Monday, November 17, 2008
The beginning of a new, scary journey…
Well yayyyy for me! I scored impressively high on the Post-traumatic Stress Disorder indexing test!
Yes, I'm thrilled, aren't you?
Riiiiight.
See, I knew it all along. I knew living through the hell I lived through for most of my childhood could not possibly leave me untouched. I see the scars every day. So almost two weeks ago, when my new way-better-than-the-old-one therapist double checked her math and told me the thrilling news, I guess I didn't even care.
It's like, Tell me something I don't know, right?
But let's forget about me for awhile. There is something dynamic about childhood stress (specifically life-threatening illness-induced stress) and trauma. I love to research it and the more I learn, the more I realize that the field is relatively untouched. The more I realize that these are the things that have molded me into who I am today. The more I understand, yet at the same time? The more I fear.
See, I knew it all along. I knew living through the hell I lived through for most of my childhood could not possibly leave me untouched. I see the scars every day. So almost two weeks ago, when my new way-better-than-the-old-one therapist double checked her math and told me the thrilling news, I guess I didn't even care.
It's like, Tell me something I don't know, right?
But let's forget about me for awhile. There is something dynamic about childhood stress (specifically life-threatening illness-induced stress) and trauma. I love to research it and the more I learn, the more I realize that the field is relatively untouched. The more I realize that these are the things that have molded me into who I am today. The more I understand, yet at the same time? The more I fear.
What is PTSD?
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is real. It's deeper than living though daily memories of some vicious trauma in your past. It's more than a remembrance. It's a consistent dwelling, something that haunts you every second of every day. It's a ghost that refuses to leave, a gripping fear that never lets go. It's flashbacks, nightmares, behaviors, anxieties, ideas, and much more than just the normal growth through grief or the decision that something was a bad memory but is now over.
Traumatized Troops
The federal government pours billions of dollars into treating (and researching) returning troops with PTSD. If you pay even a little bit of attention to the news, you probably have heard how the soldiers come back with wounds far deeper than their physical battle scars. It's awful. Thankfully for them though, the government is involved in an almost guilty way, so they will not deny their cause.
Traumatized citizens... and more specifically?
The little soldiers who live to tell
But anyone in medicine knows that research is miniscule without funding. Any new findings are futile unless grants are in place. So PTSD victims with torments from rape? Child abuse? Mass trauma? That's where the funding lacks. We are at the mercy of the findings of the soldiers' cases. We sick kids who grow up? In the past, most of us didn't live to tell our stories. Many still don't. But those of us who do? I guess we stay silent.
There is so much unknown about these precious children who do live through their illness, cope with it, and manage (healthily or not) the scars. I'm motivated and we'll see where this interest takes me and my career. There are people out there who need help. There are kids who are going to outlive any stats from when I was their age. Medicine is getting so advanced and as a result, capable of saving so many children. Because so many more kids are living, I really think there is going to be a huge increase in pediatric illness-initiated PTSD, whether it appears in childhood or lasts (or recurs ) in adulthood. I'm excited about this.
But on the other hand, I'm petrified.
To find out why, please let me first share what I know with you. I know all of this from my life and from hours and hours of research and talking to any doctor who would listen... So here goes...
Children coping with their illness
Powerful influences on perception, development & adulthood
Children are fascinating. Remember, especially at a young age, children cannot process their perceptions like you or I could as an adult. They take things at face value and notice things you or I would never even think about. They "feel" a little deeper. Their innocence is still beautifully intact. To many of them, the world knows no pain.
Then bring in a trauma. Abuse. Molestation. Observing domestic abuse. The sights. The sounds. The pain. It hurts inside and outside. Why? A 4 year old little girl doesn't know. She just know it hurts. Pain is pain, and when she's a child, pain is fear. Pain scars just a little deeper. Instead of losing her innocence little by little, it's ripped apart prematurely - not minding that her skin hasn't had the chance to toughen up yet. It's raw. It bleeds. And it happens all at once, leaving her so vulnerable to the same elements that the other kids can handle with relative ease.
The little girl moves on and assumes this is how life is supposed to be. After all, she knows no difference.
Fast forward a little and she realizes, Wait a minute. Nobody else is like this. I'm not normal. All my friends at school don't have to do this. They don't cry all night long. They don't go to the hospital. Their daddies aren't in jail. Their arms aren't bruised. Whatever the case is, her comfortable standard of normalcy is now in flux. The little mind cannot understand. It notices, it observes, it questions, but it cannot understand.
You know how children constantly ask questions and want to know why this, why that? Well this is no exception. Why am I different? Why do I have to deal with this?Their new realization spurs a cascade of questions. Of course, we all know there are no answers, but children need answers. It's instinct. So they make their own. It's my fault. It's Mommy's fault. It's God's fault. It's SOMEONE'S fault. Things can't just "happen" - little minds don't understand how to accept the unknown as an answer.
And then there's the whole fairness thing. "Why" and "It's not fair!" are little kids' favorite things in the world to say. Alllll day long. It's right or wrong, fair or unfair. These little fighters are no different. They have the same questions, only their same questions mean just a little bit more than the exact same words from the "other" kids...
I could go on forever, and sometime I probably will, but that's just a little intro of how PTSD impacts children.
What about me? An intro to my journey...
So, at the raw age of 5, chronic illness came and robbed me of a childhood I never knew and left me with memories I couldn't overcome.
Fast forward to today.
I've been "officially" diagnosed with PTSD even though as I said, it is really no surprise.
Pretend you have a huge cut and you neglect to go to the hospital and get it stitched up. It may get infected, heal wrong, or leave a larger scar than if it were carefully mended. Now imagine a hurting child. When she doesn't experience immediate therapeutic interventions, her emotional wounds don't heal correctly. Harmful ideals are pursued and wrong thought processes are established.
16 years of that can sure do a lot of harm. I'm haunted day and night, and I deal with fears I cannot defeat. Things press so hard that I can't shake them. Rumination, nightmares, anxiety over simple things... I see it every single day. Additionally, working in the very place that used to send me into fits (the h-o-s-p-i-t-a-l... too bad I was a good speller at that age...) isn't necessarily easy. Far from it.
I came to a decision that if I ever wanted to get some peace, I wouldn't be able to do it on my own. I've watched myself spiral downward and the oppression has become too much to bear. The panic attacks and nervous breakdowns have gotten past the point of ridiculous and I'm so weak. My defenses are down - nothing can hurt me any more than I have already experienced, so a month or two ago, my thought was, why not try whatever I can? I have nothing to lose.
Since my previous therapist wasn't helping one bit, I did something courageous. I picked up the phone and called what I had researched and decided to be the best option in my area. They paired me with a new therapist in their practice who is absolutely amazing. We are a lot alike and she intuitively knows my strengths and weaknesses. She's so friendly and encouraging, and being ever-so-careful with my scars and broken parts, she is leading me on a path to wellness.
Tomorrow is my third visit to her, and we are officially beginning one of the hardest yet most effective PTSD treatments: Prolonged Exposure Therapy.
Prolonged Exposure Therapy
Imagine it's winter time. For some odd reason, you are determined to go swimming. You can inch into the water slowwwwly because it's soooooo cold and the icy water is so painful, or you can jump right in, and feel indescribably miserable for just a few seconds.
Yep, it's kind of like that.
I can go through therapy forever and gradually get better, or, with Exposure Therapy, I can go through a few months of intense treatment where I consistently force myself to face my fears, "triggers," memories, etc. (in a "safe" environment) until they become less threatening.
I'll tell you more about it later because of course, there is so much to it, but for now, just think of me as tomorrow, I start what will be a really hard, but hopefully really rewarding journey.
Here I go...
I'm serious about this. Scared out of my mind? Yes. But I keep reminding myself that I'm no stranger to fear, new things, and definitely pain... so I think I'll be okay.
It's time to face my past.
It will always be a part of me, but I must realize that it lacks the power to threaten me.
After all, I am determined, and I am telling you right now, once and for all: I cannot and will not fail.
Will you come along?
I invite you to join me on my journey not out of pity or lack of things to blog about. (Quite the contrary...) I'm a private person but I've spent 16 years mostly hiding this part of my life, and I realize that I need to overcome all traces of denial and any feeling of inadequacy and shame. Secondly, maybe there is someone out there who can be strengthened by my journey or inspired to start their own. And lastly? Because we're all in this crazy miracle together.
