A friend mine, Tom, is a Medical Professional. He’s an extraordinary man. Besides being in great shape, loving to cook,
being able to fix things, and having the ability to utter sentences like, “Honey,
I’m buying you a new kitchen”, he’s also a really nice guy who loves his work
and patients. Tom is always looking to
dig a little deeper or look around a different corner to find ways to help
people.
A few weeks ago at dinner together, Tom started talking
about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He
works for the Veteran’s Administration, so it’s something that comes up
frequently in his work. He was talking
about the definition of PTSD, and how the disorder is much more wide-spread
than previously thought. It’s not just
for soldiers anymore. Apparently, PTSD
is not reserved for those who have been victimized by physical violence –
military conflict, physical abuse, incest, violent crime, or horrible
accidents. Apparently most of us have
had or have PTSD, because it can be brought on by any number of life-changing
or emotionally charged circumstances – job loss, divorce, on-going
interpersonal conflicts, or death of someone close to you.
So we have this discussion, and I’m interested, and I ask
questions, and then the subject changes and I forget about it. Until this morning.
I was recently involved with a very negative experience
at a part-time job I had, and it ended with me resigning. I wasn’t willing to try to resolve the
situation, and the others who were involved clearly weren’t willing
either. So I, The Camel, waited until
that Last Straw came, and then I took my broken back and walked out the door. (Bad choice, by the way. Never wait until the last straw…)
Since that time, which was about two weeks ago, two
things have been going on (and I’ll be brief, because this is not the point I’m
making).
On one hand, I’ve been dealing with the aftermath of the
situation. Publically I’ve been talking
with people, apologizing to those affected, reassuring, trying to put the best
face on it, apologizing some more, and explaining. Privately I’ve been relieved to be out of
this less-than-harmonious situation, I’ve been looking at this from the very
positive Grand Scheme perspective, and I’ve been grateful to have my time back.
On the other hand, I’ve been dealing with my feelings
about it all. I’ve been obsessing about
things over which I have no control (people and past events), I’ve been waking
up at 3:00 a.m. and been unable to get back to sleep, I’ve been alternately
over-eating and losing my appetite, I’ve made sweeping declarations about not
having anything to do with “that place,” and I’ve been crying often and with
very little provocation.
This morning I remembered what Dr. Tom had said, and I went
looking for what, exactly the symptoms of PTSD are. Very interesting. This is the point I want you to pay attention
to, because I think you’ll be surprised.
I’m going to guess that most of you have been in a situation in which
you have experienced, over a matter of days or weeks, the three classes of
symptoms associated with PTSD
- Re-experiencing the situation: nightmares, intrusive thoughts, flashbacks
- Avoidance or numbing symptoms: you don’t want to talk about the event, you don’t want the feelings associated with it, and you don’t want to go anywhere that reminds you of it.
- Symptoms of physical hyper-arousal: difficulty sleeping, difficulty concentrating, exaggerated startle response, and being hyper-vigilant.
So, yes. This
situation has left me with a case of post-traumatic stress disorder. Fascinating.
I know it will go away because I’ve been here before in my life, but
still… fascinating.
What that gets
me thinking is this: people get PTSD more often than they think, first of all,
but in the case of non-violent trauma,
how much of that is self-imposed? How
much of it is a result of your world view, your belief paradigms, or your
personality? I’m not blaming or judging,
here, just pondering.
Like, I’ve spent the last year-and-a-half in a frequent state
of emotional upheaval because of how I’m
being treated. Even though I know full-well
that everyone does what they do because of themselves, not because of anyone
else, I’ve still put all these experiences through the “how others are treating me” filter. My husband would
never have been affected by the situations with the Job in the way I have. He would never have filtered the same experiences
through the “me” filter like that. He
would have been annoyed, he might have been angry, but he would never internalize
someone else’s disrespectful behavior. I’ve
seen him, duck-like, let things roll off his back that would have devastated me.
This morning as I was exercising I was thinking about this
– Let’s say you’re in a situation like I am.
You know that your personality and world-view are responsible for your
interpretation of an event (or events) such that you find yourself with these
kinds of symptoms. Do you set about to
change that aspect of your personality or world view so that you’ll be able to
deal with this sort of thing better in the future? Is it worth it? It would be a lot of work. And there are two sides to every coin. For instance, might making myself less sensitive
to contempt or incivility also lead to my being less sensitive to my
clients? The main reason I’m as good as
I am at what I do is that I’m hyper-sensitive to my clients. So, is that worth the gamble? Can I learn to choose
when to protect myself
and when to be open? Hmmm…
I’m going to chew on this and see what I come up
with. If you relate to this post I think
you should too. One of the main perks of
being an adult is the ability to choose to enter into situations with one’s
eyes open. Much preferable to allowing
oneself to be ambushed repeatedly.
I do know this, in any case - next time I’m aware of
being in a negative situation that I know won’t get better, I’m going to leave
right away. No matter who will miss me,
no matter what kind of pickle I leave someone in, no matter what. Next time I’m going to trust my gut. If there’s a war going on around me I’m not
going to pick up a rifle. I’m going to
walk off the field.
