Beginning The Fight Against Broken Brain.

[Wyakin]

I felt ok this morning, tired but not too bad. It continued like that as I walked the dogs until a family arrived to look around. 2 screaming children running at me, arms out shouting "Doggy" set my nerves on edge followed by their fathers voice bellowing in an angry tone at them to come back. That wouldn't have been so bad but he then told them off under his breath in hushed tones just like L used to do to me when I stepped out of line at school. His hand on my arm holding me against the wall as he hisses his anger at me, sometimes I knew what I had done sometimes I didn't

I managed to hold it together to put the dog away I had been walking and feed do the animal lunches but I am still struggling to calm down. Sitting at home on my sofa having lunch the pressure is there I feel it wanting to come up. My heart rate is up, my breathing is fast. I am doing everything I can to ground myself but I seem to have hit a point where I cannot ground any further.

 

[Wyakin]

I haven't written in here since Sunday. It has not been a good week. One thing after another hasn't helped. I lost three hours on Monday, I was exhausted after. I don't remember much about Tuesday. Then Wednesday I finally reached the point where I couldn't sit back and allow them to just keep throwing work at me and my friend especially since we are going to be short staffed soon. I don't want to dwell on the result of that though.

Wednesday afternoon my friend took me to my last appointment of my course. I had two flashbacks during the meeting and struggled to hold it all together but I can say I have benefited from it. Now I have to move on to a new waiting list to actually start getting treatment.

I have recently started scratching myself, not consciously just itching. I do it until I bleed and sometimes even longer depending on whether someone notices and stops me or when I notice and stop me. I have cut my nails at my friends request. I am scared though of what I am capable of when I am not all here. If I can scratch myself bloody then what else am I capable of.

It makes me wonder if there is a reason it is happening. I am hiding everything a lot more at work and there have been some big triggers lately. Not least of which is a new volunteer who reminds me of one of the three. He is a nice lad and hard working, the sensible part of me knows that but his presence tips me over. My dog knows that and has been really reactive towards him. I can't help but think this is just another away for it to come out when I am trying so hard to keep myself in check.

I have struggled all day and lost it a bit at the end of lunch. My poor friend who helps me so much had to leave me and go back to work. I hate it when that happens because I know how much it takes out of her to leave me when she wants to be here. I told her to go though, I was with it enough to do that.

I dipped in and out this afternoon but I don't think anyone noticed. I have hit rock bottom this evening though and had real problems. Normally I can pretend I'm not too bad via message but tonight I haven't been able to. I have shown a lot of my thoughts.

I have done one thing this evening though that I was advised to do by my T. I have ordered a medic alert bracelet. Not a fancy inscribed one but one with a card in it that I can write what I want to on and update as and when. He said it made sense so that if something happened to me they would be aware to be careful of how they handled me and would know why I might behave oddly. Make sense when put like that.

I have one more day to get through before the weekend. I am on my own tomorrow but my friend is round in the evening which I am looking forward to. What I really need is a dreamless sleep so I actually get some rest.

 

[Wyakin]

I am at my Dad's house tonight. My childhood home. We moved here when I was just under three years old so I don't remember much about the house before. As far as I am concerned this is the house I grew up in. It has seen a lot happen over the years but my Dad currently lives here with his mother who moved down from up north to live with him.

I haven't lived here for nearly 2 years. I moved out shortly after turning 23 and losing two dogs in the space of 5 days to cancer. I miss living with my Dad a lot but I have to admit sharing a home with my Grandma really got to me.

Since all of this has kicked off I have struggled when visiting my Dad as I realise the primary trauma to my PTSD is my brothers death.

When I was 14 years old I decided to skip hockey practice and just come home from school on the normal school bus. It was November 11th 2003. I should have been coming home with my middle brother but I called him to let him know I was going home.

I got off the school bus and walked the short distance to my house. A week before I had realised how good my life was, I was happy, my family were stable, I had a well paid job as a baby sitter and house sitter, I had two great dogs and two great brothers. Life was good and I appreciated it.

I didn't have my house key as I had plan on being back with MB (middle brother) so I hadn't brought it with me. I popped over the road and took our spare out of the neighbours electricity meter box, something I had done umpteen times before.

I unlocked the door, I could hear the dogs bouncing around with excitement in their cages (they weren't yet trusted loose in the house) but I could also see my brother. He was in a strange position, hanging on a rope in the stair well. The stairs were right in front of the door.

I laughed, he was in his pj's and I presumed he was pulling a prank. I approached him and said his name. At which point I reached out and turned him round. He was cold and hard. His face was grey. I panicked. I didn't know what to do so I ran in to the street and screamed for help, something which I regret to this day. My neighbours, the ones who I had taken the key out of the box from, came out. They asked me what was wrong and I just waved at the house. The husband approached and saw what I had seen. This is why I feel guilty because I know that image drove him to drink for a long time and made him struggle to sleep, if I had been stronger and called the police myself he would never have had to see that.

Unfortunately he shut the door as he walked away and I had dropped the key inside in my panic. They led me to their house and called the appropriate authorities. I will not go in to detail now about when my parents and MB arrived but needless to say it was a long wait before my family appeared due to them all working.

It turned out my brother had hung himself with his hands half handcuffed behind his back. The other end of the Ju Jitsu belt he had used was tied to the corner post of my bed.

All evening all I worried about were my dogs. They had been shut in all day with police and all sorts in and out. They gave me something to focus on.

When we were allowed in to the house nearly 6 hours later, 10pm at night, my parents had to vacuum up the glass where the police had broken down the front door after my neighbour had shut it.

I refused to go in via the front door and I was numbly led round the back. We all slept downstairs that night as a family. It was two days before I would go upstairs again and even that was done with my eyes shut at a blind run.

I refused to sleep in my bedroom until it as moved around. I couldn't bear the thought of my bed being part of it. I was numb and returned to school within days. I wanted everything to be normal. I wanted to forget but it was impossible. Everyone treated me differently. I lost friends because of it. My family worried about my lack of tears but I didn't know what to feel.

I would not enter the house through the front door and although I never told my parents I didn't sleep properly until I moved bedrooms years later when MB moved out.

Even now I don't come in through the front door if I can avoid it. If I do I press myself to the frosted glass first to check that there isn't anyone in the hall first. I cannot walk up the stairs without seeing him in my head. Sitting here now in the living room I can look to my right and see him sat at the computer just like the night before he died telling me about his new website and bouncing from side to side because it was all coming together.

My geeky older brother who died two weeks off of his 20th birthday. I outlived him by five years this year. He was a great brother, so caring and so loving. He always took my side against MB and although 5 years older he took time to explain things to me. I miss him so much.

His death took more from me than my brother though. I had lost others in the past, a grandad and a much loved dog but the loss of my older brother in such a way took a lot more. It took my innocence and my happy outlook on life. Everything changed. I was no longer the happy girl with a normally family, to everyone at school I was the girl who found her brother dead. They treated me like a leper, I do not blame them, it is a lot for any 14 year old to handle but I felt so alone. I daren't speak to my parents about it incase it upset them, my middle brother was so angry about it all I couldn't talk to him either. I wouldn't talk to a stranger about it so I carried on in silence.

The memories haunt me to this day. They make it hard to be at my Dad's house. I find myself rushing up the stairs. Staring at the spot. My heart rate through the roof, my mind haunted with what it saw that day. This year is 11 years. November is always a bad time for me. My sleep is disturbed by images that are seared in to my brain. Images that even now I can see as I type this, my last memories of my brother. I wish I could have remembered the happy 19 year old from the night before but someone had to find him and in some ways I am glad no one else in my family had to see him like that. Only I carry those memories, no one else is hurt by them and I will carry them close to me to protect my family from them.

It does cost me the comfort of staying at my childhood home though. I find it triggering to be here but it is more than made up for in the presence of my family, especially my fantastic Dad. He doesn't know everything and I doubt he ever will but I know he is there for me no matter what. A better Dad no one could ever ask for.

 

[Wyakin]

With the help of my friend who was present during a flashback I have remembered why I scratch my arms.

We'd had a good day. We spent some of it with friends and then we'd gone back to his to watch movies, normal stuff. We went out to the shed because he wanted to get a drink, they had a fridge out there where they kept Pepsi and things as well as his Dad's booze. We were laughing and joking but then I tripped. I knocked him and he fell in to a pot of some sort of liquid.

He yelled and picked up the pot throwing it at me. The liquid splashed on my arms, immediately it started to hurt, burning pain. It was like glue coating my skin. I looked down, I couldn't understand what was happening. How could it all go wrong so quickly.

I turned to run towards the house to wash it off but he grabbed hold of me. He held my wrist. I tried to scratch it off but he grabbed my hands and stopped me. I begged him as the burning got worse to let me get it off but he wouldn't let go. He looked me in the eye and told me that should teach me to be more careful next time, then he threw me to the ground and stormed off.

I waited a moment, even though the pain was excruciating. Once I heard the door to the house slam I crept over to the kitchen and I was finally able to wash it off. My skin was raw and red. Over the next few days my skin peeled, it was so itchy I'd pick and peel at it. I never did find out what the substance was.

Since then it seems to have become a nervous habit.

 

[Wyakin]

Struggling today. I was supposed to be having my performance review at 2pm but my manager has told me it has been postponed. I'm not sure why. I am obviously struggling as I have made sure not to go in the staff room or other places that set me off.

I wasn't worried about the performance review itself just the room it would take place in and having to talk one on one. My claustrophobia is worse than ever and just the thought of going in to that room where there is only one way out freaks me out too much. I keep trying to work out where I would sit. It's a difficult room as it's rectangular. One side has a door and window and the side opposite also had a window but that is frosted glass. In previous meetings I have always positioned myself sideways on if I can facing more towards the door and able to see both of the windows on my left and right. In my head now though I can't because to sit where I used to leaves me exposed to the window and it also places my manager between me and the door, blocking my exit route.

I don't even know why I am writing this but I am worried and I can't help it.

 

[Wyakin]

I now know why I didn't have a performance review. They have already decided I am not meeting the requirements for my job. They have put me on fours weeks review and if I do not improve in that time they will start the dismissal process. I had no warning, no guidance on how I could improve. It was all very wishy washy and a lot of it was based on hearsay. I am determined to work my backside off for the next four weeks, not that I don't already and fight this all the way. I work hard at my job, harder than some of the others I work with and none of the animals have ever suffered because of my illness. I will not take this lying down.

In the mean time I have taken up crafting. I have been using a really nice simple technique to make things. I've really enjoyed it and now I don't have it any more to work on I feel a bit empty. My aviary arrives tomorrow though so that will give me plenty to do getting it set up for the birds.

My fiend has had a bad week and to top it off she is now worried about me. I don't know how I can change that though. What is happening at work is so unfair and myself and my friend are the scapegoats for all that is going wrong with the centre. I am so worried that when they are done coming after me they will go after her. Her op is on Tuesday and I am worried about that to. What if they don' find anything? More tests or leave it and hope it goes away. She gets worse and worse as the weeks go by I so hope they find something.

The flashbacks have been bad lately to. Detailed and long. I fight them and fight them but they catch up eventually. Memories of when he raped me, beat me and left me. All fresh in my mind just like they were happening now. I hate it. He took so much from me and now it seems he might take my life here as well.

 

[Wyakin]

Dipped in and out of sleep last night but I did get some. My aviary arrives today, had Friday not happened I would be so excited but now I cannot see any reason to put time and money in to setting it up when I will more than likely have to sell it on at a loss after.

I will fight this and sometimes I feel like I will win it but then there is always that little voice at the back of my head saying "What if you don't?" I don't even want to think about it. I can't cope with the idea of packing up my house and leaving this place. 5 years I have been here and I always assumed I'd be here for 5 years more. It seems that may not be the case.

So much for loyalty, the loyal creature takes the brunt of their masters frustrations but still follows on until it is given no choice but to stay behind. I feel like a dog dumped at the side of the road because it reached an age where it might need a little help with things. The irony being where I work is a place specifically set up to help such animals and yet they cannot do it with their own staff.

 

[The Albatross]

Sorry to read that you're on 4 weeks review. Any way to see your situation as an opportunity or a challenge rather than feeling like a dog dumped at the side of the road? You haven't been dumped yet. You have an opportunity, if you choose to pull it out.

 

[Wyakin]

Thank you @The Albatross You are right. I have started gathering information to help my cause. I have begun to contact relevant help and a good friend has contacted and employment law lawyer for me as well just so I have someone to ask questions.

I will not take this, I have put too much in to this place to lose it now. I love my job and I am good at it. I will not let anyone else tell me any different.

 

[Notsowild]

In my country they cannot fire you for having PTSD. Have you ever asked for any kind of accommodations at work? Do you have an HR dept? Phone Govt Human Rights? There is no way they should be able to fire you. This makes me so angry. I know how much you love your job.:hug:

 

[Wyakin]

@Notsowild Thank you for hugs :) They are trying to fire me based on capability grounds with the statement that I am not fulfilling my role. They have to work very hard to prove that I am not though and that they cannot make reasonable adjustments to allow me to stay where I am or they could get themselves in deep trouble. Sadly the HR department here are not very clued up on these things either that or they are hoping that if they push me I will just leave. They are wrong if that is their hope though. Unfortunately for them I am very clued up on personnel matters as I have previously worked within the role and I make a point of knowing my rights. They are going to get a shock. They have already damaged their case should this go to tribunal. I am getting lots of advice from wherever I can. I will keep you posted :)



Long day today. My friend went in for her op. All morning building up to her going down then almost 3 hours of silence while she was under. Horrible, horrible time. So worried about how she was doing, whether they were finding anything. The worrying about her coming round. We have talked this evening though and although she is in pain she seems in high spirits. It actually gave me something to focus on, although I did check my phone every five minutes waiting for word from her. I now know how she feels when I disappear from the end of the phone!

Last night was not good either. Had a great evening with my friend, really relaxed, lots of peace and quiet. Then my neighbours got back. I started struggling almost straight away. Dipping in and out of the conversation that five minutes before came so naturally. Couldn't focus. Images in my head. Feelings in my body. Breathing bad. Panic and fear.

Kicking and stamping, hurting. Throwing me to the floor, fear, pain. I have to get away but I am trapped, cornered. He kicks me, stamping on my back and head, kicking my stomach. So angry. He kicks me over and over in to the floor, my nose is bleeding, I can't breathe. More kicking my stomach until I roll over. I protect my head, instinct kicks in and I lay there motionless in the foetal position. "Stop crying, shut up." He says this over and over. I hear his neighbours come back. I punch the floor hoping the bangs will raise the alert. He stamps on my hand to stop me. Blinding pain, followed by another kick.

My nose is still bloody as he drags me up by my hair and tilts my head back. "Look at me, look me in the eye." I can't, he pulls my head back harder, "Look at me." Another punch. I force myself to look at him. The malevolence pours out of his face. "You'll never try that again will you?" I hesitate so he hits me again. Carefully I shake my head. Just slightly but it's enough. He let's go and I fall back to the floor, my blood covers it, my nose is still bleeding, my hand is swollen and bruised, another thing I have to make an excuse for. "Clean up." Is all he says as he leaves the room.

I clean through the pain, wash myself up and head home. I am bruised all over my back and abdomen, my hand is throbbing, my nose still occasionally bleeds a little. I am exhausted as I walk the four miles back to my house. I get in the door and head straight to bed with a quick hello to my parents careful not to let them see the state I am in.

The next morning I am stiff and sore, I force myself up out of bed to go to school to face the day. When I arrive he is kind and caring. He hugs me and I tense, my whole body hurts. He is annoyed, I can tell. More punishment later I expect.

 

[Wyakin]

Feeling very down. I have tried my best to keep my chin up and keep going. Everyone I speak to agrees that they don't have a leg to stand on but it is still so much of a worry. I really cannot take it anymore. It's not just my job it's my home as well. The only reason I can have the dogs I currently have is because I can take the one with separation anxiety to work with me. If I cannot find another job where I can do that I will either have to re-home him or out him to sleep because he cannot be left and I cannot expect my Grandma to become a hermit because my dog won't deal with being on his own.

This is all I have done for the last 5 years, this is what I am good at. I wouldn't even know where to begin starting somewhere new.

This is pushing my anxiety through the roof, causing behaving normally to be even more difficult right when I need to be as normal as possible. I am so tired and all the time I have images flashing across my mind, feelings inside, sometimes I think I hear him. Everything is just piling up on top of me.

I swing from determination to desolation with barely a pause in between. My job does not define me but it is a big part of me because it is something I love. PTSD does not define me either. I should not be pigeonholed because of my mental health and yet others with physical injuries that have been dragged out for over a year in at least one case I know of have been left alone. I am still working and doing my job but that is not good enough.

Fighting my hardest to keep present, to not slip away. I must return to work this afternoon and continue like nothing is wrong.