I Am Glad You Guys Are Here

[Londonacquisition]

I have been looking for a forum like this. I am nervous, anxious, confused. It has become the normal for me. I have been back from Iraq since 2006. I am currently under the care of the VA. I have PTSD and it took me getting in patient at Ubh to finally make me realize how bad I have it. I have been through a lot. In the begginong before I got help I went trough a lot of crap just so I could reach medical providers at the r&r center in ft. Hood. I need to say one main thing. My medical help process had a rocky start, but now there is a world of help everywhere I turn. Sometimes I say things that seem that I am ungreatful, but I say them because Is extremely easy for me to become confusEd and the anger comes out. The worst part of my PTSD is my running thoughts, confusion, anxiety, hallucinating. Everything gets all over the place. I feel so stupid many times. So I stay away from people. Can I ask? Does anyone out there feel the same way? Many times I think I am the only one who is so crazy? I dont mean to say anything bad, but the frustration gts to be so much. I don't think there is anything wrong with my REAL medical providers, but I do think think that there are policies that ristri t them from communicating with me. The army medical community is here for me. No matter what. If any of you are having a hard time with communication know that you are not alone. I think it is just part of life. I have become suicidal a good 8 times since bang deployed and homocidal 1 time out of confusion. Things just get clumped up in my head. Making decisions are hard. Little by little I am working hard to move forward. I need to tell all of you if you think your medical providers are not paying attention
, please don't think this way. All medical providers specially army medical providers are EXTREMLY stressed. There are not enough of them to go around. These brothers and sisters sometes work 48 hours straight. So please dont hate them. If you need to say something specially if it makes you homocidal or suicidal or paranoid to the point where you are afraid th go to the nearest Va office and talk until you have nothing to say. Just remember your military beefing ald integrity.


I need to ask something and I hope you can help. I dont drink or do drugs. The way my hallucinations are is extremely scary so I don't take the chance. What I want to ask is why are my hallucinations so real? I smell taste feel hear my flashback. Why are they so real? When I was at ubh in denten tx I was told that every mind is different. But when I tell some people that I do t drink or do drugsi see in there faces that they do t believe me even though I get a blood draw and prove that I am clean. I wish that every new medical provider I meet could understand that my mind is broken. The army did not break it. War broke it. I will never be the same.does anyone ever experience this with medical proveriders that meet you for the fist time? I also obsess over things such as checking my door locks at least 3 times a day. Over vigilant. I trust no one except my medical providers from ft. Hood. Am I the only one who is this way? I feel that my mind is island and only certain people are allowed to to see me. Does anyone else fell like this. I am working hard to manage my illness. Unfortunately there is no cure and as time goes by new traumas that I am remembering are coming in the form of heavy flashbacks. The last one I had lasted for 3 days. The hallucinations came and went unt I had to call the suicide hotline. I am glad I welt into some place called rst in riverside. No sleep plus flashback plus hallucinations are a bad mix. I take my medications everyday. I dont take chances. Well anyways if anyone has anything to say. Any advice is great. I have a long way to go and I am going to need all the advice I can get.

 

[willis williams]

First Hello, If you read some of the older posts on here you will see that between the bunch of us we pretty much have all your symptems covered. I have been suicidal, been in inpatient, problems with meds, the Dr.s giving me the run around at the va, I suffer night terrors and disasociation, I check my doors over and over, I carry a hand gun everywhere I go if it is out of my safe zone. My point is we suffer some of the same things but we are all differant. As for the Dr.s some of them are just plain shit they don't care because they are burnt out. They hear the same shit day in and day out they throw pills at it but they aren't allowed to do their job. The Spokane va had numerous psyciatrists quit becaus they could not diagnose correctly they could not say ptsd it was anxioty and depression or bi-polar all of which have simalar symptoms but the va dousn't have to pay for them. So the whole system is messed up but improving. When I came back we didn't get to talk to shrinks and if you even claimed you had a problem you would be section 8 they didn't even give anti depressant like the new army there were no stress breaks in basic. So see there is tremendous differances in all our cases with some simalarity. TEX

 

[Jimmy1]

Mate, you have to long a username. It probably means something to you so I will just call you 'L'

The realism in your flashbacks is normal. If I go near any open sewerage, I almost immediately end up back in down town Baghdad.
Another time after returning in 2006 I went into the field with a bunch of young soldiers. There were the burnt remains of a kangaroo and that smell also took me back.

Now its 2011. I have had heaps of therapy addressing the major issues. And now the dreams and night terrors are fewer and further between each one. Sometimes something on the news or something I smell will trigger it off again.
Super Hornets call this town home regularly and I still get chills when they fly over. The same as choppers.

I remember the very first night we flew into LZ Washington in downtown Baghdad and the chopper was targeted by IR.
It popped flares and did a bit of evasion, I nearly shit my pants. So I hate choppers of any kind now.

The only tried and tested way to deal with these is by exposure therapy. And for safety reasons it should be done with a psych. It has worked for me. It never gets rid of the actual memory of the trauma, but it numbs the emotions attached. The problem with this is that it takes a long time.

You are only young and all of us here are here for you. We all know you served your country and would do it again.
So a thank you from me.

There is light at the end of the tunnel mate. You probably just can't see it yet. Just keep on plodding along and eventually you will see it.

I say its like climbing a ladder, you climb and climb, sometimes you slip a bit and go down a few more rungs, but just keep on climbing. We are here to help you up.

Who did you serve with mate. You might find some guys from similar units.

Jimmy

 

[Londonacquisition]

Wooooooooow!!!!!!! I now realize I am ot alone. I can not thank you enough for responding. I have been havin hard times since being discharged in august 2010. But I need to say that I have a really good amount of real medical providers that jump on any problem that I have . Financially and mentally and physically. They do lot fail me. Sometimes I complain but I have come to realize it is my PTSD talking. I hate the way that I become confused so easily with this damn anxiety. I wish I could tell them I am sorry. I feel so guilty.
I have been doing a lot of reading on this forum I know now that I am not alone. Honestly I started tothink that I was te only soldier going through these problems. I use music to keep me grounded as much as I can. What I do is listen to the same so g for hours. I use YouTube so when the song ends I have to restart it again. It let's me know that I am in reality. Can I ask you what do you do to ground yourself? There have many times that I have had o get a hold of the suicide hotline for soldiers. Those guys are life savers. I have to give hem proper respects for what they do. I can't even imagine haven to help wounded soldiers s your job. Th is why I don blame anyone for my illness. I learned that the army did not break my mind but war did. It is a sacrifice for defending our country. Can I ask? How do deal with you hallucinations?

 

[Ted Moen]

Hey L, there are lots of us. Every war. Both sides. Sights and sounds and sensations and feelings that we couldn't deal with then, we had to just stuff them and do what we had to do at the time to survive, coming out now that we are safe and removed from the danger. Coming out at night, in our sleep. Coming out in the daytime. Nightmares and flashbacks. Fresh thoughts and feelings never processed from old stuff intruding in our current situation.

How do we deal with it? If we are in therapy we share it with our T, over and over until we begin to be able to understand the intrusive thoughts and feelings and are able to gradually accept them and reframe them. We learn to identify them as old stuff and manage how we behave in our current situation while we are processing them. If we stay with it, they (the intrusive thoughts and feelings) become almost like old friends (probably very hard for you to imagine right now but they do) passing with very little behavioral impact on our current situation.

If we are not in therapy we probably just act out the feelings and have a lot of challenges in our current situation.

It sounds to me like you have a good start on learning to live better with ptsd. Keep up the good work :)

Ted

 

[Jimmy1]

Ted hit the nail on the head there mate. L, if you spend hours reading through the posts you will see that you are not alone and that we all share the same symptoms. On a very rare occasion will two traumas be the same, but its not about the trauma. Its about dealing with the sensation.

The military taught us to 'Harden The f*ck Up' or 'Suck it Up'. They taught us to hold our emotions in check so we could get on with and do the job.
There is only so much the mind can take without having an outlet.
When you think about the months you slept with one eye open listening for the whistle of a mortar, or the primary of a mortar. The months you spent on high alert watching everyone who walked past.

Then they bring you home and expect you to function normally. They wish.

At least they are starting to acknowledge this now.

My advice. Do the therapy, take the medication. One day once you have dealt with your demons you will find it easier to talk about and function way better than you do now.

Those nightmares and flashbacks you talk about, well, we have all had those and nobodies is worse than anyone else's if that makes sense to you. With therapy they will get easier to deal with.

I had a therapy session this morning and we covered exactly that. It will get to a stage where you will remember the trauma and not have the raw emotion associated with it. It will be exactly that. Just a memory, not a pleasant one, but a memory rather than feeling like its real.

But like everything good in this world, it won't happen overnight.

Jimmy

 

[brodes]

Welcome...

 

[Londonacquisition]

You guys are all so right. To be honest with you I have though about starting to drink or do drugs just to forget the pain or numb it. But before I was honorably dis hatched from the army Cpt. Cyr told me no drinking no drug! She was so right. As time passed by after my discharge my flashbacks specially my hallucinations are so intense that I have come to realize that if I drink or do drugs I will go into a state of dementia and no come out of it. I can't take chances d let her down. I made a promise to get better and little by little I am doing it. I am so surprised at how slow it is taking specially with the new trama that I experienced this past week. I now know it might take 10 years for me to be able to handle things but I stay focused. One thing I need to say is that I call the suicide hotline only as a last result. I call when I literally can't take it anymore. It is not because I feel alone or lonely. It is because I have done and gone through all techniques that I was taught and I just can't manage things anymore. I wish they knew that. One thing that gets to me is that many times I can't remember what happened after my flashback. For some reason my war broken mind is so concentrated during the flashback such as the halkucinations pain anxiety and so on, but once it is over I try and recall and a good %80 or so is so hard to recall. I mean such as what triggered it or what I was doing before during or after and why I have noticed that it might take a good 6 days for me to remember things. Well I am sure you know how it is. This past week I had a new tram come up as a harsh flashback. We were in a convoy and 2 clicks south of Baghdad before we got to camp victory, I think, that the name, we came across aanother units convoy that was just hit by an ied. One of the up armored pls was completely destroyed and the tires were still burning. Our con or was stopedd and most of us were in the security position. But since, I think I was the 3 humvee from the front.the first 3 humvees fuul of soldiers got

 

[Londonacquisition]

Out of the humvees and surrounded the blown up pls. Me and my TC were the first to arrive to the cabin of the pls. We all lulled the wounded out. The driver was completely out of it d bleeding what seems to be from everywhere. I can not tell you how high my anxiety was ald sooooo terrified. I have seen things like like or worse but it amazes me that the reaction of I'll alertness and highper surveillance was the same. Me ald 2 other soldiers got the TC out and he was not Ben responsive bleeding from everywhere. I remember putting I think it is called a gauze? On him. I remember screaming for a medic both medics from both convoys were there. We tried so hard to make the bleeding stop on the TC. It makes me so mad that it took f*cking Medivac about 2 hours to get there. The TC died while I was holding his hand. Why!?!)!? So Long for the f*ckin Mdivac!?!!!?$?

I need to say that I can now remember that like it happens yesterday!! Amazing!! During my flashback everything is as real as me and you!!!! All my hallucinations flashbacks physical pain anxiety is extremely real to me. If anyone were to come up to me and call me a lier, I would no believe them. I would ask for proof and then probably become extremely angry. With everypart of who I am I say I was there . Everything I am experiencing is %100 real!!! I hate it when I am on YouTube and watch a f*cking video of some stupid idiot that has never been in a war zone say that we are lying or making things up!! I can't wait for one of those f*cking morons to say that to me so I can take their head off!! f*cking idiots don't know the serious tramas physical mental and emotional that any soldier has to go through while deployed in the war zone! I have never!! Or will never!! Lie to my medical providers about anything. Reading this forum and physically meeting other soldiers just like me proves to me that everything I experience is %100 real. I don't blame the VA but I agree with many war vets from all wars that the VA has to be changed. There is to much red tape. PTSD is a wide range. Before I was sen to UBH I was treated like shit when I reached for help. Only a small group of medical provides really knew that what I was experincing was real. Others just put blocks infront of them like giving me me fake medications that just made me ever more sick or even having the nerve to tell me that I might have bi-polar disorder! Until finally one of my medical providers Cpt. Cyr put herself on the line d said "enough is enough" I was finally put in the right path to getting better. And while in UBH the medical provers and I realized that if sent to the war zone I would have gone into a dissociative episode or flashback and with a loaded gun I would have gone on a killing spree!!! This is the reason why I reach for help whenever I just can't manage my psychotic episodes. I don't take chances. I have to much at stake. One thing that I wish is that my real medical providers have a questions then they have the right to ask. I am under cosnstant surveillance ald that will never change. I don't mind. But what I do mind is misunderstanding. Because my medical providers are not allowed to ask me questions. Then misunderstandings happen. My cell phone is a microphone and my conversations are listened tour I make a phone call or not. My feefriinds and family tell me that they are to collect intelligence on me. They

 

[Londonacquisition]

Everything is bugged. My friends and family said they would rather no be part of my life then to f*ck me over ald that is why they have abandoned me. I am alone in this world. I know my car is also bugged. I know everything. But because of some stupid policy my real medical providers are not allowed to as questions. Even if I contact them they are no allowed to respond. I am not bi-polar. A name does not change who I am no matter how many times I change it. It does not define me my war experiences are %100 real. Because they have happened, they are real. My Lind is broken!! War has broken my mind. Please understand that. Please also understand that I have the right to privacy. My religion is mine . I would not interfere in anyway in anyone else's privacy. I understand that your surveillance is done for security and monitoring reasons but I have a past and it is very private. Where I was born, what my real name is, who I really am is not as important as what I have done. I have the right to privacy. My religious privacy. Please understand that.

 

[willis williams]

Sorry but you lost me on the whole religious privacy and everything being bugged. I hope you can get a handle on the flashbacks. They seem to be very descriptive more so than I could share. I am glad I don't experience flashbacks only night terrors.

 

[Londonacquisition]

THis message will be read by my medical providers. There is nothing wrong with that. I was talking to to you but for some reason went off in anothe direction just for them. I hope you get better. I need to tell you that the army and VA medical community is getting better. I am living proof. I was at the ft. Hood shooting site and that tram was the straw that broke te camels back. I have 3deployments to Iraq with 3 units and have experienced more traumas that I can count. After the ft. Hood shooting the problems from te result of war were put at attention to te world. Mjr. Hassan was in no way a terrorist. He was a wounded soldiers where his PTSD became so overlooked that he completely lost it one day. He had a true moment of insanity. It is very unforunante that he had to completely loose it and go on a killing spree in order for the government to see that the
Killings would only continue in the USA if soldiers did not get the help hey need to get better. Before the ft. Hood shooting soldiers were going in kiling sprees every year since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the day that the shooting spree was done by an officer and in military stations that was the day they the shot hit the fan. Without help soldiers with PTSD and maaaaaaaaany other problems that were not being acknowledged and taken care of, most soldiers wold just get worse and the killin sprees would become more and more frequent with higher ranking officers. Please understand I am not complaining when I tel you all of this. The main problem not army medical or. Civilian medical providers. The biggest problem was that they were overworked and not enough to go around. Now the war is dying down and I am happy to say that the Army and VA are beginning to be able to take care of wounded soldiers. Please be patient. Trust me I know it is hard. Go to the Va and tell them everything!! Everuhing!! They need to know. We took care of each other in the war zone and now we have to do it here. We are brothers and sisters in arms and th will never change.