PTSD doesn't ever go away. At best, we learn to recognize the symptoms when we are swooshed back into the past even though it's the present. I'll be 90 in 10 days and I had such a bad episode in 2025 where I coudn't take a proper breath for almost 3 months, couldn't eat, swivled into darkness that I started seeing a trauma therapist again. He continually reminds me I (we) are worthy of help, of healing, of sharing our stories. It's not only fine to ask for help, I've learned, It helps the helper heal. Thank you for your post
Can't do much to really help from across a screen, but I'd do whatever I could and then some. I wish the last little while hadn't been so hard. I wish we could heal the world without wrecking the healers. Grateful for you, Switter, and that bumper sticker.
Those bumper stickers. Sometimes they tell the truth. And that one is actually a simple truth. The strongest people I know aren't the ones who never need help. They're the ones who can look reality in the eye and say, 'This isn't working, and I'm going to do something about it.
I'm familiar with PTSD. I'm familiar with not wanting to appear anything but uber strong, resilient, independent, and damn well capable of taking care of myself, thank you. There was a period of time about 15 years ago when my attitude nearly cost me my life. But someone who had far less life experience than I had had by then, asked me to get help. And I did. And I've had the privilege of living another 15 years (so far).
I'm sorry that your days are hard right now and I'm grateful that you have people who matter. Let them remind you of all that is good. Let them remind you, too, that everything changes. These hard days will not last forever. They just don't. Maybe as Big E suggested, keep Walter close. He's good for you.
Your so far comment reminds me of when someone asks my 95 year old old guy if its true that he has lived his entire in our little valley. “Too soon to say. I’m not dead yet.”
This really hits home with me, Switter. And your 25 years of service to humanity in festering holes proves you are not weak. Far from it. The human soul can only take so much, though. problem is, our PTSD is difficult to share once we're home with people who can't possibly understand or imagine the horror that assailed us.
Not only was I raped while spending a semester abroad in Israel, the cultural of the entire country was like a constant war dance. Coming from a nice Mormon culture in Utah did not prepare me for people who are blatantly, unapoligetically rude and hard-hearted..When I returned home, my previous existence there altered socially. Friends were alienated by my experience. I managed to find a job and new friends and direction, but my supervisor saw something happening with me ... the darkness closing in on me. She placed a phone number on my desk and told me to call for an appointment. Best thing I ever did.
Years later after I'd moved to California, I visited a friend with my father and sister. We joined her and her husband, Larry, at Benihana's for dinner. Larry sat directly across from me. When he started talking about how he felt about Vietnam, our eyes met and it was like telepathy. A few words of agreement between us made everyone around us disappear. We had both been violated in ways that would never fully feal, but there were so many people who could relate to it. We are not alone, Switter. And we can heal to some degree. Take care, my friend.
I experienced the same telepathy when I volunteered in the aftermath of the Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, CA, and killed 86 people. Everywhere I went, I could see it in the eyes of survivors. What really surprised me was all the signs around town for lawyers, contractors, and tree services, but zero public advertisements for trauma therapy, which is not to say it wasn’t available, but I saw no evidence of it. It was easier to find trauma care after the genocide in Rwanda than in Paradise.
Pardon my cynicism here, but disasters are the greatest thing to pump energy into the economy. Lawyars, contractors, and other carpet baggers are in abundance and migrate like Okies to and from each slice of hell that happens. Like you said in your article, though, people are hesitant to seek help for PTSD. Or they are so confused by the situation and don't know where to go. Now, with mental health so prevalently on people's minds (at least in my part of the world), the resources are advertising more and hopefully getting help to the people who need it. My daughter was instrumental in coordinating Nevada law enforcement and medical entities to streamline the process of 911 crisis calls and training sheriff and social work personnel to go on clals together to deescalate crisis situations in a more timely and effective manner. I hope that sort of thing is reaching into Idaho and other states.
On a related topic, there is a huge, quiet revolution happening for folks with disabilities. When I was a kid, they were either ignored completely, thought of as a bother, or mocked.
Then came the struggle that ended with the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act, which left a few disgruntled whiners, but opened a door of opportunity.
Now, a huge amount of enthusiasm and creativity is going into leveling the playing field so all of us get a shot at the good life. I could write paragraphs about acceptance, mobility and access. Here’s a great very recent example:
“Ana Victoria Espino de Santiago from Zacatecas, Mexico, made global history as the first woman and first practicing lawyer with Down syndrome to graduate from law school. She earned her law degree from the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas.”
Despite all the rhetoric to the contrary, I firmly believe we are moving, with frustrating slowness at times but still moving, toward a more perfect union where all of us can live a good and full life. That’s my American dream.
I dare say that's most people's dreams, both citizen of the U.S. and immigrants. That's why people come here, not just because the pay's better, but because people can build the life they imagine. Not matter what the programs offer, though, it still takes guts and stamina. The freedom is there. It all depends on the individual. Excuses or whining will get them nowhere.
It does take guts and stamina, but the environment is now so supportive and enthusiastic that it’s hard to resist. I’m glad it’s come to that, just what I’ve observed in my lifetime, and I’m not near dead yet.
Wow - that is quite an experience and I fully believe this is how the universe shows up for us. We ALL need help. Asking for it can be hard AF but we not only benefit from it when we do, others around us benefit as well.
Glad you're still here, friend. Glad the worst of the fog has receded. One day at a time, soaking in much-needed sunshine.
As a therapist with the honor of having counseled thousands of clients with PTSD over my career, I would like to share a couple of thoughts…
I’m glad you have recognized that “therapy” is more than simply help… it is a tool to guide, like a map (when you have a good therapist) it can be like a professional showing you how to use a belaying rope on a mountain climbing trip, you learn tools to handle your thoughts as you process what you have experienced.
The reason trauma is best responded to with a trained therapist helping you is because your trauma happened inside you, you were alone during the actual event, with no one else in there experiencing it in exactly the same way you did. The therapist is beside you, yet not in the actual experience with you, so can be the guide.
People who attempt to “cope” with it on their own find their own techniques to get by, and some are very successful, yet the majority remain in the ‘just getting by’ place and at times return into the abyss of the experiences. It can feel like it’s all happening again right now.
I have found that it is the most intellectually intelligent, intuitive, and emotionally intelligent among people who experience trauma. Two people can be in the same experience, yet they will both internalize it differently.
If you reach a place where you have moved past the ability of your current therapist to help you, and you need something more, don’t be afraid to step into a different therapy situation. You will know what is helping. Therapy sessions are difficult, but should not leave you raw and exposed. They are the beginning to learning a process that you will use for the rest of your life to bring the world into focus. It is far beyond “getting by while you relive things”.
Trauma survivors are often the best people to have around in any crisis, because they are the ones who will be able to maintain their logic under extreme stress, and help everyone else.
Hang in there. It’s because you are an awesome person that you have the ability to continue therapy. Therapy does not change history, but it can be the map and the tools to help you cope thru your experience without further harm to yourself.
You hit me where it matters. I am grateful to people like you who are there to help people like me find a way forward.
I knew from early in my therapy experience that there are no silver bullet cures, although some treatments carry a lot of wallop. When I underwent EMDR treatment, for example, after a session all I could do was to sit in my car for a while before I felt safe to drive. However, within a relatively short period of time, I could think of things that troubled me deeply before, and soon the same thoughts and memories just were, without the emotional power they once held, like seeing an apple in a grocery store. It’s an apple, and it exists in my mind without any emotional weight. Through EMDR, I experienced an emotional delinkage with people and events that in the past left me wrecked. Before, the only coping strategy that felt safe was to pull away from people and situations that could trigger the old pain.
Other changes took longer, but I was well aware that it took almost thirty years of traumatic experiences (at times there were no words to express what I saw or experienced) to get into the hole I was in and that it couldn’t be fixed overnight.
But the work to treat the problem wasn’t without a lot of struggle. For a while, I slid back to a point where it all seemed hopeless and my only way out, I believed, was to cross that one certain line. When I found myself in a hospital with a “guard” sitting next to me, I felt even worse than I felt before. Now I had to face up to what I did. Fortunately, although I don’t really believe in fortunately, a kind social worker at the hospital came along and spent several hours probing my distress. She left for a few hours and returned with a a mental health specialist from the local VA hospital, I think she was a psychologist, who asked me questions for at least an hour and a half.
What she told me when she left was that, as a international humanitarian aid worker, my experiences were not much different from the soldiers she worked with every day, except for the fact that I never pulled a trigger and instead of a 12 or 18 month deployment, I was in the fray for a quarter of a century.
During my career, aid organizations had almost no awareness of the stresses their field workers experienced, and the field worker culture was to try to laugh it off, to work harder and longer to blot out intrusive thoughts, and to expect a man-up attitude, which in a way masked a lot of pain.
In fact, it wasn’t until I finally returned home permanently that things went out of control for me. The anxiety was so acute that even simple tasks required my full self discipline, focus, and determination, all of which was exhausting and the still the anxiety lingered. The black dog of depression was equally insistent, with few reprieves. Every unexpected noise, event, and even innocuous comment could cause an immediate crash, so I avoided most social interactions. They weren’t worth the effort. Finally, the nightly matinee in my head played over and over, so even sleep was befouled.
Early on in my treatment, I was prescribed a number of different SRRIs, each of which had side effects, but mostly left me feeling numb and it wasn’t until after several years of trying different meds that I finally was prescribed a medication that relieved the depression without leaving me emotionally numb. I finally felt like a person again. I was also prescribed Ambien, which worked in that I could finally sleep and the nightmares abated, but it had really weird side effects, like sleep walking and conversations that I could never remember when ask about them the next day.
With experience, I found that hard physical work and activity could help control the anxiety and made the depression much less debilitating. Counseling really helped to give me tools to cope with and lessen the stress from certain triggers.
And eventually, through my own experiments, I learned that simple, choral a cappella music, such as Gregorian chants or very early music by composers including Hildegard von Bingen, were very effective ways of treating the insomnia and nightmares. Eventually, I discovered that audio books read by a performer with a soothing, calm, and reassuring voice worked better than anything else and I still use the practice today.
I went into all this detail about my experience because I want to let others who live with PTSD know that it is entirely possible to get to a much better place. It isn’t easy. It takes dedication and determination. It requires work, but it is possible.
Finally, I wish there was a protocol for spouses who live with a partner who struggles with the symptoms of PTSD, and who often experience vicarious trauma themselves because of their spouse’s trauma, to receive care along with their spouses. That is my greatest regret, that my wife suffered in the shadows.
That driver had wings, Switter. You know that now. I've written a tale or two about angels, believer that I am. One of mine showed up in a Chevy Van, late 80s, if you recall...
This is worthy of sharing again and again. I'm very glad you did. And I'm very glad you're sorting out your world. Can't rush it. ~J
The fact is that we all have trauma. From our childhood, past lives and even passed down from generations of our family. Let alone having much worse experiences as you have mentioned. All of this comes down to mindset and understanding the bigger picture. What’s really going on. I’m living proof it can all be turned around. I struggled and suffered for over 40 years before finally finding work that helped me. It’s been completely life changing obviously…
I’m happy to have a chat with you if you’re open to it. No charge or commitment. Just happy to help someone going through what I have..
One of the hardest lessons PTSD taught me was that determination alone isn't always enough
What I eventually learned is that asking for help means refusing to surrender.
I'm glad you saw that sticker that day. The world is a better place because you turned right instead of driving straight.
I’m glad, too. Thanks, brother.
Sending you lots of love. I hope you are surrounded by those angels.
I depend on them!
PTSD doesn't ever go away. At best, we learn to recognize the symptoms when we are swooshed back into the past even though it's the present. I'll be 90 in 10 days and I had such a bad episode in 2025 where I coudn't take a proper breath for almost 3 months, couldn't eat, swivled into darkness that I started seeing a trauma therapist again. He continually reminds me I (we) are worthy of help, of healing, of sharing our stories. It's not only fine to ask for help, I've learned, It helps the helper heal. Thank you for your post
Yes, we are worthy of help, and helping is also healing when you are being helped.
Can't do much to really help from across a screen, but I'd do whatever I could and then some. I wish the last little while hadn't been so hard. I wish we could heal the world without wrecking the healers. Grateful for you, Switter, and that bumper sticker.
Those bumper stickers. Sometimes they tell the truth. And that one is actually a simple truth. The strongest people I know aren't the ones who never need help. They're the ones who can look reality in the eye and say, 'This isn't working, and I'm going to do something about it.
I'm familiar with PTSD. I'm familiar with not wanting to appear anything but uber strong, resilient, independent, and damn well capable of taking care of myself, thank you. There was a period of time about 15 years ago when my attitude nearly cost me my life. But someone who had far less life experience than I had had by then, asked me to get help. And I did. And I've had the privilege of living another 15 years (so far).
I'm sorry that your days are hard right now and I'm grateful that you have people who matter. Let them remind you of all that is good. Let them remind you, too, that everything changes. These hard days will not last forever. They just don't. Maybe as Big E suggested, keep Walter close. He's good for you.
Your so far comment reminds me of when someone asks my 95 year old old guy if its true that he has lived his entire in our little valley. “Too soon to say. I’m not dead yet.”
Thanks, Gracie.
Walter is good for me. Sometimes I want to find his speed controller, but only rarely and usually before dawn!
We are so sorry you’re going through this, Switter. Is Walter with you? We hope he is helping your counselor help you. We send you sincere love.
This really hits home with me, Switter. And your 25 years of service to humanity in festering holes proves you are not weak. Far from it. The human soul can only take so much, though. problem is, our PTSD is difficult to share once we're home with people who can't possibly understand or imagine the horror that assailed us.
Not only was I raped while spending a semester abroad in Israel, the cultural of the entire country was like a constant war dance. Coming from a nice Mormon culture in Utah did not prepare me for people who are blatantly, unapoligetically rude and hard-hearted..When I returned home, my previous existence there altered socially. Friends were alienated by my experience. I managed to find a job and new friends and direction, but my supervisor saw something happening with me ... the darkness closing in on me. She placed a phone number on my desk and told me to call for an appointment. Best thing I ever did.
Years later after I'd moved to California, I visited a friend with my father and sister. We joined her and her husband, Larry, at Benihana's for dinner. Larry sat directly across from me. When he started talking about how he felt about Vietnam, our eyes met and it was like telepathy. A few words of agreement between us made everyone around us disappear. We had both been violated in ways that would never fully feal, but there were so many people who could relate to it. We are not alone, Switter. And we can heal to some degree. Take care, my friend.
I experienced the same telepathy when I volunteered in the aftermath of the Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, CA, and killed 86 people. Everywhere I went, I could see it in the eyes of survivors. What really surprised me was all the signs around town for lawyers, contractors, and tree services, but zero public advertisements for trauma therapy, which is not to say it wasn’t available, but I saw no evidence of it. It was easier to find trauma care after the genocide in Rwanda than in Paradise.
Pardon my cynicism here, but disasters are the greatest thing to pump energy into the economy. Lawyars, contractors, and other carpet baggers are in abundance and migrate like Okies to and from each slice of hell that happens. Like you said in your article, though, people are hesitant to seek help for PTSD. Or they are so confused by the situation and don't know where to go. Now, with mental health so prevalently on people's minds (at least in my part of the world), the resources are advertising more and hopefully getting help to the people who need it. My daughter was instrumental in coordinating Nevada law enforcement and medical entities to streamline the process of 911 crisis calls and training sheriff and social work personnel to go on clals together to deescalate crisis situations in a more timely and effective manner. I hope that sort of thing is reaching into Idaho and other states.
No cynicism is needed when it’s true.
On a related topic, there is a huge, quiet revolution happening for folks with disabilities. When I was a kid, they were either ignored completely, thought of as a bother, or mocked.
Then came the struggle that ended with the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act, which left a few disgruntled whiners, but opened a door of opportunity.
Now, a huge amount of enthusiasm and creativity is going into leveling the playing field so all of us get a shot at the good life. I could write paragraphs about acceptance, mobility and access. Here’s a great very recent example:
“Ana Victoria Espino de Santiago from Zacatecas, Mexico, made global history as the first woman and first practicing lawyer with Down syndrome to graduate from law school. She earned her law degree from the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas.”
Despite all the rhetoric to the contrary, I firmly believe we are moving, with frustrating slowness at times but still moving, toward a more perfect union where all of us can live a good and full life. That’s my American dream.
I dare say that's most people's dreams, both citizen of the U.S. and immigrants. That's why people come here, not just because the pay's better, but because people can build the life they imagine. Not matter what the programs offer, though, it still takes guts and stamina. The freedom is there. It all depends on the individual. Excuses or whining will get them nowhere.
It does take guts and stamina, but the environment is now so supportive and enthusiastic that it’s hard to resist. I’m glad it’s come to that, just what I’ve observed in my lifetime, and I’m not near dead yet.
Wow - that is quite an experience and I fully believe this is how the universe shows up for us. We ALL need help. Asking for it can be hard AF but we not only benefit from it when we do, others around us benefit as well.
Glad you're still here, friend. Glad the worst of the fog has receded. One day at a time, soaking in much-needed sunshine.
As a therapist with the honor of having counseled thousands of clients with PTSD over my career, I would like to share a couple of thoughts…
I’m glad you have recognized that “therapy” is more than simply help… it is a tool to guide, like a map (when you have a good therapist) it can be like a professional showing you how to use a belaying rope on a mountain climbing trip, you learn tools to handle your thoughts as you process what you have experienced.
The reason trauma is best responded to with a trained therapist helping you is because your trauma happened inside you, you were alone during the actual event, with no one else in there experiencing it in exactly the same way you did. The therapist is beside you, yet not in the actual experience with you, so can be the guide.
People who attempt to “cope” with it on their own find their own techniques to get by, and some are very successful, yet the majority remain in the ‘just getting by’ place and at times return into the abyss of the experiences. It can feel like it’s all happening again right now.
I have found that it is the most intellectually intelligent, intuitive, and emotionally intelligent among people who experience trauma. Two people can be in the same experience, yet they will both internalize it differently.
If you reach a place where you have moved past the ability of your current therapist to help you, and you need something more, don’t be afraid to step into a different therapy situation. You will know what is helping. Therapy sessions are difficult, but should not leave you raw and exposed. They are the beginning to learning a process that you will use for the rest of your life to bring the world into focus. It is far beyond “getting by while you relive things”.
Trauma survivors are often the best people to have around in any crisis, because they are the ones who will be able to maintain their logic under extreme stress, and help everyone else.
Hang in there. It’s because you are an awesome person that you have the ability to continue therapy. Therapy does not change history, but it can be the map and the tools to help you cope thru your experience without further harm to yourself.
You hit me where it matters. I am grateful to people like you who are there to help people like me find a way forward.
I knew from early in my therapy experience that there are no silver bullet cures, although some treatments carry a lot of wallop. When I underwent EMDR treatment, for example, after a session all I could do was to sit in my car for a while before I felt safe to drive. However, within a relatively short period of time, I could think of things that troubled me deeply before, and soon the same thoughts and memories just were, without the emotional power they once held, like seeing an apple in a grocery store. It’s an apple, and it exists in my mind without any emotional weight. Through EMDR, I experienced an emotional delinkage with people and events that in the past left me wrecked. Before, the only coping strategy that felt safe was to pull away from people and situations that could trigger the old pain.
Other changes took longer, but I was well aware that it took almost thirty years of traumatic experiences (at times there were no words to express what I saw or experienced) to get into the hole I was in and that it couldn’t be fixed overnight.
But the work to treat the problem wasn’t without a lot of struggle. For a while, I slid back to a point where it all seemed hopeless and my only way out, I believed, was to cross that one certain line. When I found myself in a hospital with a “guard” sitting next to me, I felt even worse than I felt before. Now I had to face up to what I did. Fortunately, although I don’t really believe in fortunately, a kind social worker at the hospital came along and spent several hours probing my distress. She left for a few hours and returned with a a mental health specialist from the local VA hospital, I think she was a psychologist, who asked me questions for at least an hour and a half.
What she told me when she left was that, as a international humanitarian aid worker, my experiences were not much different from the soldiers she worked with every day, except for the fact that I never pulled a trigger and instead of a 12 or 18 month deployment, I was in the fray for a quarter of a century.
During my career, aid organizations had almost no awareness of the stresses their field workers experienced, and the field worker culture was to try to laugh it off, to work harder and longer to blot out intrusive thoughts, and to expect a man-up attitude, which in a way masked a lot of pain.
In fact, it wasn’t until I finally returned home permanently that things went out of control for me. The anxiety was so acute that even simple tasks required my full self discipline, focus, and determination, all of which was exhausting and the still the anxiety lingered. The black dog of depression was equally insistent, with few reprieves. Every unexpected noise, event, and even innocuous comment could cause an immediate crash, so I avoided most social interactions. They weren’t worth the effort. Finally, the nightly matinee in my head played over and over, so even sleep was befouled.
Early on in my treatment, I was prescribed a number of different SRRIs, each of which had side effects, but mostly left me feeling numb and it wasn’t until after several years of trying different meds that I finally was prescribed a medication that relieved the depression without leaving me emotionally numb. I finally felt like a person again. I was also prescribed Ambien, which worked in that I could finally sleep and the nightmares abated, but it had really weird side effects, like sleep walking and conversations that I could never remember when ask about them the next day.
With experience, I found that hard physical work and activity could help control the anxiety and made the depression much less debilitating. Counseling really helped to give me tools to cope with and lessen the stress from certain triggers.
And eventually, through my own experiments, I learned that simple, choral a cappella music, such as Gregorian chants or very early music by composers including Hildegard von Bingen, were very effective ways of treating the insomnia and nightmares. Eventually, I discovered that audio books read by a performer with a soothing, calm, and reassuring voice worked better than anything else and I still use the practice today.
I went into all this detail about my experience because I want to let others who live with PTSD know that it is entirely possible to get to a much better place. It isn’t easy. It takes dedication and determination. It requires work, but it is possible.
Finally, I wish there was a protocol for spouses who live with a partner who struggles with the symptoms of PTSD, and who often experience vicarious trauma themselves because of their spouse’s trauma, to receive care along with their spouses. That is my greatest regret, that my wife suffered in the shadows.
… i’ve amways thought i needed help (clinically) bht maybe i just need it humanly (clinically)…
Let’s face it. We all need help, even Gavin Newsome.
Maybe especially Gavin?
I will not cast the first stone!
🤣
That driver had wings, Switter. You know that now. I've written a tale or two about angels, believer that I am. One of mine showed up in a Chevy Van, late 80s, if you recall...
This is worthy of sharing again and again. I'm very glad you did. And I'm very glad you're sorting out your world. Can't rush it. ~J
The fact is that we all have trauma. From our childhood, past lives and even passed down from generations of our family. Let alone having much worse experiences as you have mentioned. All of this comes down to mindset and understanding the bigger picture. What’s really going on. I’m living proof it can all be turned around. I struggled and suffered for over 40 years before finally finding work that helped me. It’s been completely life changing obviously…
I’m happy to have a chat with you if you’re open to it. No charge or commitment. Just happy to help someone going through what I have..