PTSD Therapy while working in operational setting- is this realistic?

[Cypress]

I guess this question is for the military type folks. My work takes me to operational settings occasionally where I work with our military counterparts - not in the theater - but close. I am on my way back from home from a short trip and am realizing how much I had completely turned off my feelings in order to function in this environment and now the feelings are flooding back while I sit in the airport lounge. I am now looking at going back for a year and doing therapy via video or phone. Is this a seriously bad idea? Has anyone else done something like this?

 

[Ronin]

How well do you compartmentalize, & What in the work can serve as ropes and helping your healing, instead of hinderance?

As in, I would not think it is a bad idea on itself, but then, may be a lot about what things give you and take out of you, which would be individual scales. ((Or, basically: If the work itself can serve AS therapeutic, full of coping mechanisms and stimulating you / the useful to you kind of stress, I would squeeze what you can out of it.))

Though you mention a complete shut off of your feelings? I would be darn careful getting them back on, /while/ you work. (But you may do tons of therapy still on other aspects that are not as feeling heavy, or do not require you completely throw yourself to that, I would think.)

In every case, I would think of someone seriously familiar with the lifestyle and issues / that will help you forward, instead of endanger you (and yours). Someone who will keep you going, instead of throw you.

((As to that other question, yeah, but it was not specifically trauma therapy. It was more an event processing of what I was stuck on, at the time. Destuck and go. Take the feelings out on something else, and the rumination on ruminating on something useful. Basically had people who were alright with aiming me at what I needed be, instead of render me nonfunctional.))

 

[Friday]

The closest I’ve come to that is being f*ckbuddies with a trauma therapist in country. Clearly he wasn’t my therapist -I didn’t actually believe in therapy at the time, I thought his work was valuable, for the people who needed it, but didn’t include myself in that number- but he would occasionally just look at me sideways and say You are soooo f*cked up. I chose to take it as flirting. Because in country? I was fine. It was at home that I was f*cked up. As far as I know, he never actually saw me broken. He saw me working, to an extent/coming back in at least, and playing. But considering we didn’t spend all our time having sex, but did talk here & there, he probably saw more than I’d have wanted him to. If I’d known then what I know now. To be fair, he was absolutely lovely, and amazing sex aside (restorative sex really cannot be overvalued) he was one of those people you just feel better around. Very balancing, energizing, relaxing. Good people. Damn good people. So I can imagine it might be helpful, to have someone like him in a back pocket when you needed them? But I wasn’t doing therapy with him.

I would be darn careful getting them back on, /while/ you work.

All of what Ronin said, but particularly this.

 

[scout86]

Not from a military perspective at all but there have been a lot times when therapy had helped me be a lot more rational dealing the world than i would have been on my own. Partly because my T is willing to mention that I'm either NOT dealing with world or not dealing with the same version of the world most people are. I don't know that you'd want to be doing heavy duty trauma therapy while just staying alive is issue, but having someone to discuss stuff with could be good.

 

[Cypress]

Thanks everyone - I always get the best advice from you all

How well do you compartmentalize, & What in the work can serve as ropes and helping your healing, instead of hinderance?

I compartmentalize a little too well I guess. All those dissociative barriers have actually let me function pretty well in the working world. I think I will be able to hold it together while I am in country - like @Friday says - its at home that I get f*cked up.

I would be darn careful getting them back on, /while/ you work.

I agree completely with this.

I think that I will just have to accept that I will have to deal with a tough re-entry when I get home and feelings are safe to rise to the surface again. Guess I'll plan for in-person visits with my T when I am home on leave so I can process all that built up stuff.

I work on the medical side so there will likely be supportive colleagues around and even social workers who specialize in PTSD on my team. I can't tell them I have PTSD but I could discuss work-related stress with them, they might notice I am a little off but they know the job consequences of revealing this kind of a diagnosis so they wouldn't push it.

therapy had helped me be a lot more rational dealing the world than i would have been on my own.

This is true for me too - not dealing with the same version of reality as everyone else. I will talk to my T about changing the focus to working on managing in the here and now and not doing hard trauma therapy, processing memories and dealing with heavy feelings.

(restorative sex really cannot be overvalued)

Hmmm...definitely something to think about...

 

[Ronin]

I think I will be able to hold it together while I am in country - like @Friday says - its at home that I get f*cked up.

Getcha.

Well, that is a bit too far ahead though... You're worrying about the soon future, now? The what back home, you will have time to sort when back home / a different situation and you will be slightly different as a person from now too, so worry about that later, no way to know where things get you from here to plan that far ahead.

(And Compartmentalize a little too well... sounded to me like good news, as to your question.)

I can't tell them I have PTSD but I could discuss work-related stress with them

Sounds smart, keeping it low while entirely to the point of what you need the given time.

Other thing coming to mind, you could plan getting out steam a bit ahead: What are your interests, comfort items, things that worked often enough to get you out of the dark spaces... that would either be doable while working, or that you could take with you? The little things may mean damned much.

 

[Friday]

I think that I will just have to accept that I will have to deal with a tough re-entry when I get home and feelings are safe to rise to the surface again.

The first time I dealt with my PTSD part of how I did that was by cycling through working and coming home... a lot. I did something of a round robin of work-party-sleep on the beach. There were a lot of other things going on, as well, but one of the things I’ve been struggling with so hard THIS time is that I don’t have “places” for my compartments to rebuild themselves around. No rules here, rules there, life here, life there. Just one big clusterf*ck of everywhere/everywhen all piled on top of each other.

My fav trauma therapist (actually my trauma therapist, this time) still works overseas a few months a year doing trauma counseling in situ. Not all in one go. But he takes a month off of his clients here to work with clients in disaster zones, war zones, etc. And HE has that transition time, as well. A few weeks every time he came back of shifting gears & getting his head back into this world. It was incrediably useful to see even the edges of him going through that process. Helped me tons, in a few different ways. Not the least of which being that even extraordinarilly healthy/well-adjusted people? Go through that. The piece beyond 1st world 3rd world culture shock, when you’re talking trauma.

 

[Cypress]

Well, that is a bit too far ahead though... You're worrying about the soon future, now? The what back home, you will have time to sort when back home / a different situation and you will be slightly different as a person from now too, so worry about that later, no way to know where things get you from here to plan that far ahead.

Ouch - you are right - I am overthinking this and trying to intellectualize and plan my emotional responses in some to-be-determined future as a way of trying to control it, as if that were ever effective.

My anxiety is that I will get triggered, feel overwhelmed and react by dissociating or acting out - which would be really bad in a setting where the adult me has to consistently maintain a high level of situational awareness. My old way of coping before I got into therapy was what @Friday describes: work hard-play hard. I worked to exhaustion, drank way too much and slept way too little. It worked until it didn't anymore.

Yeah, comfort items, healthier ways of coping, all that. Guess this is why we are in therapy.

 

[Ronin]

I am overthinking this

Nope, not over thinking it, just thinking. (And like, if you were not quote over thinking situations where safety of so many depends on you and thinking it through, I would think that is under thinking it. :) )

Do you know how you react dissociated & how you react if acting out? (Thinking of what of those you could change in the meantime, before you go, so that it wouldn't be hazarduous to anyone once you do.)