I CRASHED BUT REFUSED TO BURN

My entire life had been one stress after another from my childhood in a dysfunctional family to a sixteen year, very difficult marriage. After I remarried, I took a job at the nearby Air Force Base, opening myself up to a new world of chaos daily. At home, we were raising four children and we were all dealing with my husband’s fallout from his previous marriage. Many days, his frustration was directed at me because he needed a place to put it and “I was there.”

If I had known how to delegate in those days, I would have fared better but I bottled it all up, depending only on myself to guide all concerned. I even held God at bay, thinking my concerns self-imposed and not His problem. 

One morning, in the summer of 1990, I woke to my alarm as usual. My husband was out of town on an Air Force TDY mission. As I sat up in bed, I began to cry hysterically. No matter how I tried, I could not stop.

I decided to call for my oldest daughter, asking her, through the closed door, to see that her younger siblings got to school and I began to dress. 

Once the children were out of the house, I left the confines of our bedroom, driving myself to the Psychiatric facility at the Base hospital. I was sobbing but managed to tell the clerk I needed help. She directed me immediately to the office of their residing psychiatrist. He spent two hours with me that morning. As we talked, I was finally able to control the sobbing.

The doctor explained I was suffering from PTSD and first removed me from my job and gave me a prescription for medication to help my anxiety. He then referred me to an outside, or off base physiatrist, Dr. Burton Podnos.

Before my appointment with Dr. Podnos, I went to his office to fill out a 500 question form. As I cleared the steps to the front door, I was mortified that someone would see me entering his office, the last place I ever thought I would be!

I was careful as I gave my answers not to tell anything I wanted kept private. I thought I hid myself quite well.

Soon, I received my appointment notice from the doctor’s office. I arrived a few minutes early, anxious to get it over with by proving I did not need to be there. It was just a glitch, a bump in the road, and I would be fine.

As I walked in, he stood and shook my hand, introducing himself. I sat in the chair provided as he sat down at his desk.

Then he did something strange. He looked at my feet and said, “I really like your shoes!” I was wearing a normal pair of loafers so thought that was an odd thing to comment on but simply thanked him. 

He went on to ask, “Did you make them yourself?” I replied, “Of course not!” And laughed!

The doctor then said something that rocked me! “Then why do you think you have to do everything else yourself?”

In one moment, he had put my entire life into one sentence! He was right! I was having a breakdown but did not call for help. I went to church, sang in the choir, soloed, raised the children, ran a home and an office and never once let anyone know what was happening behind my eyes, in the recesses of my mind. And I thought that was a good thing!

After a few visits, he asked me to write down my thoughts during the course of the next week. After reading them, he told me he learned far more from what I wrote than from what I told him. He wanted me to write for him each week. Thus, I discovered how much I liked to write. And as I reread my work, it opened doors to me that I never realized were even there. I had been hiding my feelings for years!

During my time of recovery, I could not work. Typing was a large part of my work and though I typed eighty words a minute normally, after the breakdown, I could not type for more than twenty minutes. At that point, I would forget where the keys were on the keyboard, forcing me to stop for hours.

During this time, my husband made an appointment to see Social Security, wanting me to set up disability. Once in his office, we went over the doctor’s notes and the paperwork I filled out. He then asked me what I wanted to see happen. I answered, “I want my life back!”

At that moment, I made the decision to do just that! I was not going to sit around feeling sorry for myself and draw money from Social Security at forty years old! I was going to take my life back!!

I lost my short term memory for the first six months. I had always had near perfect recall so this alone was maddening! I realized my brain had been like a computer. The information went in but my recall was broken. As my memory ability returned, I began to remember the past six months in flashes. For the next five years, I would get flashes of the past. I had been losing recall for years and just did not know it. The brain is an amazing thing! 

I continued to see Dr. Podnos for three years, until I was forty-three. I remained on medication until two years ago, after turning seventy, once life slowed a bit. I find I talk faster without it but, if that is the only drawback, I can live with that!

Since those days, we have finished raising our four children. I have worked again, been a foster mother from 1999 until 2004, and we adopted one of our foster daughters and raised her. I kept my own granddaughter five days a week, sang in choir, soloed again, sang with the Golden Tones in retirement homes around town, sang in several variety shows, and I have written three books. And, yes, I can once again type eighty words a minute as long as needed! 

Today, I find if I stress too much, my short term memory will began to shut down. The doctor told me that my brain has learned it can stop me and it will. It has actually been a good thing because I now have a “pressure valve,” as such.

I have also learned to use my words if upset with someone. Rather than harboring anger, I write them a letter, letting it all out. After I read it over, I feel so much better and the anger is lifted. Of course, the letter, in most cases, is never mailed but destroyed instead. It was simply for my own release 

PTSD is very real but does not have to be the end of life as you know it. 

With determination, professional help, and depending on the good Lord instead of shutting Him out, you can survive it and thrive again!

Life is a challenge in the very best circumstances but, even in those, we can be thrown a curve ball that topples us, no matter our own personal strength! Ask for help! PTSD is a chemical imbalance in the brain, sometimes inherent, sometimes circumstantial. Acceptance is the first step. Asking for help, the second!

I meant what I said in the Social Security office! And, at 72, I still stand firm!  Bring it on! God and I are standing ready! Never underestimate the strength of the human spirit when God is by their side!