Had PTSD Before I Joined The Army

[Scott_Fraser]

Hi Anthony, thanks for your explanation. I am allowed to get help for my Combat Stress, plus the ptsd from me being abused as a child when I go to Hollybush, the psycologists there help with that as well. Combat Stress is my major problem, and as I said in my thread I've tried to put that past to the back of my mind, for the moment anyway. The dreams about it are not as bad now, but not on the same scale as my flash-backs from Bosnia.
But this was a major part of my earlier life, and I felt that I had to tell it.
Thanks
Scott

 

[anthony]

Scott, don't get me wrong here, your stress from military service is an issue, but its not what your brain is showing as the primary issue. Sorry, but your sub-conscious doesn't lie. Your conscious believes its all about Bosnia, as your admission above, based on your nightmares, however; your sub-conscious is saying that your actual trauma that is affecting you the most right now, is that off which happened to you between ages 6 - 8, not as an adult.

That sounds good that they help you with both, but I will tell you, I believe your barking up the wrong tree with what to treat as a priority. Your admission again above, "I've tried to put that past to the back of my mind" just continues to clarify the real issue. Your in denial, for a better term, of what the real issue is that is currently affecting you.

We all do what your doing Scott, we all look in what we perceive to be the problem areas, but what we think and what our sub-conscious thinks, are two very different things. Our logical brain, being a conscious, does not affect us overtly compared to our non-logical brain, sub-conscious.

 

[Scott_Fraser]

Hi Anthony
I forgot to say that when I had the drink problem in the army at 16 it was due to me getting this abuse. My Sergeant put me in touch with a councilor who dealt with this at the local hospital in Aldershot. I spoke to him about it and he helped me quite a lot, and that was why I dried myself out and got on with my army career, which meant a lot to me. I still saw this councilor twice a month for about 6 months so does that explain to you, that that part of my life is in the past, although it is still in my mind, but thankfully not, much. I just thought that I would write about it in the ptsd section, as I was reading a couple of posts about the issue, and I wanted to put in my story. My trauma from that period ended when my parents died in 1997.
My problems now stem from the time that I was in Bosnia, with my regiment. And to the horrors that I saw there.
So my friend, could we please call time on this Paddock thing, as I'm getting very fed up with it.
Scott

 

[anthony]

Scott, your decision mate, nobody can help you except you... ignorance is bliss, but your choices, and whatever choice you make is right for you.

 

[mac]

I tried looking at that Mental Imagery explanation... its too long. If you asked me, I would describe a paddock like what I remember seeing on TV, which would probably be similar to Scott's answers. Reading this whole MI paddock thing aggravates me too... I say burn the whole paddock down, especially the surrounding vegatation! Problem solved. Preliminary conclusion on MI for me... its BS. However, Anthony, aside from the MI stuff, I do agree with the rest of your explanations. I'm not a psychologist/expert though, so my beliefs really don't mean sht.

Scott, here in the US, you would have an especially hard time trying to convince our VA to help you for an injury (PTSD) that your claiming to have had, or once had, prior to your military service- whether you were previously cured or not. The VA here would definately agree with your claim of having PTSD since childhood because that means they aren't necessarily liable to help you now. IMO though, you seemed to have had a good career in the military up until the Bosnia incident happened, and this, during participation in a combat arena, caused serious/gross aggravation to your psyche. If I worked for the VA, I would grant you help/compensation. Reality though... "CLAIM DENIED". Once again... I'm not a psychologist/expert though, so my beliefs really don't mean sht.

I believe that stressors/mental trauma's from someone's past (PTSD or not) can weaken and/or predispose them to totally succumbing to a stressful event or trauma in the future. What does not kill us... does not always make us stronger. I'm not a psychologist/expert though, so my beliefs really don't mean sht.

 

[Scott_Fraser]

Hi Mac, thanks for your reply, you seem to agree with me on most things on this. But my ptsd from my younger life was treated, before I finished my training. Thats what I was trying to explain to Anthony. I fought in the 1st Gulf War and I suffered no ill effects from that, as I served with courage and distinction. I was trained for that. But I wasn't trained to experience Genocide in Bosnia, no soldier is. The Flashbacks that I suffer at night time come from Bosnia, nowhere else. And I'm claiming for that from the MOD pensions, not what happened to me when I was 8 year old. When I was in the Army, my mind was totally focused on my job, and being a platoon sergeant I had to be, as I had 40 men depending on me to get them through the Gulf War and Bosnia in one piece. Which I'm proud to say I did.
Thanks for listening Mac
Cheers
Scott:hello:

 

[anthony]

Mac, I totally agree with what you said above actually, I too would also deny any claim associated to PTSD. Mental imagery is ment to provoke your psyche, that is the idea of it. Two people here have done the full interview with Dr Roerich last weekend in the trial, both blown away with what they learnt about themselves, where their real trauma is located and what they need to be concentrating upon now.

Scott, you confused what PTSD is I believe, because you refer to you childhood incidents as all being solved before you joined the military, yet your telling me absolute BS here, because in one breath you say it was all solved, yet another you tell about your issue with alcohol in the military because of what happened to you as a child, and your SGT or the like helping you out of that alcoholic stage to concentrate on yoru career in the army. Your not constant hear, hence why I can still see and get very clearly from your words, this has not been resolved at all. It doesn't matter what causes PTSD, it doesn't matter whether your childhood abuse actually resulted in PTSD, or whether it was simply predisposing you for when you hit Bosnia, it is all irrelevant at the end of the day, because you have PTSD, and its not curable, it NEVER just goes away. PTSD is with you for life, and that means to manage PTSD you must go back and ensure every single aspect of trauma in your life is resolved, is dealt with, no stone unturned so to speak. You say in one breath your childhood abuse causes you no more issue, yet in your initial post of this thread, you where breaking down in tears just writing about it. Then in a further post you mentioned how you just had to get this out of you... all the time your opinion of your true feelings have constantly changed throughout this thread. That says denial all over it, it says you haven't resolved the core of this issue. Your dreams have nothing to do with what directly affects you. Yes, dreams are the minds way of telling us something is wrong, however; our sub-conscious is actually more accurate to determine what is wrong.

To be absolutely honest, it doesn't even matter where you begin in healing, it doesn't matter whether you focus on your dreams, and what is causing them, because its all healing, and that you are doing, you are trying to heal. I am merely just pointing out, I think your denying yourself of your true emotional depth here, besides this will be eventually taken out of your hands, because if this childhood issue isn't really resolved as I expect, it will come back and replace your dreams of Bosnia once you heal them. This forum is about helping people move totally out of denial, into where everything can be looked at, turned over and viewed, if nothing negative comes from raising a past memory, then there is not issue, but you have expressed negative emotions from even raising this point, which means everything isn't as rosie as you think it is, or are trying to make out to us here.

Scott, I know all too well the impact of operations, as I discharged a SGT, they wanted me to stay because they where promoting me to Warrant Officer soon, yet I had to leave because I knew I would kill someone with my PTSD being so far out of control, the little I knew off it at that time. I have been on operations from CPL level, SGT and CSM, commanding up to 200 troops in operational environments, I know all too well the stressors and impact of war zones, peace keeping zones and humanitarian aid missions. I was in denial about a lot of things for a long time, and it wasn't until someone finally pushed me to shift out of denial, look at everything, just take a peek, when I soon discovered more things impacted me than I ever thought did.

 

[Scott_Fraser]

Hi Anthony, you could be right, I did have a drink problem at 16 because of what happened to me before. And when my sergeant caught me that day being drunk, I told him why I was drinking, and he helped me with that and my drinking problem, by getting me councilling. After that I concentrated on my army career, although as you say the problems were still there in the back of my mind. But as you know through your training, you concentrate on what you are doing.
I put that thread in to get some advice on it, more than anything. I know, as you say, that once the Combat Stress is sorrted out in my head, if it ever will. The other thing will come back again. That is why I joined this Forum, to get advice on my problems, and when I put that thread in I felt that I was ready to speak about it again. So I'm sorry if you think I'm BSing you but i'm not. I'm just totally f"£%$cked up mentally with everything at the moment and very confused as well. I just wanted advice that's all.
Cheers
Scott

 

[madjon]

as you deal with one thing another comes along, its like juggling ferrets, with a series of problems the most recent is the most vivid till you can get to grips with it, then whatever else is there starts to become noticable again, it sounds like you have a series of events which have led to ptsd in different areas of your life, different causes same effect, as you start to deal with one area you will learn how to deal with the effects and how to deal with the problem use what you learn to look at seemingly different causes, as always ikba (i know bugger all) but it seems there is more than one set of events in several stages of life for you to look at,

 

[anthony]

Scott, we all go through the same stuff to be honest mate, me included. I had nightmares over one operation from East Timor in particular, the bodies, and well... you likely get the idea, and I thought that was the cause of my problems, yet what I also discovered was that that operation was more the catalyst of things beforehand, operations previous had started the ball rolling. I 100% understand about getting the job done. I fell apart after my first tour of East Timor, when it was a war zone from Sep 99 to Feb 00 when the UN took over. We had done all the real dirty work, and when I got home I fell apart, I left my wife, I went off the rails. I had PTSD after after that operation, but like most, I didn't know anything was actually wrong, I just persisted, pushed things aside, and kept on fighting through because my mind allowed me too at that time. Now, I had PTSD then unknown to myself, yet I still went back for another operation is 2002, my last one actually, then I really fell to pieces after that one. My now wife, then girlfriend, we did back to back operations, got to see each other for two weeks in country, then gone again. I got home, fell to shit once again. This time though, I never really recovered. I fought to stay on top of things, but couldn't. My bosses let me get away with a lot of things, merely because of my experience and operational experience itself, they let it go because I did my job. Well, even that came unstuck, when I reached the point I was getting aggressive at my bosses, officers and all, someone was going to die soon if I stayed in the military. I sought help, got next to nothing help wise really, except discharged.

Its funny when you have travelled the path already, the things you learn along the way. The hard way, or the easier way. Something I worked out for myself though from helping others, is that you cannot guide someone who wants to learn for themselves, you must let them learn, even if that means doing it the hard way. The thing with PTSD is that regardless what caused it, everything within our lives that contain negative emotions, all those sitting in the back off our minds, cause PTSD to be inflamed, cause the symptomatic effect of PTSD as such. Sure, PTSD is not curable, but all the symptoms uniquely are, its just a matter of treating the cause, not the symptoms, and not what we sometimes think are the problems, but more what the problems really turn out to be. Usually the real issues lay behind the catalyst, though every issue must be dealt with, and that is why it doesn't bother me where a person starts, as long as there helping themselves, then the aim is achieved IMHO. Your doing that by wanting to treat your issues from military service, but how deep are you going? Do you really think a combat centre is going to fix you? If you think that, then you have already lost the battle, because the only person who can fix you, is you.

The only way you can do that, is learn, learn, learn, arm yourself with every ounce of education surrounding PTSD and its symptoms, then pull yourself apart, that means the emotional stuff as well, and me being a bloke, I didn't like that much, but I see things very differently nowadays because it worked, as continue's to work for so many others here who really give it a crack, they reveal their trauma, garnish support, then nut it out here. Many heads are better than one, hence why this forum was built, to provide a community of people, experience, backgrounds and cultures to all help one another see the real issues we have, to help us all see past what we sometimes think are our problems, to look deeper and find the real cause. Until now, that has been very limited to how much a person wants to give away at any one time, but as I used one small portion of mental imagery upon you, this is something that removes us from the equation, a language if you like that speaks directly with our sub-conscious uniquely, and can help us identify where the real issues lay within us all. Even those without PTSD, it helps them to identify what real issues are within their lives, how a person really is, compared to how we view ourselves; is our self esteem really good or not; are we fooling ourselves into thinking something that we really don't believe; and much much more. Your helping yourself Scott, but the biggest thing is to educate and don't be afraid to look at all angles of things, not just what we believe the problems to be.

 

[Scott_Fraser]

Hi Anthony,
When I first went into Hollybush last June, I was shown a film by an Australian Soldier who had served in Vietnam. And he was doing a Lecture to other ex-squaddies about Combat Stress. I don't know if you've seen it. But the chap said in the film to get the Combat Stress Shit in your head sorted out before you deal with anyother problems that you had, and also to help others with the same condition as well. And I'm trying to do that before I sort out the other problems that I have. Somedays I feel as if my Head is up my arse sometimes. Have you heard that saying.
Your Army Training is the same as ours isn't it, although your's is more jungle warfare orientated, for we are trained to fight on the European Mainland against the Russians, as it was then. Plus Arctic Warfare, and anti-terrorist operations, for Northern Ireland, and now Desert Warfare.
Thanks
Scott

 

[anthony]

Yer mate, UK and Australia training I believe we work of very similar doctrine. We train for many types of warfare really, yes the primary one is our own landscape, but we include jungle and urban in all training done. It used to be bush and jungle, but now urban also... so soldiers get a wide variety of exposure to different fighting types. I actually have that DVD here somewhere, along with another he did, being "your not in the Army now" I think its called.

Mate, know that saying well, and I know now and can say without issue, I once had my head up my arse fair and squarely, to say the least. My self confidence went past assertiveness, and definately into arrogance, but it took me a while to learn the unhealthy aspects of this, and bring myself back to an assertive personality, where I listen to others, instead I used to ignore what people said, and did what I thought was more appropriate, bar orders when in the military.... though I would have the odd argument even, especially with young lieutenants and officers.

What was said in that film that you watched though, was certainly something that didn't contain a person having prior serious trauma before combat. I tell people to aim at the toughest trauma they have, then work their way down the list, that way once a person gets through the worst, the rest is a piece of cake compared to that one... yet many people think they start with the worst because they usually predict this from their nightmares, assuming it is the worst, and when they get down the list a little opening up more and more things, something comes back to them that knocks them on their arse totally, more so than the trauma they started with, because something deeper and darker was hiding, often they think it doesn't affect them, or they deny it affects them. Shit, I was in denial for years before I finally took my head out of my own arse and really opened up and looked at myself. It hurt, especially my male pride, that one kicked my arse actually, but it worked, and I am now the better for it. We males are our worst enemy, more so than females, because they will truly express things, we males don't. We can learn a lot from females in that regard, because they express emotionally much better than we do, and it is the emotional core that feeds PTSD mate, nothing more, that is the answer and solution to healing trauma. Once we heal every piece of trauma in our life, PTSD has nothing left from our past to feed off, so we should not have any adverse affects at that time, providing our present is stable, no finanacial issues, lingering things that cause stress, etc. Once everything is healed, the only thing we need to do then is manage our present and future, ensuring we keep things stress free, negative stress that is, not good stress. There is a big difference.

It really is about turning ourselves inside out mate, nothing shy off it. I have been through all this myself, and its hard, and certainly threw me at times, drowned myself in alcohol and cigarettes for years, but now have little issue with PTSD providing nothing too stressful changes in my life... like my recent marriage issues, they have been causing me undue stress and making me sick lately, but with what I know now and have educated myself, I pulled through things quite quickly by talking everything out with people I trust. Looking at things for the realistic values, not what my mind wants to determine...

Scott, your doing just fine mate the direction your now moving... your now going actively into your trauma, not stepping around it, and that is what you need to do. If discussing something traumatic within your past makes you ill, then negative emotions are still very present, and must be dealt with. If you discuss trauma and you simply use your bodies built in mechanisms, being crying and so forth, but no illness afterwards, no symptoms, then there are no more negative emotions attached to your past. That is how you know, and you have to be honest with yourself. I can see from this thread, discussing this is likely making you a little unwell...