What PTSD Is
Mar. 19th, 2013 02:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithHere's a brilliant post about the kind of PTSD that builds slowly, a pervasive shift in worldview, rather than the kind that comes from a sudden major shock. This is how it can form in people who aren't front-line soldiers but rather support crew, or cops, or people living in poverty or neglectful relationships.
Now look at the part where it talks about society not being a safe place, everyone's out to get each other, no trustworthy connections, no safety net if something goes wrong, nobody to care if you live or die. That's what we're making our world into every time we cut public services and support. We're making it more like the place inside a PTSD sufferer's head. "Every man for himself and devil take the hindmost" isn't a society. It's madness.
Now look at the part where it talks about society not being a safe place, everyone's out to get each other, no trustworthy connections, no safety net if something goes wrong, nobody to care if you live or die. That's what we're making our world into every time we cut public services and support. We're making it more like the place inside a PTSD sufferer's head. "Every man for himself and devil take the hindmost" isn't a society. It's madness.
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(no subject)
Date: 2013-03-19 09:07 pm (UTC)You're welcome!
Date: 2013-03-19 09:17 pm (UTC)I share the original author's view that we could use more representations of this type of PTSD in literature. I've written about some of the more extreme examples. This subtler version ... if you look around, you can see how some of my main characters have that kind of hypervigilance, connectivity impairment, sense of meaningless, etc. But I may see about playing this up in the future.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-03-20 01:40 am (UTC)It is the curtain pulled back, the deep and thematic realization that life is fungible, that death is capricious and sudden. That anyone’s life can be snuffed out or worse, ruined, in the space of a few seconds. It is the shaking realization that love cannot protect you, and even worse, that you cannot protect those you love. It is the final surrendering of the myth that, if you are decent enough, ethical enough, skilled enough, you’ll be spared.
Isn't that just reality? I mean, I grew up in poverty, so maybe I just grew up with that worldview, so it's not a traumatic realization for me, but I can't see anything (morally) wrong with having that knowledge. It's the truth, and even social programs won't keep it away. Like you said, they can always be cut. Always. Anything that's not inherent can be changed or removed. Social programs are to some extent, what, being able to extend that myth of safety to the poor? Not to knock it, I get what the guy is saying, and what you're saying; it's very difficult to be emotionally/mentally healthy when you're dealing with that kind of reality. But it doesn't change the fact that safety is an illusion.
Not that I'm knocking social programs, lord knows where I'd be without them. It's just that relying on them is to rely on other's good will, and it's sad how often that will disappoint.
Okay...
Date: 2013-03-20 01:47 am (UTC)There's a spectrum. We can't stop death or random misfortune. We can choose to build societies with a high level of fault tolerance so those inevitable griefs do the least possible harm. We can choose to avoid creating avoidable problems. Or we can fuck each other over. Some societies are closer to the crappy end, some to the shiny end.
The more energy we put into resilience and compassion, the better for everyone.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-03-20 03:32 am (UTC)I take issue with your second paragraph, this line especially: "We're making it more like the place inside a PTSD sufferer's head." It's not true. People with PTSD don't just perceive that there are things wrong with the world, or that people are callous. I would encourage you to look at PTSD elephant and A User's Guide to PTSD. (On rereading, I also see what you did with your last line, which I didn't notice before. I am appalled. "Your political position is unacceptable because it resembles things believed by the mentally ill"-- especially in a context where those mentally ill people may be more likely to know something many don't-- is a bad form of argument.)
Finally, I take some issue with the linked article itself, but I'm cautious about explaining that here in light of the way you have just held it up as an example of a person who is wrong about everything because of mental illness. I don't agree with that, and would direct you to another article, also by a person with PTSD, BADD: Pulling Back Curtains. The article's introduction is most relevant. The article you posted a link to is not wrong, per se, but incomplete.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-03-20 08:13 am (UTC)Shakespeare's Falstaff as the old soldier who's seen one arrow storm too many?
Yes...
Date: 2013-03-20 08:20 am (UTC)That's one branch of mine too.
>> and it goes back a lot further than the acronym.<<
I keep an eye out for previous terminology across times and cultures.
>>Shakespeare's Falstaff as the old soldier who's seen one arrow storm too many?<<
That's one of the better-known examples, yes.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-03-20 11:02 am (UTC)On the other hand, a) safety nets--both government safety nets and personal safety nets--can make that somewhat better. and b) I don't know about anyone else, but I think I would find it hard to function if I brooded about that all the time.
And I agree that "everyone for themselves and devil take the hindmost" is not a society but a hell--and furthermore shows a great shortsightedness of the part of people who don't want something better purely for their own selfish sake. I mean, I want a world with justice and mercy in part because I am a human who cares about other humans, but I also want it because I personally hope to benefit from it now and then.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-03-19 10:48 pm (UTC)Yes...
Date: 2013-03-20 12:25 am (UTC)Re: Yes...
Date: 2013-03-20 12:44 am (UTC)I'm coming to the conclusion that this is not working, either as a means to fix matters or helping me. It's feeding back into my own issues. [PDSD, prolonged duress stress disorder, similar but not quite.]
But I hear what you are saying as well.. that we're just building sand castles here really. One cannot build a healthy personal environment in a toxic society, at least, not for long.
I think then that there aren't too many options left. Either to opt out altogether or to give up, lay down and die metaphorically, [or possibly literally if one really gives into despair.]
I think I need to think about this.
Re: Yes...
Date: 2013-03-20 01:38 am (UTC)Frequently true.
>>But I hear what you are saying as well.. that we're just building sand castles here really. One cannot build a healthy personal environment in a toxic society, at least, not for long.<<
There are some steps that can be taken, but the people who want the world in ruins have more leverage than the ones who don't.
>>I think then that there aren't too many options left. Either to opt out altogether or to give up, lay down and die metaphorically, [or possibly literally if one really gives into despair.]<<
When I have the energy and opportunities, I work on making the world a better place. When I don't, I step back and wait to recharge.
At least I'll have the satisfaction of standing in the foyer-ever-after and saying, "I fucking told you so." I may not be able to stop the bastards from creating one catastrophe after another, but I can make them work for it.
Re: Yes...
Date: 2013-03-20 01:40 am (UTC)Or in my case, that I'm taking the fire way too personally and need to have a more resilient spirit. Funny, I don't think resilience ever worked as a fire extinguisher.
I had a year of being unable to deal with the population of my country not giving a sh*t about the way they were being treated about mental health. Then, at some stage, I burnt out myself. Perhaps that's no bad thing. Artists change society through art - campaigning by itself isn't enough until you have artistic power behind your words.
Re: Yes...
Date: 2013-03-20 01:43 am (UTC)Sometimes I sign petitions or do other activism. Sometimes I write stories that are generally positive, even if they have gritty parts.
Then there are times when I lose my temper and release things that can really hurt people if read by legitimate targets.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-03-20 04:57 am (UTC)So I am an iconoclast, the person who questions, who tries to protect others, sometimes by being the one to say "The Emperor has no clothes!" I've already been burned out several times.
Coming close to homelessness, being accosted on the street, starving, just more crap in the mill. That's why I can't even relate to the "Devil take the hindmost" attitude, because I've spent too much time as the hindmost, and I take it very personally.
The only reason suicide has never appealed to me is that it would give the bastards too much of a victory. Some years I kept living out of sheer spite.
My way of dealing with it is seeing making at least one person's life easier, better, happier as I go through my day as a victory. Answer a question, give someone a tool, tell a joke, make a pun, or just listen to their problems counts.
If I didn't have that, I'd be batshit crazy looking for a bell tower.
Thoughts
Date: 2013-03-20 05:37 am (UTC)That probably happens far more than most people realize.
>>So I am an iconoclast, the person who questions, who tries to protect others, sometimes by being the one to say "The Emperor has no clothes!" I've already been burned out several times.<<
Yea, verily.
>>My way of dealing with it is seeing making at least one person's life easier, better, happier as I go through my day as a victory. Answer a question, give someone a tool, tell a joke, make a pun, or just listen to their problems counts.<<
It's important to make a difference.
For all the times people have fucked me over, walked away, told lies behind my back, left me to do all the work ... I'm still the one they come to when they don't know what the fuck to do. Now that's what they call irony.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-03-20 09:51 pm (UTC)Hey, don't knock it if it works. I'm specifically making myself responsible for some things (including a webcomic) as a safeguard against suicide. For me, duty > everything.
--Rogan
Yes...
Date: 2013-03-20 10:05 pm (UTC)Agreed. Do what works for you.
>> I'm specifically making myself responsible for some things (including a webcomic) as a safeguard against suicide. For me, duty > everything.
--Rogan <<
It's good to hear that you know how your mind works and can find solutions based on that. Yay for webcomics!
(no subject)
Date: 2013-03-21 10:22 am (UTC)Thoughts
Date: 2013-03-22 02:23 am (UTC)Useful comparison.
>> Knowing that him doing that broke me so spectacularly ... unless I can guarantee I won't break someone else the same way, my damn sense of responsibility won't let me. <<
I'm glad you're still here. Losing you wouldn't break me, and I wouldn't want anyone to feel trapped in an unbearable life on my account. But I'd miss you if you were gone.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-03-20 07:47 am (UTC)Thank you for the link to that article, Ysabet. I'm going to be bookmarking it for certain people.
I'd still love to know how my colleagues on that team avoided ending up the way i have ... unless too much empathy was to blame, or something similar - I'll take feeling too much over too little.
Thoughts
Date: 2013-03-20 07:56 am (UTC)*hugs* I'm glad I could help.
>>I'd still love to know how my colleagues on that team avoided ending up the way i have ... unless too much empathy was to blame, or something similar - I'll take feeling too much over too little.<<
Anyone can be broken, but not everyone's breaking point is in the same place. In particular, some people are highly resilient to sudden severe shocks but vulnerable to sustained stress, while others are the opposite. Some are damaged far more by harm to others than harm to themselves, some the opposite. One might be fearless in the face of weapons in the hands of an enemy but shattered by abuse from a relative, or vice versa. So if something horrid happens to a group of people, chances are some of them will sustain traumatic damage from it while others won't, and the degree of impairment and symptoms are likely to vary.
The more representations of PTSD that are available, the more likely people with it are to see something that matches their experience. So that helps identify it and encourage people to seek help if such is desired and available.
This divergence between different manifestations and expectations reminds me a bit of the situation with rape, where people usually think of stranger rape because it's so garish, but acquaintance rape is far more common. A lot of people who have been raped just don't realize it because their mental image of the crime is so different from what they experienced, even if it fits the legal definition. So for example, if people think of PTSD as a doorkicker's problem featuring vivid flashbacks, they might not recognize that three years of domestic abuse resulting in insomnia and touch-aversion could be a different facet of the same condition.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-03-20 08:06 am (UTC)>>So if something horrid happens to a group of people, chances are some of them will sustain traumatic damage from it while others won't, and the degree of impairment and symptoms are likely to vary.<<
I know that *intellectually*, but there were thirty odd of us all told, and sometimes, when I'm feeling especially broken I can't help but feel angry at them for not even noticed I was being broken by the cases i was dealing with. Both the personal (the suicide of a friend & the death in a RTA of another that forced me to pull away from part of my support structure) and the day in, day out deaths in Afghanistan, some for the stupidest reasons - and some because no one had read our reports yet.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-03-20 08:12 am (UTC)There's a long hard way between knowing and feeling.
>> but there were thirty odd of us all told, and sometimes, when I'm feeling especially broken I can't help but feel angry at them for not even noticed I was being broken by the cases i was dealing with. <<
Sooth. It may be that you hid it well; you're a strong person. It may be that some of them really didn't care. It's downright likely that some of them didn't see how wrecked you were, because they were wrecked too, just not showing it noticeably; it's often the case in groups that some damage will be more visible than others.
>>Both the personal (the suicide of a friend & the death in a RTA of another that forced me to pull away from part of my support structure) and the day in, day out deaths in Afghanistan, some for the stupidest reasons - and some because no one had read our reports yet.<<
Yeah, that last bit is really hard. Lack of accurate information can be fatal. I think people don't realize how crucial knowledge is. One of the things I deal with least well is problems caused by other people's ignorance or indifference in the face of knowledge that I have.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-03-20 08:57 am (UTC)I think the incidents that stick worst in my mind are the ones that involve egregious cases of that. 20:20 hindsight compounds things of course, but some things were just inexcusable once we'd found all the pieces - or as many as were left and put them together to find out what had *really* happened - and that kind of detail coupled with a mind used to meditations/trances and fabricating worlds for writing?
On the slightly brighter side of things, later this year I should be attending a chronic pain programme specifically geared for people with PTSD, despite technically not fufilling the diagnostic criteria on the UK psych manuals, as my secondary care professionals agree its the best course of treatment for me they can offer.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-03-20 09:38 am (UTC)Sooth. That's always going to hurt.
>>and that kind of detail coupled with a mind used to meditations/trances and fabricating worlds for writing?<<
Yyyyeah ... that's a problem. That kind of mindset can tear itself apart under the wrong circumstances. The strength and the weakness of the power are the same thing; like the way super hearing makes it possible to hear a lost person from a distance, but also makes sirens a misery. There are things I try to limit my exposure to for that kind of reason.
>>On the slightly brighter side of things, later this year I should be attending a chronic pain programme specifically geared for people with PTSD, despite technically not fufilling the diagnostic criteria on the UK psych manuals, as my secondary care professionals agree its the best course of treatment for me they can offer.<<
Good luck with it!
A lot of mental health care comes down to "We don't really know what's going on because the mind isn't something we can X-ray but this is the best we've been able to figure out as a solution." Sometimes it helps. It's just so much harder to fix things that can't be touched directly with what most people have available.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-03-21 10:38 am (UTC)Unfortunately at the time, orders were orders ... and mostly* I was doing okay while I knew I was actively making a difference. It was when I was discharged and I could still see what was happening, still left with enough knowledge to put together an approximation of each new death from the news I lost control for a bit.
*mostly because I had an officer I nicknamed Evil in my head ... she was mildly sociopathic, maybe? But she had a tendency to thoughtlessly hand me cases to work on that I'd specifically asked our colonel to be kept away from when he was out of the office and insist I work on them.
>>A lot of mental health care comes down to "We don't really know what's going on because the mind isn't something we can X-ray but this is the best we've been able to figure out as a solution." Sometimes it helps. It's just so much harder to fix things that can't be touched directly with what most people have available.<<
Gods above and below, I wish that the therapists would just admit that sometimes - I've just has a year of cognitive behaviour therapy, where thanks to the way the mental health system in the UK works and the diagnostic manual is written, I got treatment for exactly two thirds of my presenting mental health symptoms because I couldn't possibly have PTSD because there was no Trigger as defined by them. The potential treatment for the PTSD is actually being offered by the Consultant Anaesthetist leading the Pain Management team ... that's the screwy thing; that its not mental health services that's treating it.
But she can get away with it because I present with the symptoms, which means I'll do best in that program, which will cost less in the long term than having me fail one program and need more expensive painkillers, so it's at her discretion which course she puts me into. Without that, I could go much, much longer without treatment because i can't afford it privately.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2013-03-22 02:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-03-20 11:28 pm (UTC)I admit, I've been having a lot of these thoughts since I fell off the money ladder and entered the disability application process. Like, I'm extremely lucky, in that I have pretty good health insurance and a lot of people who love me, but I'm still living in that damn crawl space, and I'm likely to be there for another six months, at least. (I never imagined my dreams at the age of twenty-five would involve four walls and a window.)
Like, it's bad enough if I'm just spectacularly unlucky, right, but the horrible thought is that I'm LUCKY. I would never, ever want anyone else to go through what I've been going through the past year, and I've never even hit the rock bottom of true homelessness.
And I wonder, was the system always this bad? I haven't been around long enough to know. The world just feels like a cold, vicious place, and I hate the thought that I'm coming out LUCKY on the stack!
--Rogan
Thoughts
Date: 2013-03-20 11:42 pm (UTC)And that's what the American Dream has come down to, hoping you have health insurance and a roof of some kind. It's a disgrace.
>>And I wonder, was the system always this bad?<<
No. Very early on, it was a great deal worse. Then people decided that was untenable, so they made it quite a lot better. Now people think it's okay to let someone suffer and die if he can't do anything you want, so things are getting pretty bad.
>> The world just feels like a cold, vicious place, and I hate the thought that I'm coming out LUCKY on the stack! <<
One thing that worries me is how much effort it takes to get any kind of help. A great many people who need help do not have the time, money, energy, or other resources to fight with the system in hopes of maybe wringing loose something that will make them feel better. So if they don't have a friend or family member to do that for them, they often go untreated. Which does actually cause problems for bystanders even if people don't realize that.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-03-24 01:00 am (UTC)My husband tells me that's crazy... but I remain convinced. I just don't believe anyone has my back, and that's PTSD talking.
Well...
Date: 2013-03-25 02:19 am (UTC)I want to live in a world that doesn't randomly break people. What I actually have is a world that's so erratic in its performance that trying to predict it is like trying to predict whether the psycho boyfriend is in the mood for flowers or fists. That's a problem.