Ashamed My Glass Wasn't Big Enough

[Bill Dickerson]

I dealt with (and arrested) a lot of mentally ill folks and a lot of street people. I never blamed them for their illness. It wasn't their fault. Crazy ain't a crime.

Yet I can't get over the feeling that somehow I just wasn't strong enough. I should have been able to prevent this.

How can I accept the PTSD as the illness that it is. If I broke my leg I wouldn't be ashamed. I can tell myself over and over that it isn't my fault but how do I learn to accept it? How do I convince myself?

 

[anthony]

It isn't about convincing yourself Bill, but more about looking at the facts in front of you. Acceptance is an easy word to say, yet it usually comes with much further evidence based requirements as to whether you accept or reject something.

If the problem is, "How do I accept I have PTSD?" Then the answer is, go research and think about the pro's and con's that make up acceptance and rejection as a conclusion, then weigh the evidence you find.

It is more curious that you lead with what I assume is you feeling guilty over arresting people who possibly have, and felt, exactly what you have and feel now.

Can PTSD be prevented? Well, to date there is no empirical evidence to substantiate that claim. Scientist and practitioners have been through various methods to date, attempting to prevent PTSD... all failing. Propranalol, incident response counselling, genetics, etc etc... all come up with a fail, because there is still those who go through all those things and end-up with PTSD. They didn't even reduce it.. and incident response counselling is being scrapped as studies have found it leads to worse results, not better... yet group approaches to incidents that involve several, show significant improvement and decrease the prevalence of PTSD forming, from that approach.

 

[Bill Dickerson]

I never felt guilty about arresting someone who was mentally ill. It was based on behavior or in order to protect the individual. Intellectually I know it's not my fault just as it was often not the fault of the street person being arrested.

I can't seem to forgive myself for being ill. It's illogical and sometimes I wish I was Mr. Spock but there it is.

It's a feeling that I can't figure out how to change or work around. I can feel compassion for other who are ill with the same issues but I can't get around it. Maybe it's anger at myself. I know I'm pissed about it. I would yell at G-d but I don't think he would answer.

 

[Eleanor]

I am sorry that, on top of everything else, you feel angry/guilty at yourself for having PTSD:(.

Just following out the implied logic of what you've written (trying to help you untangle the knot) it sounds like you have compassion for the mentally ill folks whom you've arrested, AND you do blame them for their illness at some level, but forgive them because their illness was not their "fault." In your own case, however, you think there is something you could/should have done to prevent it, but you can't figure out what it was and so you can't forgive yourself? Or feel compassion for yourself?

Sounds like maybe you coped with the stress of dealing with mentally ill people by distancing yourself by implicitly believing that you were basically much stronger than them - and so you could never be like that. It is an excellent coping mechanism until..... its not. And then you have several logical options: 1) Maybe some of them were not as innocent as you thought or 2) Maybe you are not as strong as you thought or 3) Maybe you are not that different from them or 4) Maybe mental illness doesn't really involve "strength" or "weakness" in the way you have conceptualized it. There are more possibilities, but these seem to be the big obvious ones to me.

I don't know of anyone who has had God return their emails or phone calls. But then maybe the point is what you have to say, not what God has to say. My take is that God is pretty tough, he can take whatever you can dish out. Yell away!:)

 

[Meadowsweet]

I think acceptance is a process.

I was relieved at first to see those 4 letters PTSD, because it was a something tangable that I could try to understand and do something about.

Other times I've felt so many if-only's and self blame, like if only I had done this or that, spoken up more, cried more, walked away from unhelpful people etc. I've felt angry at others too, if only they had been more supportive.

Sometimes I imagine that people will think I'm a lesser person in any and every way. And occassionally I've even thought its just me being stupid, theres nothing wrong with me, I've just got to move on.

Then I add up the years since I was last attacked and I havn't been able to let go and move on. I don't see myself as weak. I simply havn't been able to process the information in my brain and this causes problems.

As for the people who might think I'm a lesser person. They are lacking the understanding to see the situation clearly.

So I do have ptsd, and I've been really brave and am going about things in the right way by seeking help and wanting to do what I can to improve things. For me, the crutch to acceptance is not to just look at what I have, but to look at what I can do with it.

 

[Bill Dickerson]

I discussed the street people because I don't fear them and I don't hate them. I understand that it's an illness. I've always treated them just like everyone else. Wait I take that back I treated them with more patience and compassion than a knot head that knew better but did it anyway. I've arrested them to keep them from freezing to death I've dropped charges so they could go to the hospital instead of jail. As you said they are no different than me. I always looked at it as how would I want to be treated if the roles were reversed.

I mentioned them because I've read the reference books and I know in my mind it's an illness. I've seen it first hand.

Maybe it's pride that won't allow me to discuss PTSD with my family or friends. Maybe I'm afraid of what they will think.

I do have thoughts that there should have been something I could have done to prevent the situation. I fantasize that I could have stopped it. I've dreamed it.... I've ran those what if's over and over. I can see myself now in my head stopping the situation. I can hear it and I can smell it..taste it. It sometimes feels like a parallel universe where I did stop it and this is the bad dream but I can't wake up.

 

[Eleanor]

It may be pride - or it may be just prudent to think long and hard about who to tell about the PTSD. It is a tricky thing (as a survey of people's experiences on this site quickly shows.) Sometimes its a good idea, sometimes not so good, sometimes it is a downright disaster. So... don't rush.

The "should have's" are, I as I understand it, intrinsic to trauma. Peter Levine's work on trauma focuses on how the body stores the defensive actions that didn't get executed to save or protect itself.

My H's trauma was from his childhood, and a "breakthrough" session for him was when his T had him "watch" the incident - usually they do this from outside the room, which was not realistically possible in this case - so H was in the room and in the very vivid reliving his adult self intervened - and it just... shifted a lot of things for him. Don't really know how to describe it, but he was no longer worried about a bunch of stuff he had previously worried a lot over. So it seems like what you are doing might have some big benefit - but it might just take some time to "sink in?" That is something to ask and experienced T about.

 

[Bill Dickerson]

As far as telling anyone I don't. I take that back I told my Mom but she's 80 and doesn't understand. The only reason I told her was I had a Panic Attack. I thought it was heart attack and the doctor in the ED asked why I was taking the Meds. I said PTSD and he said what? I had to repeat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He said oh OK. She asked after he left the room what PTSD was.

Everyone else just figures I'm the crazy uncle nobody talks about.

I don't know about sink in. The last incident was 2002 and I spilled my glass in 2004. I'm doing better but I can't get through the survivors guilt.

 

[Eleanor]

Survivors' guilt is a bitter pill, no doubt about that. Do you think it is appropriate or inappropriate guilt? (You don't need to answer, I'm just curious. Ethics is my specialty, and guilt is a very strange thing - the only uniquely "moral" emotion.)

I'm glad you are doing better overall. It is a long road. Are you working with a therapist?

 

[Bill Dickerson]

I have a Therapist.

There is no such thing as appropriate or inappropriate guilt. That would be the same as saying appro. or inappro. anger.

It's an emotion not a thought process.

I can the understand illogical reason for survivor guilt but it doesn't affect the way I feel.

Like Mr. Spock he had feelings he just suppressed them. It doesn't mean it he didn't have them.

Unfortunately I can't suppress mine at least not successfully.

 

[Srain]

That's a lot to carry and to live with.

Somehow I figure you battle it out within yourself on daily basis all day long, I'm sorry. My battle with it is a bit different but I have an older brother that is possibly having as difficult time so my heart goes out to you.

I agree that acceptance is an easy word to say but the process of internalizing is a step by step thing. I seem to recall that Mr. Spock did not always suppress his feelings, the battle there was not always won.

 

[Bill Dickerson]

Well like Mr. Spock I sometimes have problems suppressing my feelings.

I try everyday not to live in my head too much. I do much better when I'm busy but since I can't work it's a battle to stay busy.

I'm trying to figure out or hoped somebody would know what those steps might be to learn to accept the situation and not be ashamed of it.