CELEBRATION!

My favorite writer, HN, wrote:

Community is characterized by two things: one is forgiveness, the other is celebration. Forgiveness means that I continually am willing to forgive the other person for not being God--for not fulfilling all my needs. I too must ask forgiveness for not being able to fulfill other people's needs....forgiveness becomes the word for love in the human context.

The interesting thing is that when you can forgive people for not being God, then you can celebrate that they are a reflection of God...You don't have everything of God, but what you have to offer is worth celebrating By celebrate I mean to lift up, affirm confirm, to rejoice in another person's gifts. You can say you are a reflection of that unlimited love....

So celebration becomes important and can be very concrete expressions of love, like birthday celebrations that simply say, "I'm happy you are there."

Today Jeff and I are celebrating 41 years of marriage. What a strange, wild ride it has been! We can honestly say that we have learned the secret of forgiving one another and today we are going to celebrate with grateful hearts saying to one another, "I am so happy you are there!"

I told Jeff this morning that today is the first day of the rest of our lives. I am praying that the rest will be the very best and I believe that it will be.

Stand By Me

SELF TALK

I went with Jeff yesterday to his appointment with NP Sue Hippe hoping for word concerning our application for in patient treatment. It felt like she had passed the buck to someone else, David Ryan, Jeff's caseworker. She said she checked with him and the news is only that the application was sent a week ago and the process may take more than 3 more weeks. She seemed to indicate there is a good chance that his application will be rejected. At least, that's the way I interpreted her words. She cheerfully stated that she will work with Jeff on another plan if they do reject his application.

I am examining my response to that this morning and feel next to hopeless. I feel sorry that my blog is so filled with sadness and despairing these days.

I read the manuscript this week of a man who has struggled with PTSD and depression for 60 years after his WWII experience. His description of these years included the word "tortuous". However, the bottom line of his writing was that he had come to have peace about his on going depression and all the years of torture. He is able to name his book "The Gift of Depression." I want to have that kind of resolution of these 40 years knowing the next 20 or 30 will continue to be filled with the struggle with PTSD and depression.

I am reading another book called War and the Soul, Healing Our Nation's Veterans from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, by Edward Tick Phd. He describes PTSD affected veterans as psychospiritual casualties of modern war. Not a great comfort especially as psychospiritual wounds are invisible and so easily misunderstood or never acknowledged. Ghostly stockers of unsuspecting victims and their family and friends.

And now we wait for a review board to evaluate if these ghostly wounds are viable enough to rate an intensive treatment for a man who has been battling these demons for over 40 years. I shiver as I write these words wanting to cry a river for him.

Rather I would like to say "It is well with my soul." "Trust in God not in man." Like the Apostle Paul find "God's grace is sufficient."

MAJOR RESPONSES TO THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Friends asked me yesterday how I am doing. To be honest I am not real sure. All I know is that I am trying to cope but feel very sad. Afraid, I think, if I let myself feel much that I may not stop crying. But then I say to myself, "Quit being a drama queen." So I will do some follow up here with more from the Family Ed materials to try to communicate the fallout from PTSD:

Major responses of those suffering PTSD;

Depression

Anger

Anxiety

Sleep disturbances

Tendency to react under stress with survival tactics

Psychic or emotional numbing

Loss of interest in work and activities

Survivor guilt

Hyper-alertness

Avoidance of activities that arouse memories of traumas in war zones

Suicidal feelings and thoughts

Flashbacks

Fantasies of retaliation and destruction

Cynicism and distrust of government and authority

Concern with humanistic values overlayed by hedonism

Negative self-image

Memory impairment

Hyper-sensitivity to justice

Problems with intimate relationships

Difficulty with authority figures

Emotional distance from children, wife and others

Self -deceiving and self-punishing patterns of behavior such as an inablity to talk about war experiences, fear of losing others, and a tendency to fits of rage

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

I decided today to try to help others to perhaps better understand this elephant called Combat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I was given a manual filled with related articles when I took the 7 week Family Ed course on PTSD at VA Mental Health Clinic in Portland. It suddenly dawned on me today that this is not information that many people have access to. Though, our family has been dealing with it for 40 years, we were not aware of any of this until the past few months. I hope if you know veterans returning from combat situations who are struggling with the aftermath of war or if you know families who are struggling with their beloved vets, please share this information and encourage them to seek help through Veteran's Administration. There is help available.

PSTD above all is a SOUL WOUND and is a reaction to extreme stress from modern warfare.

COMMON SYMPTOMS OF POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

Intrusive Thoughts and Falshbacks

• Replaying combat experiences in their minds, searching for alternative outcomes

• Flashbacks triggered by everyday experiences: hilicopters, the smell of urine, the smell of diesel fuel, the smell of mold, the smell of Asian food cooking, green tree lines, popcorn popping, rainy days and refugees.

Isolation

• He has few friends

• isolates families emotionally, some geographically

• Fantasies about being hermits, moving away fromt heir problems

• Believes no one can understand, and no one would listen, if he tried to talk about his experiences

• Isolates himself from his partner, family, and others with a “leave me alone” attitude—he needs no one

Emotional Numbing

• Cold, aloof, uncaring, detached

• Constant fear of “losing control,” “I may never stop crying.”

• Emotional distance from children—concern about anger.

Depression

• Sense of helplessness, worthlessness, and defection

• Lacks self-esteem and suffers from great insecurity

• Feels undeserving of good feelings

• Seems unable to handle it when things are going well, and may appear to try to be sabotaging

Anger

• Quiet, masked rage which is frightening to the veteran and to those around them

• Sublimating the rage agains inanimate objects

• Unable to handle or identify frustrations

• Unexplainable, inappropriate anger

Substance Abuse

• Used primarily to numb the “pain”, the memory, the guilt

• Heavy use of either alcohol or drugs

Guilt—Suicidal Feelings and Thoughts

• Self-destructive behavior: hopeless physical fights, single car accidents, compulsive blood donors.

• Self-inflected injuries to “feel” pain—many “accidents” with power tools

• High suicide rate

• Financial suicide. As soon as things are well off, doing something to lose it all, or walk away from it

• Survivor's Guilt—when others have died around them ask, “How is it that I survived when others more worthy than I did not? (pertains especially to medical personnel)

Anxiety or Nervousness

* Startled responses

• Uncomfortable when people walk close behind them, or sit behind them

• Conditioned suspicion, they trust no one

Emotional Construction

*Unresponsive to self, therefore unresponsive to others

• Unable to express or share feelings, cannot talk about personal emotions

• Unable to achieve intimacy with family, partner, or friends

TODAY'S PRAYER

GOOD TIMING FOR A MELTDOWN

Perhaps the old saying that every cloud has a silver lining is true in this continuing story of dealing with PTSD. I've watched as our networks have continued to narrow. Jeff is no longer able to go to church or home community and Saturday he had a seismic meltdown at a family event. It has been an hellish 3 days following. So even family does not seem a safe place any more and those in our beloved family do not feel we are safe to be with, either, I am sure because we all felt wounded in the aftermath of Saturday.

The silver lining turns out to be that the VA recommendation meeting was today with Sue, the VA Nurse Practitioner. We both went into the meeting with great anxiety as we had heard through David, Jeff's social services caseworker, that Sue was not inclined to pursue in patient treatment. When she met with Jeff once before, he was not in crisis mode and seemed to be alright. Little did she realize what a roller coaster we live on in our daily lives. So having had the meltdown Saturday and still dealing with the emotional devastation in aftermath, this being Tuesday, really helped as she listened to the realities we are dealing with and how our support status, church and family, is shrinking and I, who have to be the last resort in dealing with the fall out of the melt downs am nearly to the end of my strength.

When she told us that she was recommending 2 outpatient programs, one of 8 weeks and the one to follow a 12 week course AND that it would not begin until September 7th, I finally spoke up in a shaky voice and trembling body, to once again express how we have been requesting in patient treatment for months now and it was not just Jeff who needs care. I point blank asked her, "How are you going to help US?!!!"

She at that point turned to her computer, making an abrupt turn in her thinking, and said she is going to put in an application for two in patient programs, one in Seattle and one in Palo Alto, California to see what the waiting period is for those programs. She is filling out the applications herself. It was such a huge relief knowing that she heard and she was really doing something that we've been begging for since February.

It still may be weeks before Jeff gets into intensive treatment and seems such a shame as they kept telling us the waiting period is up to 5 months; whereas if they had done this in February we would have been far down the road rather than just beginning. But that is the reality of this system where one just has to keep bumping into the wall and trying to figure out where the door really is. I feel like we finally found the door today. Now I pray that it really and truly opens as we truly believe in the expertise and the compassionate care given our veterans who are struggling with Combat PTSD and related issues.

Thank God for the silver lining of that terrible meltdown this past Saturday. It allowed Jeff and I to really express ourselves at a very critical time in this process.