Nothing prepares you for living with chronic PTSD, even being a mental health professional. After attending eleven onsite critical incidents in six months, I found myself falling apart. In the early stages, my inability to cope with everyday life became overwhelming and made me emotionally unstable. I felt mentally weak and helpless and I was unable to control my everyday thoughts, and continually felt shame, guilt, and the loss of my identity. It felt like I was a grain of sand lying on a beach, feeling large waves constantly pounding the shore with no choice but to take it. I was confused that I couldn’t focus on the simplest of things or control my emotions, which made me feel that my entire life was out of control. I found it extremely difficult to hold back tears and constant feelings of worthlessness. What was once an exceptionally clear-thinking process had now become blanketed with a haze of confusion, depression, anxiety and fear. The fear I faced was like nothing I’d ever faced before, causing me to isolate myself at home and later leave only with my wife Cathie to attend appointments with my doctor, psychiatrist and psychologist. Cathie has been my rock throughout my journey, and she has given up her counselling career to become my carer.

After working with and helping so many clients with PTSD, I found it hard to believe that I could develop an extreme case of this debilitating disorder. In reality, PTSD doesn’t discriminate: it doesn’t matter if you’re a rocket scientist, a builder, or a doctor, you’re not immune to its sting..The moment I began to push my thinking and emotions in an effort to return to normal, all I did was make the chain reaction worse. By upping the overload, I would only increase my confusion, which then led to more frustration and more anxiety. The only thing I’d achieve was further lack of focus.

The worse the disorder became, the further I’d withdraw from society – eventually, I was fortunate to sleep for even four hours a night. This limited sleep was often broken by horrendous nightmares, so vivid that it was difficult for me to tell whether I was awake or asleep. This, of course, exacerbated my already heightened emotions and mental health. It was also detrimental to my physical health, to the point that I became ill with a serious flu, something I hadn’t had for years.

Other PTSD symptoms I suffered from were flashbacks and serious anxiety, all been triggered by what I’d seen and heard first-hand. PTSD, like any other invisible mental health disorder, is very hard for outsiders to understand or fully comprehend. People who don’t have it and can’t see it, often take the person with PTSD’s anger and frustration as a personal attack on them. This admittedly isn’t difficult to do if you are unaware of what it is. When Cathie and I do presentations, I try to give the audience examples to help those on the outside look in, such as the following:

• Imagine hitting one finger with a hammer or scalding yourself with boiling water. Then, someone races up to you and asks with concern, “Are you alright?”
• All you want to do is be left alone – though you may seem aggressive or angry, inside your emotions are overriding any logic you have.
• To understand PTSD at its worst, remove the physical pain from the equation – but keep the overarching emotions and mental anguish.
  
  

My journey with chronic PTSD is over thirteen years, but what I call the “haze” lasted for just under two years: this level of confusion, anxiety and frustration that began at the onset of my chronic PTSD.When I gave up trying to push back, my thinking began to slowly reappear.

Moving towards healing

At this point I began writing to help clear my cognitive thinking, and kept a logbook of what was affecting me, when it was affecting me, how it affected me, as a form of self-counselling. I would look back over the logbook at the end of each month, searching out my triggers and working through them. I’d decided that I would make PTSD my competitor, not my master. Like the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare, slow and steady wins the race. I also chose to simplify my life by following an easy routine, setting small goals leading to larger ones, and relying on consistency and repetition in my everyday habits.

Seeing a psychiatrist to help treat the chronic PTSD initially made me feel embarrassed and inferior, before I considered how we all open up to friends in times of hardship (people who have certainly not signed off on a client confidentiality clause!). Nothing changes overnight, and those first two years were some of the longest and most painful in my life. The flashbacks, nightmares and anxiety attacks continued, as well as hyperacusis – something I would recommend anyone working with PTSD to read up on.

Moving through PTSD with family

Without my wife Cathie, I am not sure I would be here writing this. Her knowledge of PTSD, professional experience as a counsellor, and persistence with my illness made this journey entirely different. She knew what to say and when, as well as when to walk away. Both of us now present on the subject of PTSD and carers, and offer individual education for those working through difficult situations such as ours.

When a person is sent to a doctor with a possible trauma disorder, it’s rare for family members to get the help they need. Many families are torn in two due to the lack of understanding of how to approach a person with PTSD, knowing what to say or not say, how not to lose your self-worth or go through an identity crisis and what they can do to maintain their health and relationship with the trauma-affected person. Individual or family carers can absolutely complement the work of a psychologist or counsellor, and help the recovery of the individual in crisis.

If we are educated in the unknown, we feel more confident and less frustrated about facing it. The job at hand becomes a challenge, rather than a task with no light at the end of the tunnel. Do I regret losing all those years when I couldn’t do what I loved doing most? Of course. But Cathie and I agree we would never have known the inner pain of the carer and the PTSD-affected person without experiencing it ourselves.

My wife and I clung to our Christianity throughout our journey, despite not being regular churchgoers. Our faith gave us something to hold onto in the darkest of times. After my very last onsite incident, I conducted myself like there was nothing wrong despite being in severe pain and danger. Without the thought of my wife being left alone and in pain, I may never have reached out for help, and thus been able to help so many other people that needed it.