A quick note about the thread title: Spoiler I chose the word "survivor" because I'm not really sure what we are. Though I know that PTSD often the result of experiencing life-threatening circumstances, and the depression and anxiety that goes along with PTSD makes those who suffer from it one of the highest demographics in danger of suicide. Inspired by the drunk thread that mentioned today was PTSD-Awareness Day. I have, what my doctor described as, a "rather severe case" of PTSD. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I didn't intend to talk about this openly on the board, but there seems to be enough interest I'd feel guilty if I didn't open myself up. Applicable primer pages of the WDT are here and here. I recommend you read the WDT links first as a primer. Short story: I suffer from severe PTSD, Depression, and Anxiety, as a result of a traumatic medical mishap (brain tumor) roughly seven years ago. Though I am now married, with a month-old son. The anxiety and depression affect me daily. I have had to re-learn multiple things including how to write, how to type, how to walk, and how to talk. Unfortunately I have permanent loss of my mathematical skills, my short-term memory, the majority of hearing in my right ear, and a few other things I forget but will probably be reminded of later when people ask. The "stereotypical PTSD" part of it (e.g. stalking the perimeter of the house) affects me only when I am triggered by certain things. As of today, I have been diagnosed by multiple medical professionals (I ALWAYS seek second, third, often fourth opinions because I'm paranoid) as having "severe PTSD, depression, and anxiety," as well as "mild ADHD." Ask me ANYTHING, about PTSD, Depression, or Anxiety, and I will answer as quickly and as honestly as possible. As always with anything on this board, I intend to be funny, and if I can I will be. But above all I intend to be informational. Some questions will necessitate a more serious response. Also: I know there are others on this board who either have PTSD or have been in a related position. To those people: feel free to jump into this. To those who ask them questions: the rules that apply to me (i.e. "free for all") does not necessarily apply to them; let each person who answers dictate their own rules regarding the answers to them.... Trust me, it's for their health. MEDICAL DISCLAIMER: Spoiler Do not substitute what I say or anyone on this thread says for actual, certified doctor's advice, as I am not a licensed doctor nor necessarily are they; if you have serious questions, please seek licensed medical attention. If you think you have serious questions, please seek licensed medical attention. This thread is for ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY. If you or anyone you know has suicidal thoughts or tendencies PLEASE CALL the Suicide Prevention Lifeline available 24/7 at 1-800-273-8255
I'm actually mid career direction change and studying to go into mental health care, so I guess my first question is a little specific to that, but how has your experience with health care providers been? Was there great stuff that they did or were there things they did that you hated? Were they glaringly ignorant about aspects of your condition (and if so, like what?) or did it seem like they generally knew what was going on? Also, did you go straight to, or have you been to a PTSD specialist or did you start with/do you see a general adult practitioner? Psychologists or psychiatrists or both? More general questions, do you want extra consideration / obvious sympathy in general circumstances / this thread? Or do those things fuck with your sense of being a survivor rather than a victim? And I know you're good with being asked anything, but are there phrases or other triggering actions that we can avoid to make this less likely to suck for you, or things we can do while asking questions to make this easier?
First off thanks for doing this AMA. One question Ive always had on PTSD is "How bad is it?" or rather "How bad can it get?" It is variable with you? Are some episodes better than others, or that a wrong way to view it? One of never talked about things in my family is how my uncle came back from Vietnam and murdered both family dogs with a kitchen knife because hey thought they were trying to kill him. Other circumstances I've heard are a lot less severe, where people have recurring nightmares, etc.. Based on that, Is PTSD measured in terms of a severity scale at all? An interesting note on PTSD is today is the 100 year anniversary of the start of World War 1. When PTSD was called Shell Shock from artillery bombardments hitting trench positions in that war, almost every single soldier had a form of it. And we're talking months of constant artillery barrages while living in the mud with rotting dead bodies and human waste all around you. If it got bad enough and you weren't able to fight, officers- especially German and British ones, would execute you on the spot for being a coward. Absolutely unreal.
Great way to kick this off. My experience with health care providers has been nothing short of absolutely terrible. And I feel comfortable making that blanket statement, extending across continents, because the 99% of the doctors and specialists (and therapists, and psychiatrists) I saw were only concerned about getting me in, getting the diagnosis, and getting me out. i.e. the money part. The few who actually took the time to talk to me and, most importantly, listen to what I had to say instead of just treating me as a set of symptoms, were the few I now directly credit with saving my life (my neurosurgeon, about the seventh pulmonologist I saw, the third therapist I went to, and the second psychiatrist I went to). Covered some of this in the answer above. As far as being glaringly ignorant, well, I'll let you decide based upon some facts: I had been seeing various doctors for headaches since I was around 10. It wasn't until just after I had turned 19 that an MRI uncovered my brain tumor. You know who ordered that MRI? Yup, not a doctor: us. As my step-father later added up, in the three years before we found my brain tumor, I had been to exactly 82 doctor appointments for various related maladies such as severe headaches (the pain from which got so bad that eventually I started throwing up from it), eye drift problems (I was wrongly diagnosed with simply a lazy eye and scheduled for corrective surgery), and osteoporosis (at the time I was one of only 250 documented juveniles with osteoporosis; we later learned it was the brain tumor that caused it). The lesson I learned from all this is that you truly do have to be your own medical advocate. I'd seen some of the best migraine specialists in the area, and not a single one of them suggested doing an MRI or even a CAT scan. No, I have never been to a PTSD specialist. In MY opinion, a psychiatrist is just a band-aid unless the patient also sees a psychologist, and a psychologist is greatly limited if they recommend their patient also utilize a psychiatrist but the patient refuses to do so. So yes, I utilized both. As for how I found them, well, doctors run in cliques kind of. Just like you're friends with people who share roughly the same personality and interests that you do, they're the same. And the referrals they give aren't always to the best doctor for the job, but rather to their friend who does that job. I found my psychiatrist (the second one) off a referral from a doctor I greatly respected. From him, I was referred to my psychologist (the third one). The psychologist who worked best for me actually specializes in children, but he worked for me because -- there's a theme here -- he treated me as an individual, rather than a set of symptoms. And by doing that, he threw out a lot of red herrings, and solved what I now realize was an obvious riddle. Prior to seeing him, I had been diagnosed by other psychologists as having everything from aspergers, to some level of autism (I know aspergers is in the autism family), to being bi-polar, to one doctor saying alcoholism was the root of my problems (instead of a symptom?), to simply having family issues (who doesn't?). I don't want or expect anything different. You're dancing around asking if you should handle me with kid gloves, and the answer is a flat no. Y'all gave me shit before this thread, by all means continue during it. Part of that endearing quality about this place. Consider me a resource on a topic. Just like if I wanted to know more about bondage, I'd ask you. Everyone has their own traits that make them who they are. I'm not ashamed of who I am, nor am necessarily I proud of it. What defines me is what I do for a living (preschool administration), the type of husband I am, and the type of father I'm trying to be. PTSD is an aspect of that, yeah, and it certainly influences some decisions I make, but everyone's experiences influence decisions they make. As far as my sense of being a survivor and stuff, I got over that a long time ago. Yes, I am a survivor. I am a brain tumor survivor. I am a PTSD survivor. I am an adult living with ADHD. I'm a survivor of severe depression and anxiety who has learned to control my suicidal thoughts and tendencies (and yes, I'm open to questions about that too). But again, that stuff is all a technicality. It's important for this thread, yes, but by no means does it define me on a day-to-day basis.... I don't go running around with my thumb up my ass yelling "I'm a survivor!!!" at the top of my lungs. Not only would it get me weird looks, but it's also not all that special. Everyone is a survivor of something in one way or another, and the importance of it is in the eye of the person who went through it. But now, "survivors guilt" is another thing. I still struggle with that on a daily basis. Again, no. At this point in my life and condition there is nothing that's going to "set me off," and there's nothing I'm not going to answer. No part of this thread will suck for me, it's simply me giving information to people who ask for it; nothing you or anyone can ask is going to compare to what I think about and remember anyway, and after this thread runs its course I'll still be that asshole with the Dumb and Dumber avatar. Now, had you asked me that question a few years ago, my answer would have been very different.
For me, "episodes" is actually a good way to view it. I consider it to be kind of a background noise, like your back that's always a little sore or that one knee that's not quite right, to where you've gotten so used to the constant pain you kind of ignore it unless it flares up when you're lifting something heavy or the weather is about to change... Though that's how it is now, again after years of therapy and finally finding the medicine combination that works for me. Before I got it "under control" (though I'll always still have those episodes), it was like the only thing in my life. I wouldn't come out of bed, except to go to the fridge to get more beer. My wife and I almost divorced. Every single thought, when it wasn't about the surgery or what I experienced, was devoted to strategy about the best manner in which to kill myself. As far as how bad CAN it get, one time I held a loaded gun in my mouth with my finger near the trigger. My psychologist (who I now no longer see), despite specializing in child-related therapy, does work with people of all ages. He's had a number of people with PTSD commit suicide while they were actively working with him and more after they stopped, though he wouldn't tell me a number or a percentage. Yup, I can totally see the murdering the dogs thing. I live on a ranch in Texas, and in Texas we have hogs. Lots of them. They used to absolutely destroy my yard. I say used to, because for a long time (before I got on proper medication and found the right therapist) I went full-out Rambo. I think it was my body's way of getting out the pent-up aggression in a legal manner. On the weekends I'd turn nocturnal during those times, hiding along trails with a large knife and a gun. I don't know how many hogs I killed, but I think "all of them" is a good estimate... It was a good thing to remove those pests, yes, but in hindsight all I needed to do was spread a bunch of "bug-b-gone" on my yard to remove their food source and they would have left me alone. No, there's no formal "severity scale." Though I had one psychologist tell me I "looked like a soldier who just got back from Iraq." Not only was that not professional (nor conducive to bettering my health at the time), but also it only furthered a stereotype -- a lot of people I have encountered, even some of my own family members, have thought that it's only possible to get PTSD if you've been in war. While our service members and veterans get all the press right now, because a war is going on, PTSD is obviously not exclusive to that profession or those circumstances. Kinda like how in football concussions used to be called "getting your bell rung." We really are an ignorant species.
What do you have in terms of coping strategies? If you're having a particularly bad episode, what do you do to get yourself out of it? I have particularly bad anxiety, and I've seen psychologists who recommend breathing exercises and visualization techniques. Do you use similar methods, or is coping with PTSD a completely different ballgame?
First off, my anxiety -- and it gets really severe at times -- is a part of my PTSD (a piece of the pie if you will), but it is also it's own mental disease too. Largely, I treat it as a separate issue though. Breathing techniques and visualization exercises never worked for me, though I can completely understand how they would work for some people. My wife suffers from depression as well, and deep breathing works incredibly well for her. I've been with numerous people at work during their anxiety attacks over the years, and the first thing I do is to get them to start doing deep breathing, and then I talk them through what's going on, break it down into less-threatening chunks, and try to make that problem that's causing the anxiety not so scary anymore. I am not a doctor, but when you're near someone in a time of need and you have some knowledge that can help them, you gotta try what you can. The breathing and "talking through" has shown the best results for me with other people. What works best for me personally is to simply think through logically what the issue is that is causing my anxiety, like I said above break it down into tangible chunks/problems that aren't so scary anymore, and think about those small problems and why they aren't as bad as I think they are. Once I've done that, I put it back together again and realize I'm fine. Actually... what truly worked best for me was once my psychiatrist found the proper type, combination, and dosage of medication. Once he did that, it didn't fix everything, but it got the anxiety and depression down to a manageable level so that my psychologist and I could deal with them without being overwhelmed by them. Anxiety and depression are both highly-treatable for most people, so do not be afraid to ask your doctor about what you can do. That being said, I am NOT an advocate of "medicating your problems away," and I DO NOT recommend that anyone solely use chemical solutions to mask a problem. I tried that initially thinking it was the easy way out, and for a while it was, but the repercussions of not actually working out my issues with a therapist/psychologist were soon exaggerated once my body got used to the medication. I had been prescribed Xanax by my first psychiatrist, and after a while my body became so used to it she had to up the dosage, and then my body became used to that so the mg went up again, then up again, then up again. Until I could barely stay awake and was popping enough pills during the day to keep me full.... Those were bad times, and I don't want to make this answer any longer, so I'll just say if anyone has any questions about that stuff, knowing that I AM NOT A DOCTOR and cannot give actual medical advise, please feel free to ask.