter of fact I see PTSD as a solution to the problem of war. You lived! Tomorrow numbing and avoidance.
By the way, if you have friended me on facebook as Patience H. C, Mason, you can also follow me on my book page (Recovering From the War) and my author page Patience H C Mason (no periods after the initials.
I am cross posting all of this.

Writing to Heal

Here is a post by the wife of one of the new vets which I find helpful and healing. Nice to know people are finding help with the despair that living with someone who has PTSD can sometimes cause.
Writing helps me feel what I feel. I used to tell myself that I shouldn't feel what I felt because it wasn't logical. Well guess what? If feelings were logical they'd be called reasons, but they are not. Feelings just are, and if you sit with them they peak and then they fade. They are not permanent, unless you suppress them...
Please read this Caring for a Veteran/Writing to Heal

This is a good infographic on PTSD, which I believe is an epidemic.
It is not a government production so it is not full of bull about how most people will not be affected. You can twist statistics and the military and government specialize in it where PTSD is concerned. http://www.onlinemilitaryeducation.org/ptsd/

PTSD AND HOLIDAYS
Reprinted from Vol. 3, No. 4 of the Post-Traumatic Gazette. © 1997 by Patience H. C. Mason.
I give permission to copy and distribute this exactly as it is to anyone it might help.
P O Box 2757, High Springs, FL 32655-2757, 352-215-9251, www.patiencepress.com

Most people do not realize that people with PTSD have anniversary reactions. Holidays may also be anniversaries of trauma and bring up a lot of pain. This is one of the most distressing forms of reexperiencing for survivors and their families.
If the survivor doesn’t recognize that this  is one of the symptoms of PTSD, he or she may feel like Scrooge instead of like a normal human being who went through hell at that time of the year.
If the family doesn’t understand that this is a PTSD anniversary reaction, they may be very angry at the survivor. “What is wrong with you?” is a heart-rending, humiliating question when the survivor doesn’t know why s/he reacts like this.
If your veteran spent a particularly horrible Christmas seeing villagers lose all they had, seeing friends die, seeing the fat cats in the rear partying while the troops were suffering, he may have a hard time with Christmas. If your abusive father tore up the Christmas tree every year, if your uncle molested you at the family get together when you were eight, if you got mugged while out Christmas shopping, or date raped after an office party, or if your violent family pretended nothing was wrong during the holidays, these upcoming holidays may be a hard time for you. This is a normal reaction.
Holidays are also a really stressful time for many trauma survivors because they seem to reinforce the outsiderness of being a survivor of trauma. Everyone else seems so happy while your guts are twisted into knots as you think about past events. For veterans and other survivors, this pain can be compounded by grief for lost friends and their families who now face the holidays without those loved ones who didn’t survive. Guilt may also rear its painful head. Why did I survive?
The financial difficulties many trauma  survivors experience are highlighted by the commercialization of the holidays. There are a lot of pressures to conform.
One of my first healthy actions in my  marriage was to decide that Bob didn’t have to celebrate Christmas after he came back from Vietnam. I loved it so I should celebrate it and let him be him. I have no idea where that idea came from but it saved me a lot of fights. Today I look back on it as a miracle, accepting Bob as he was, and detaching in a healthy way. I think this is an important point for all trauma survivors and their families: Let the people who love the holiday celebrate it, and the people for whom it brings pain don’t have to. This may cause problems with the extended family or the kids, but treating the survivor with respect is one healing way to frame it: “We have to respect other people’s feelings and limits,” can be a healthy way to put it.
We can also create our own ways of  celebrating the holidays. We don’t have to conform to a rigid commercial stereotype of piles of expensive gifts and big gatherings. As a matter of fact one thing that trauma can bring you face to face with is the value of people as opposed to things. We’re starting a tradition in our crowd this year (a number of whom are trauma survivors and veterans) of homemade, recycled, or under $5 gifts. Ingenuity and fun!
Many survivors are not comfortable in  crowds or at parties, but a quiet meaningful celebration, say singing carols in the living room with just the tree lights on, may be something they can participate in. They may not want to trim the tree, but going out to cut it down or pick it out may be okay. I am mentioning Christmas traditions here because that is what I grew up with, but I’m sure that Hanukkah and Kwanzaa celebrations can be as low-keyed and spiritual as the
survivor needs them to be.
Survivors may need to create new rituals  to help in their healing. For instance a veteran who lost friends in combat on Christmas may want to feed the homeless (many of whom are combat veterans) instead of participating in a big family dinner with people who may or may not appreciate his service. He may need to go to a special place and tell his lost buddies how much he misses them and wishes they had lived. Someone else may want to help provide Christmas presents for children of poor families or for other survivors of trauma. The range of possibilities is limited only by the imagination.
If all you want to do is stay drunk or  stoned through the holidays, it might be good to find help instead. No one wants to be providing traumatic memories for the next generation. What you do while drunk or stoned can be pretty unpleasant for others, and especially painful for family members of both the spouse variety and the small-fry variety. 12 step meetings happen even on holidays like Christmas and New Year’s. I’m going to be at my ACOA meeting Christmas Eve. Sobriety is better than big presents. Harder, too.
Crass commercialization and shop till you  drop take the fun out of the holiday for me. So does having religion shoved down my throat, but I find that I can celebrate the birth of a child who represents all children to me and use it as an opportunity for me to do good in the world. Perhaps you and your family can do the same.
Holiday Helps:
Asking for input and creating  family traditions:
As I mentioned before, when Jack was a  kid, he and I had our own Christmas without making Bob participate. This is called politeness, although my principal reason was selfishness, wanting my kind of Christmas. Selfishness created a healthy boundary in that case. Something I didn’t think of at the time was asking for input, which is also polite.
Rituals For Our Times, by Evan Imber-Black  and Janine Roberts has a wonderful chapter on holidays and a whole section called “Making Meaningful Rituals.” Among other things, they suggest that planning, discussing and getting input from family members can prevent disappointments. Planning small changes in existing family traditions instead of trying to change everything at once is also easier. Sometimes family traditions are out of balance and only please one side of the family or one spouse or whatever. To fix this,  ask what the other person would like to do for the holidays. Say something like: “Maybe we could figure out some new things we could do that we would all like and could do together. Then the kids and I could do the stuff we like without pushing you to be involved.” Your spouse may never have thought about what he or she would like to do. I suggest not expecting an answer right away—maybe not even till next year. Just let him or her know you are interested in discussing it and open to change. People resist doing things they haven’t been involved in. Planning or contributing to an event can give them a sense of being valued and having some control.
One final point, without them being  aware of it, some traditional activities may clash with issues of safety for survivors. For instance, if Vince Veteran never puts up the Christmas lights despite endless nagging, perhaps it is because in Vietnam the night belonged to Charlie. By lighting up the house at night, he is attracting attention to his nearest and dearest, the kind of attention that could get you killed in Vietnam. Bringing this to consciousness—the need to keep the family safe—may help him get such a natural need met in a more appropriate way—like buying new tires for the car or better locks for the doors. Examining your traditions with that in mind can be rewarding.
Let go of outdated traditions or modify  them to suit today:
With our without the  help of your survivor, you can sit down with whoever else in the family wants to celebrate. Have each person list what is fun for him or her. Do the things everyone likes doing. Let go of what has become a burden or what you think others should do or you should do. You can always go back to doing something if you miss it! Example: I like filling stockings for everyone and I thought they should fill mine. Now I get my own stocking stuffers. It is a lot of fun getting a stocking full of stuff I really like instead of an empty one full of hard feelings. I’ve also dropped creamed onions, cornbread dressing and mince pie! Discussing what the family might like to do can be empowering for your children because it gives them a chance to move on to more age appropriate activities as they grow up. This may be hard for the parents, but I suggest that you can hang your own stockings or have your own quiet holiday dinner.
Some new family traditions you might try:
Looking up at the stars can be a beautiful  experience of the glory of nature. Get out of the house: Making snow angels is one of my favorite pastimes. There is nothing that helps me recreate the feeling of being a happy kid again like falling over backwards into the snow and waving my arms and legs. Too bad it never snows in Florida! Snow men, snowball fights (no ice balls, please), snow forts, snowy walks, cross country skiing, sledding, ice skating all can be family fun activities. In the south, walks in the woods, canoeing, kayaking, fishing, bicycle rides are still options.
Decorating with natural materials is  another thing I like to do. Grapevine wreaths with gold or silver pinecones, magnolia cones, acorns, berries and any weird seed pods I can find give me a sense of satisfaction no store bought wreath ever brought. Look around and be inventive. I also have a wreath made of rusty barbwire which my friend Marci gave me. As a survivor, she feels a little Scroogey at Christmas. I like it! Recycled and home made decorations (and gifts) bring family members together, minimize the wastage of natural resources, and increase our own resourcefulness and independence in a healthy creative way. For some of us it is important not to contribute to corporate profits. Paper chains and pomanders (oranges covered with cloves) are great home made decorations. Buying cloves in bulk at an oriental grocery store or a health food store makes pomanders affordable. They smell great!
Doing stuff for others. One veteran I  know has been feeding the homeless for the last nine years on holidays. I buy books to contribute to the local newspaper’s Christmas book giving program for disadvantaged kids. This is a living amends to a poor little girl to whom Jack wanted to give one of his books when he was 5. I wouldn’t let him. Battered women’s shelters always need stuff as do homeless shelters, nursing homes, hospitals and churches. You can adopt a family if you are well off, or contribute a few cans of food or a toy if you are not. Whatever you give will benefit you as well as those you help. Altruistic people actually are healthier than those who are not! You can do any of these as a memorial to someone who was lost or abused.
Doing stuff for yourself: Provide  yourself with something you didn’t get that you needed. Maybe this is a grown woman buying her inner child a Barbie doll, maybe it is a veteran presenting himseof with a certificate of thanks for his service. Look inside. People who love you would like to do this for you, too. Let them know if they can help somehow.
Ask people what you could get them  within your price range. Tell people what you want. Talking about presents is hard for some of us. I thought I should be able to find the perfect present with no input. Now I ask. I used to expect Bob to know what I liked and wanted. Now I give him guidelines.
Our crowd is having a homemade, recycled or under $5.00 Christmas again. We gave each other some really funny presents last year. If someone has given you something expensive you hated, this year you can recycle it to someone who might like it. I get wonderful containers at garage sales and fill them with cookies or rum balls or spiced pecans so it is homemade and recycled!
Talk to each other: Go for the quiet evening  at home together. Many of us never sit down and talk because we are so swept away in the demands of daily living. Make a date and simply talk. What about? About what the holidays and/or the family means to you.
 Accept the fact that kids are naturally self-centered and needy but can develop great kindness. A parents job is not to suppress these natural characteristics, but to encourage awareness of others and empathy. People used to think small children were little demons, but they are actually very kind and willing to give of themselves and help others. One great family tradition is to tell them that some little kids need toys and help them weed out ones they want to give away.
Give each child something that will give  him or her a feeling of specialness. It needn’t be expensive. Magic markers and a pad of paper gave Jack many wonderful hours of fun. I still treasure his creations.

Woohoo! Bob's second memoir has been out of print for years but we just made it available on kindle. It makes me look like a saint. He doesn't mention how I would never admit I was wrong in the first 25 years we were married. Our friend Mike Costello loved it and said "It is a litany of fuck-ups and a great read because  didn't do any of them..."
BTW, it is not a triumphant sequel. I think that must be the original publisher's words, but it is honest and unsparing and well written, even if I am bragging about my own true love.

It is a story about living with PTSD  before it had a name, back when it was not supposed to exist.

Chickenhawk: Back in the World.

Compassion

Dealing with PTSD, whether you are veteran or spouse or family member requires lots of compassion: compassion for what your veteran has been through, compassion for his/her problems now, and compassion for yourself.
Living with PTSD is not easy for any of us. Bob has been having a worse time than usual this July. It is an anniversary of his worst month in Vietnam. I am practicing my compassion for him and for myself because my old habit of turning into a martyr was trying to sneak back, I had forgotten how to listen, and was starting to give him directions.
Whoops!
So I have to laugh at myself and be compassionate towards myself and him. It is difficult for him and for me, and I don't have to be perfect. And I do need compassion!

Here is what I wrote in the Gazette (#20) on Compassion vs the Cycle of Self-Pity and Self Criticism:
If you find it helpful the link to all of them is  http://www.patiencepress.com/patience_press/PTSD_Help-Gazettes.html

Compassion vs the Cycle of Self-Pity and Self Criticism

Self-Pity is “pity for oneself, especially exaggerated or self-indulgent pity,” according to the American Heritage dictionary.
If you feel like a victim, are waiting to be “fixed” by time, a therapist, or God, or if you are waiting for it to magically stop hurting, you may be experiencing self-pity. Being stuck in the past, thinking  how unjust it was, or how “if only I had done this or that, it would have come out differently,” is another form of self-pity.
Self-pity originates in an innate sense of justice which we all have. Trauma is by its very nature unjust. No one deserves to be traumatized. No one. So the question, “Why me?” is understandable, but it is also unanswerable, or the answer is wrong. If you believe you did something wrong and it caused you to walk into the ambush, or caused your parents to beat you, or that guy to rape you, focusing on that will keep you stuck in “if onlies” forever.
Self-pity is contained in the words, “Why me?” It derives from two mistaken myths about life: if you are good and careful and hardworking enough, nothing bad will ever happen to you; and the other one: you should never feel bad.
You probably cycle from self-pity to self-criticism: “Why do I feel like this? What’s wrong with me? Why aren’t I over this?” These words bury the pain inside you, so it stays with you forever and eventually it starts to hurt again. That is the problem with self-pity. Over time it keeps you stuck in the past trying to change history. Self-pity becomes a bag of resentments dragged around and dragging you down. It becomes a rejection of reality; reality being that bad things do happen for no reason. Self-pity can also make you quite unkind to others (What are you whining about? I have real problems!).
Compassion, (“deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it”) on the other hand, is rooted in reality and based in being real. Bad things happen. No one knows why. They hurt.
Compassion is a necessary emotion, one of the major survival adaptations of the species. It gets grownups running into burning buildings to save kids, gets men to run out under a hail of bullets to drag wounded buddies back to cover. It inspires nurses and doctors, medics and EMT’s, rape-crisis counselors, child-protective workers and the ordinary man and woman to do extraordinary things.
Compassion activates and motivates helping. As a trauma survivor, you need to help yourself so you will heal. Developing compassion for yourself will give you the power to do so.
First, it is important to acknowledge the usefulness of self-pity which kept alive the idea that I didn’t deserve this. The only realistic answer to “Why me?” is that trauma is a part of reality and can strike anyone anywhere. You don’t have to make a mistake to be traumatized. You were not bad, no matter how human you were or how many mistakes you made. You did not deserve to be traumatized.
You deserve to recover.
If you are mad at yourself for having been hurt and for not getting over it, if you alternate between poor me and lashing yourself for being affected, it is a pretty hard cycle to break. Self-lashing probably has served you in the past, helping you to act when you had no other skills. However, it costs a lot in emotional energy and self-esteem. Compassion is more effective and empowering. Emotional numbing may have repressed it, but compassion is a quality you can develop.
People who develop compassion for themselves and others become empowered. They respect themselves and their experiences and do not expect to be unaffected. Compassion for themselves gives them the power to act in their own behalf even when others (parents, the authorities, the military, the Veterans Administration) have not, or have let them down.
Self-pity seems to render people hopeless and helpless while they tear themselves up with the idea that it shouldn’t have happened (true) and they shouldn’t hurt (false).
How to move from self-pity to compassion?
Practice! What are some things you can practice to move from self-pity to compassion for yourself? How can you  enhance your capacity to heal?
HEALS: Steven Stosny, Ph. D., developed a technique called HEALS which is designed to help you develop compassion for yourself and others (See issues 7 and 12). HEALS causes changes at the core levels of your sense of self. This is where you experience being your true self. Trauma can obliterate your old values and tear apart your self concept. Compassion will increase your self esteem, your ability to nurture yourself, your feelings of being effective, and change how you see yourself in a positive direction. Dr Stosny suggests practicing HEALS 50 times a day. Here’s how:
H-When you find yourself trapped in self-pity say to yourself the word “Healing!” Picture it as a flashing neon sign. This moves your consciousness out of the pity-pot, just as it can move it out of the anger file (battering is what it was originally designed to heal).
E- Explain what is going on: Say to yourself: “I have been hurt. I’m feeling very natural pain for a trauma survivor. It is okay to hurt.” Identify the feeling. Is it the pain of losing your buddy (grief), or the pain of thinking you should have known it was an ambush (guilt) or both? Is it the pain of name-calling (shame) or the pain of beatings and/or sexual abuse (shame and fear)? It may be several of these. Name them all. It might be one of Stosny’s “core hurts: disregarded, unimportant, accused (guilty, untrustworthy, or distrusted), devalued, rejected, powerless, unlovable, or unfit for human contact.” Try to feel the actual pain for a couple of seconds.
A- Apply self compassion. Say to yourself: “I was hurt. I did not deserve to be hurt. Today I can be kind to myself instead of hurting myself more with questions of why or unrealistic self-criticism that I should be over it. I can feel the pain instead of stuffing it with anger or food or drugs or trying to fix people. I can heal. Healing takes time. I can ask for help. I can find support.”
Say: “Does the fact that I was abused mean anything about me as a human being? No. I am a good person, worthy of good treatment. All it means is that I was unlucky. My abuser was the one with the problems. S/he hurt me. I didn’t deserve it, no matter what s/he said or did. I deserve to recover and I can recover.”
Say: “Does the fact that my war was a no-win situation and we didn’t get the support we expected at home mean there is something wrong with me? Of course not. There was something wrong with the politicians, the war, and the country, but I was a good person trying to do my duty. I was hurt, but I deserve to recover.”
Create a personal statement that applies to your situation.
L- Love yourself by feeling compassion for your pain. Tell yourself you are lovable, valuable, important and worthy of regard and you can give yourself these things. Even if you don’t believe them, say them anyway. Eventually you will believe.
S- Solve the problem that caused the self-pity/self-criticism, i.e. ask for the help you need, take that nap when you are tired, call the vet center or the rape crisis counselor or whatever you need. Do HEALS 50 times a day if you can!
Self-Talk: If you don’t want to use something as systematic as HEALS (although I highly recommend it), observing your “self-talk,” and working towards making it healing and helpful, instead of hurtful and impatient is another technique you can practice. Most of us rent out space in our heads to a lethal critic. It’s the voice that says, “You loser! Get your act together!” or “I can’t win for losing,” or some variation of that. Identifying when you are self-talking, what you are telling yourself (which isn’t easy to do at first because it seems so right and true to you, you’ve never even thought about questioning it), and then changing the messages you give yourself takes time. Doing it will help you develop compassion. Most of us do not identify how cruel we are to ourselves. We must stop if we are to develop genuine compassion and to recover. You can evaluate self-talk on the basis of whether it is true, rational, sensible or helpful. Harsh self-criticism or global catastrophizing are usually none of the above.
Compassionate self-talk: “I have been hurt. It takes time to heal. I can give myself time and attention. I can love myself. I can respect my experiences. I deserve to recover.”
Look around you for people the age you were when you were traumatized. We can often feel more compassion for others than we can for ourselves. Would you expect a young person to be unaffected by what you suffered at that age? Seeing how young you were can help you develop compassion for yourself. Visualize that inner child, inner vet, inner rape survivor or whomever and give him or her the same compassion you would give to another survivor today.
If you wouldn’t feel compassion for another survivor, it is evidence that you were traumatized at a young age. This is because to survive, children who are traumatized have to answer the question, “Why me?” with “I’m bad. I deserved it.” By believing that, they can hope to become good and earn better treatment. Without hope, they will die. Since children are by nature childish and self-centered, believing the trauma is their fault is pretty natural for them. Abusers reinforce this by blaming their victims. Sometimes a person who has experienced this develops a very hard shell and despises people who are hurt or who show pain. Compassion is one of the ways to dissolve that hard shell and heal.
Growing out of the belief that you caused the trauma is important for trauma survivors, especially since trauma can smash you back a few developmental stages. Under stress, you may find yourself acting or wanting to act as if you were the emotional age you were when traumatized or even younger.
Awareness: Any action which increases awareness will also increase the ability to be compassionate which is based on “the deep awareness of the suffering of others.” Even physical actions like mindful walking, running, dancing, martial arts, or singing can bring you to awareness of your feelings. They also empower you in a physical way, which can be very helpful in dealing with emotional pain. Various forms of meditation and prayer, and the “one-day-at-a-time” concept in 12-Step programs, also teach you to be here now, aware and living in this day, this hour, this minute. Once you can be aware of now, you can extend your awareness into your feelings and learn compassion. I find it very useful to do something my friend Katherine mentioned if I am in emotional pain when I meditate. I say to myself, “I am a good person,” and as I say it, I strike my chest. It really brings me into the moment and affirms my right to be in pain as well as my right to recover.
Another awareness technique which a therapist I admire teaches to her clients, (one of whom passed it on to me) is stop, drop, and breathe: When you notice a feeling, stop to identify the feeling, drop into the feeling, allow room for it inside you, and then breathe.
Remember it is okay to hurt. Genuine painful feelings are not self-pity. When bad feelings arise, remind yourself that it is normal to be affected by trauma.This too shall pass. It is painful. It is okay to be in pain. Reach out to that suffering person inside you as if he or she were a friend. Have compassion for yourself.
Small steps: “...the wish to relieve” suffering is the other half of the definition of compassion. What do you wish for to relieve your suffering? How can you break it down into small steps that can actually be accomplished instead of being overwhelmed by big unreachable goals ?
For example, suppose you wish to be happy. Break it down into a list of things that make you happy. Maybe you can do some of them today. To discover what makes you happy, you have to be aware enough to observe what actually does make you happy, instead of what’s supposed to make you happy.
If you wish to be able to go out socially without being triggered, break that down into manageable parts: spend time to identify your triggers (awareness), find places to go that don’t trigger you (research on what you like to do and what feels safe for you), and/or find therapy that helps you become less easily-triggered (ask other survivors for the names of therapists, call for introductory appointments, interview the therapist to see if he or she is someone you could work with, find out about his or her training, practices and beliefs).
If you wish for a healthy loving relationship, figure out the steps that might get you to your goal. Any plan you come up with will probably go through several revisions based on experience. It is okay to make mistakes. Try different approaches.
Asking yourself questions: In the American Heritage Dictionary, phrases defining synonyms for compassion include “sympathetic, kindly concern aroused by the misfortune...or suffering of another...a feeling of sorrow that inclines one to help or to show mercy...the expression of pity or sorrow:..the act of or capacity for sharing in the sorrows or troubles of another...a formal, conventional expression of pity...a vicarious identification with and understanding of another’s situation, feelings, and motives.”
Are you capable of “kindly concern” for yourself, or are you always flipping between “Poor me,” and Get over it!”? All-or-nothing thinking promotes self-pity.
Do you help yourself when you are having a hard time? Learning to identify emotions you’ve repressed or neglected will help you feel and release them. Even if they come back, you will handle them better each time.
Do you push yourself? If you do,  HALT is a good slogan. Don’t get too hungry, angry, lonely or tired.
Do you ask for help? Asking for help is another healing behavior especially if you ask early and often and before you are desperate. If you ask when you are desperate, it can appear to be a demand.
Do you have the capacity to share your sorrows with yourself or with a few trusted friends?
Do you give yourself formal expressions of sorrow and compassion for what happened to you?
Can you identify and understand your situation, feelings and motives? Everything a trauma survivor does is something he or she thinks will make him or her safe. Are your actions realistic? If not, maybe you can figure out how to make them more realistic. Do you feel safe? Is life the way you would like it to be?
How has this affected you? No one deserves to be traumatized, but if you were, realism suggests that it has affected you. It is time to change the question from, “Why me?” to “How has this affected me?” Most trauma survivors can give you a list. However, if you are a hard case, just barely beginning to realize you were even affected, this kind of self-awareness—examining yourself for symptoms—will give you a baseline for compassion for yourself. Every symptom started out as a survival skill that helped keep you alive.
Look at the adjective, compassionate: “Concerned with human welfare and the alleviation of suffering, charitable, humane, humanitarian, merciful.”
Are you merciful to yourself?
Are you working to alleviate your suffering? Looking out for your own welfare? Or are you abusing yourself with harsh judgments, unhealthy behaviors or substances?
How kind is your treatment of yourself? Do you have realistic expectations of yourself as a trauma survivor? Do you accept your natural, necessary pain or tell yourself to stop whining?
John Bradshaw in Healing the Shame That Binds You suggests saying, “I love myself. I will accept myself unconditionally,” out loud and often. This heals shame and develops self-love, which is an element of compassion.
If you also feel like you hate yourself or parts of yourself, that is okay. Bradshaw says we often dislike people we love, but it doesn’t mean we don’t still love them. The process of learning compassion includes learning to accept and love yourself as you are. It includes identifying your defenses and survival skills that are not very effective today so you can create the kind of life you want and find healthier happier ways to meet those needs. Bradshaw also recommends giving yourself time and attention, learning to be assertive, as opposed to either people-pleasing or aggressive behavior, and reframing mistakes. Everyone makes them. Self-pity leads you to think you are a mistake. Then you may try to become perfect, which will only make you hard to live with, not perfect! Mistakes serve a lot of useful purposes. They can be warnings. They can result from spontaneity and willingness to learn and play. They can be great teachers, if you are aware enough and flexible enough to learn from them. Bradshaw also recommends a commitment to becoming more aware of what you plan to do and what might come of it, using the experiences of the past and thinking through the likely consequences. This is a compassionate thing to do for yourself.
I’ve had a lot of experience with self-pity and self-criticism. I hated myself for not being perfect and treated myself harshly. I couldn’t figure out why I had problems, and I could never make them go away. It took me a long time to develop compassion for myself. It certainly wasn’t a concept I had ever thought about or felt that I needed, but I believe it has helped me heal more than almost any other quality I have developed (except for its twin, acceptance). Compassion is the kind of survival skill which never loses its usefulness. Compassion for yourself is essential for recovery. Once you have that, you will find you can say what it says in the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous: “...we will find that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick,” but the harm they did us will no longer be able to kill us or drive us to kill ourselves, slowly through addictions or swiftly through suicide. We are out of their power. Because we have self-compassion, we simply don’t take any more abuse. We have the energy to work toward healing and the capacity to be kind to ourselves in the process. Compassion means we also will not find ourselves inadvertently or intentionally hurting others. We can see their pain and reach out in fellowship, because we acknowledge and accept our own.

4th of July

Here is a wonderful article on PTSD and The 4th of July: https://www.facebook.com/veteransptsdproject