A Story in Which the Pain is Real

[eumelia]

Arachne Jericho wrote a series of blog posts titled Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Fiction (Broken into one, two, three and four parts).

It is a really good series. Trauma and the dealing with it can be a deal breaker for me when it comes to fiction.
I happen to have PTSD.
It's not something I talk about often because I'm in a good place in my life.
The latter part of 2006 and the majority of 2007 sucked, sucked, sucked. Most of 2008 was okay and improved as I realised what I needed to do in order to be able to function. I was in therapy from April 2007 'til January 2009.
That's a year and eight months.
I was never on any medication.
In 2006 and 2007 I had a few panic attacks, I've had one full blown flashback once in my entire life - I hope I never ever have one again, but really that's not up to me.

Briefly, for those who were not reading me during 2007 and/or 2008 and joined after Jan 2009, I participated in the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006, the war changed me - I think for the better - and also left a scratch in my brain.
I've been told that I shouldn't make myself out to be a victim, that other soldiers during the war, those who were on the front line and actually fought and didn't just watch the fighting on a big screen and count the rockets as they fell (which is what I did).

Perspective is great. It doesn't lessen my own pain. Making fun of myself and calling myself a whiny self-pitying ass does, though!
My therapist at some point said I use self-deprecation as a way to deflect.

Jericho gives an excellent over-view of what PTSD is and what it isn't and the way it is depicted in fiction - I think there's a unanimous agreement that The West Wing Christmas episode Noel is the best ever on television.

PTSD is a subtle disorder for many, including me. One friend nagged me gently to get help, because she could see that I wasn't "myself".
For a while I was unable to watch the News on teevee for fear that they would show aerial footage from a war plane - those images are still triggers for me and I can get very tense and, ha, stressed. Most war movies have become no-no's, but not good ole' Action films (I'm so glad I didn't lost James Bond).

It took me a while to want to get help, because damn it I'm not weak! Not to mention, in my mind you can't get PTSD by watching a television screen and seeing things blow up! I see that in movies all the time!
Except I was hearing the crackling voices of people telling me co-ordinates of rockets that were being fired from Lebanon.
Trees became targets.
A man who fired one those rockets died on July 26th 2006, it was a Wednesday, he was blown to smithereens.
I saw it happen.
People clapped for a job well done.
That night I broke down and the paradigm of my conciousness was altered - for the better and also with a few hiccups.

PTSD doesn't happen to people who sit in HQ. It also only happen to War Poets, to people who are really hurt.

I was told I take things too hard. That I'm too sensitive. That I need "to get over it". Well, I did... that's why I have PTSD and a good year, instead of... something else entirely.

Go read that series of posts and know that PTSD is hard to write, is often not named (I'm not sure it needs to be, every time or all the time) and I'll think about why I love the characters I love and identify with more than I did before the war.

Comments

[tamara-russo.livejournal.com]

I love you. That seemed to be the right response for this. :)

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I love you, too :)

[sabotabby]

Wow, thanks for the links. There's kind of no way to get around one of the protagonists in the Comic of Doom having PTSD (to a greater or lesser extent, most of the characters in it do, owing to a long-term situation that's equivalent to living in a war zone), and I'm desperately determined to do it right.

I hope one day you'll be able to tell your story to a wider audience than this LJ, because I think it needs to be heard, and because you're an eloquent voice for peace.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I'm such a small fish Sabs, honestly, the people from Breaking the Silence (http://www.shovrimshtika.org/index_e.asp) are way better than me and are heard. I'm just a sensitive girl who took things too hard.

Thank you any way :) When I'm in Canada I'll tell all y'all about it!

[lishablog.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing that series. I've read the first two now and will read the other two a little later.

One thing that you almost never see in fiction is layered PTSD. If a person goes through a horrific thing at one point in life, it often leads to more horrific things, and these things add up. They don't create ONE PTSD syndrome, but rather a cascading collection of traumatic stresses that are dealt with at different levels, healed at different speeds, and can lead to different levels of debilitation.

Take her example of Harry Potter. It's because of the trauma of seeing his parents killed at the age of one that the stage is set for all of the other traumas he gets to go through. Friends getting killed, face to face meetings with dementors, all that stuff... That stuff doesn't just disappear into history once it happens. It collects. And sure, you can and do deal with the traumas one at a time, but it's unpredictable what "dealing" will look like. Some traumas are easier to deal with because you've been pre-hardened by past experiences. Others are harder to deal with because you've been weakened by those past traumas.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Having taken the time to re-read HP since the war her point is definitely strong.
Also, like many mental disorders different people react differently, symptoms can often appear similar (otherwise there would be no diagnosis) but the way of dealing with them will vary.

In HP I always thought Harry and Snape had so much in common - the seventh book confirmed my suspicions, but I wish JKR allowed people to be fucked up without them being so destructive (see Sirius - another sufferer, I'd say).

[stateofwonder.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting that, it was a great read. I need to learn more about PTSD, as some of my loved ones are sufferers as well.

I wonder, what is the public attitude towards PTSD in a country like Israel, where (I assume?) a good chunk of the population may be sufferers as a result of participating in war? Is there much public awareness of it, or is it a sort of "shut up and take it" sort of situation?

Kenya is another place where, I believe, many people are PTSD sufferers, but trauma is never spoken about in medical terms. Most people would probably not be familiar with the term at all.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

A good chunk of the population has PTSD from participating in wars, witnessing or being in bombings, being shot at by rockets, or what have you.

Not too long ago there was a demonstration of disabled IDF-Vets who demanded more recognition and assistance from the ministry of defence. Recognition of PTSD as a disorder is difficult and there is definitely an attitude of "suck it up", that is what soldiers do.

*sigh* There's a very strong undercurrent of violence in Israel. People here are aggressive (I am one of those "rude Israelis"), it's sometimes difficult to know whether people are acting out of knee jerk adrenal reaction or whether that is the cause of our problems - egg/chicken thing.

Paranoia is a symptom as well and I know I'll never get rid of it, same with hyper-awareness... it can be distracting and I think a large portion of the Israeli (Jewish, Arab, what-have-you) suffer all that along with me, thinking it is "normal".
It's very much not, imo.

Earlier this year a study was released showing that people who were raped suffered from stronger symptoms of PTSD than "shell-shocked" soldiers (such an appropriate term, I'm sad that is has been antiquated and the phenomena is completely medicalised).
Here's the article (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1119806.html).

[stateofwonder.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your thoughts on that. Israel sounds like a fascinating, but frustrating place. I'd love to visit one day.

RE: the article you linked, that makes sense. It's so personal -- not only is the violation of your body personal, but people who have been raped often feel that they could have done something to prevent it, whereas in a situation of war, being bombed, etc. there's more of a sense of being a victim of circumstance.

You can't do much to escape your own body :(

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I'd really like to live elsewhere. If only for a little while.

You can't do much to escape your own body :(
Yeah... :(

[stateofwonder.livejournal.com]

Come to Canada :D You could work here, or do your MA here!

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I have the most couches to crash on in Canada and Australia :) (probably the States too, but I don't think I could live there for a long time).

[stateofwonder.livejournal.com]

Also, this might interest you, it's an article I had to read for class about PTSD in American vets from the war in Iraq, and how PTSD can be read as a normal and human reaction to being in such a situation, rather than being completely medicalized:

http://anthronow.com/articles/becoming-monsters-in-iraq-2

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the link! Very interesting, a natural reaction to violence, who would have thought, huh?

One of the reasons I left therapy was also because I felt the therapist was judging me for my politics, that I became increasingly anti-IDF as I became more active and read more about what the IDF does in "my name".

[stateofwonder.livejournal.com]

What I love about that article is how it frames activism as a method of healing. Instead of letting the existing people damage other people as it damaged them, they're actually attempting to do something about it, and this helps them deal with that happened to them. I think that's amazing! The healing power of activism :)

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

The healing power of activism :)

I couldn't agree with you more!