Undiagnosed Retired

[rmdr]

Hi,
I am new to this.
I have been retired for 18 years from Law enforcement. I still have many a sleepless night, recurring dreams reliving the ugliness that I worked with.
I have gone thru two marriages and now I really don't care to have a relationship. I am slowly pushing away from my friends and avoiding contact with most people except my two boys. I like being alone, or feel safer alone.
I can't handle stress and suffer a tremendous amount of anxiety. In the morning I usually get the dry heaves and it takes a while to calm down. I work part time and have changed my schedule many times so I don't have to go into work because of the dry heaves. I have lost all self worth, self esteem and confidence.
I take tramadol for knee pain and found it helps me overcome the anxiety for the most part. It also helps calm me down on mornings when the dry heaves really get bad.
I have not shared this with anyone not even my boys who I am very close to. It seems that the 10 years I was a detective investigating everything violent you can think of is what re occurs the most. Other things have occured in my life since retirement that have also complicated my feeling about myself.
I don't think about hurting myself but I feel I am going downhill fast. I constantly think about dying and being lost and no one will understand how I feel. I would think after being retired this long the nightmares would go away. I really get tired of feeling like this and having to put on a false front for everyone and pretend I am a happy go lucky guy. I attend church regularly and pray these fears and anxiety will stop.

 

[Anarchy]

Hi rmdr,
Welcome to the forum. This is a safe place with round the clock and round the world support. I'm relatively new here too, and have learned a huge amount and improved my life a great deal by coming here.

I'm just reading up on the history of PTSD, and the modern history is probably younger than we are - before 1980, it wasn't even an officially recognized diagnosis. The "Rap Groups" set up by returning Vietnam war vets, provided them with a safe space to talk, to realize that they were not alone, that there was no shame in what they were experiencing and to begin to heal.

I guess that's what we have here, only bigger, better and more diverse. Welcome!

 

[joeylittle]

Welcome, @rmdr. Have a look around - you might especially like reading some of the articles in The Vault. And threads too. And posting.:) Basically, it's important to have community when dealing with PTSD and its aspects, so I'm glad you found us.

Have you considered getting a formal diagnosis of PTSD?

 

[Mamalphrus]

Thank you for sharing your story. I found this site today and needed a safe place to release. Looks like you needed to do the same. Kudos!

 

[rmdr]

we aren't supposed to show our weaknesses. cops are tough and don't have weaknesses.so many times i still see the poor dead babies the suicides the victims. I don't want to talk to anyone about my issues problems anxiety. I constantly worry constantly anxious. i cling to my boys but they cause more anxiety sometime and i ignore my friends for long periods of time. I feel really lost. im tired of faking being happy. a while back i told my doctor i was depressed because of problems with my youngest. he gave me some kind of med but it made me feel really weird so i stopped taking it.I love my boys and they are the reason i keep pushing on.

 

[Anarchy]

Hi rmdr,
some people take a little more exposure to traumatizing experiences than others before they suffer the traumatic stress responses. Analysis of Vietnam veterans could be plotted to show a pretty good curve of trauma dose : percentage developing PTSD.

Those in the special forces and the front line combat units all got it, no one is "tough enough" to not get it. If there is an exception to that, it might be an absolutely reptillian psychopath. No one with even the slightest trace of humanity is unaffected.

What your present suffering shows is that you are a caring human being, who witnessed some terrible things.

The self isolation, the push - pull in relationships, the reluctance to talk, coupled with feelings of guilt, for having survived, for not having done more to help or prevent, and toxic shame at what we see as weakness for not being "tougher" or "good enough" are absolutely classical symptoms as are the nightmares and the flash backs (some flashbacks might only have emotional content, anxiety, rage, paranoia etc) and an inability to fully remember any more than fragments.

I wrote "we"

I doubt whether there are any of the 28,370 who've signed up to this site who would not recognize and identify with those symptoms.

You are not alone here.

Then there are the more individual symptoms, In your case, the morning nausea, some people get pains too.

The symptoms suck, no one here will under estimate them or be-little them, they are a normal human response to what you've seen and been through, please try to be gentle with yourself, they are not something to feel guilty or beat yourself up for experiencing (and please don't beat yourself up for beating yourself up).

Even if you don't feel ready to find a therapist, there are some things which you can begin to do which will help.

@joeylittle has already mentioned the articles and resources in the "vault" here.

There are also some excellent books available, I'm reading several at once. Judith L Herman's "Trauma and recovery" stands out as an excellent resource, she explains the post traumatic stress responses and their effects on all aspects of our lives, and on the ways of resolving those responses, so that we can begin to reclaim our lives again, to broaden out again from the narrowing down and the self isolation.

Even posting here, helps us to put our thoughts in order and to externalize what was previously held inside as half remembered fragments.

Traumatic memories are not like ordinary memories, they are very intense fragments, remembered in images, emotions and as feelings in the body (perhaps that is what your dry heaves may be) rather than in words. starting a trauma diary, whether on the site here, or in a notebook if you really are not ready to share, begins the process of ordering those fragments and incorporating them into your normal memories, where they loose their power to hurt you. It also provides a record for a therapist to begin working with and helping you from.

I hope this helps - I know it feels like you are alone, you are not. What you are experiencing is absolutely normal for every human who has seen the sorts of things which you have seen. The only ones who would not be affected would need to be reptiles or robots.

You are an individual who deserves to be heard and helped to regain your full life, you are worth it, please keep in contact with us here.

 

[intothelight]

Welcome to the forum!

 

[anthony]

Welcome to the forum @rmdr.

 

[The Albatross]

Prayer is good, but pursuing in a therapeutic environment may get you a baseline, if not a diagnosis. If you "feel" you are slipping, it is time for you to act. Idealizing death is a big red flag.