Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

During my Friday lunch break my wife sprang a sudden question, “Do you suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?” Powerful emotion immediately overcame me, I turned to the window and gazed out of it for the minute or so it took me to regain emotional control.  Without meeting her eyes, for I had no desire for her to see the remnants of tears in my own, I replied, “Yes, I think I do.”

This prompted a tweet a little later,

At lunch today my wife asked "Do you suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?" As I blinked away a tear, and hid, I knew, I did and do.

— C.G.Ayling (@CGAyling) June 14, 2013

At lunch today my wife asked “Do you suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?” As I blinked away a tear, and hid, I knew, I did and do.

My companions on Twitter responded with mostly silent support, which I greatly appreciate as talking about my own emotional pain does little to lessen it for me.  However posting about it isn’t really talking, it’s simply speaking without the fear someone will ask piercing questions that re-open old wounds. Thus this post.

Well then, what is PTSD? The National Institute of Mental Health define it in this article “What is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)”

As a combat veteran, I’m a candidate for the NIMH’s classic definition.  Of their list of symptoms, I regularly experience all but two – namely, “Having trouble remembering the dangerous event”, and “Being easily startled”.  Indeed, sometimes I rather wish I suffered from memory problems of so specific a nature that I could forget everything bad that ever happened. {Actually I don’t wish anything of the sort, for reasons I’ll explain later}.

That said, as with many things my own understanding and definition of the term PTSD differs from the widely accepted.  I believe anyone who suffers mental trauma of a particularly unpleasant nature is a candidate for PTSD.  I have no doubt this ailment is far more widespread than the NIMH’s restrictive definition implies.  I don’t think drugs are the solution. In fact, I don’t consider PTSD an ailment at all.  In my opinion, it’s a learned response intended to keep us out of danger by ensuring we don’t forget the events leading to our traumatic experience.

As Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, or George Santayana, once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Yes, the effects of PTSD are debilitating, but would I give up my most terrible memories to gain relief?  I would not.  You see those memories, perhaps even more so than the actual events, are factors that have shaped me into who I am.  I lived through the events only once.  Yet I’ve repeatedly relived them in my memory.  Repetition is an age old mechanism of learning.

Yes, I often loathe myself for the things I’ve done, the stances I never took, the words I never said, the things I didn’t do yet know I should have.  However without those events, and especially the memories of them, I simply would not be me.  I’m not saying I love myself and that you should too.  Not at all.  However after decades I’m finally finding peace and I sincerely hope sharing my thoughts might aid any of you who have ever suffered from any truly traumatic event.  For me sympathizing with other helps, where having others offer sympathy to me does not.

With the type of memories that my personal PTSD invokes in mind, I wrote two poems, which follow.  I hope they strike a chord within you and that perhaps you enjoy the second.

<<-0->>

~ Memory, of Pain ~
~
Memories I ever dread,
yet know
will come again.
Memory, of pride and duty,
then memory, of their disdain.
Memory, of pain.
~
Memory, of valor,
of selfless acts, and tragedy.
Memory, of loss,
then memory, of disdain.
Memory, of pain.
~
Memory, of high regard,
of sacrifice and atrocity.
Memory, of shame,
then memory, of my disdain.
Memory, of pain.
~
Memories that take
much more than they give.
Memories that tear themselves apart,
and then themselves, rebuild again.
Memories for all time,
that each recollection redefines.
Memory, of pain.
~
Memories of guilt
at others’ blood we spilt.
Memories we can’t refute,
for our guilt seems absolute.
Memories, of why.
Memories that always make us cry.
Memory, of pain.
~
Memories of joy we treasure.,
Even as memories of pain
we lay to rest,
as from their memory
we refrain.
Memory, of pain.
~
Who knows what
our memories will unearth?
And with their resurrection
grant our forgotten pain,
rebirth.
Memory, of pain.
~
Alas, only Warriors from the fray
will ever fully know
how terrible was the day,
when conscience
struck
us down.
Memory, of pain.
~
A bitter pill indeed…
to know we did
no good.
Memory, of pain.
~
Memories forever remain.
Memories, of mine…
These memories…
are the memories
that
our character define.
Memory, of mine.
~

<<-0->>

And now, as reward for those that read this far, a lighter poem.  Hopefully it will ease you from any anguish invoked by the first.

~ Memory, of Youth ~
~
Flowing circles,
drawing closer, then away.
Trigger words, and trigger sounds,
so many triggers, for memories abound.
~
A gleam of light,
a shadowed figure passing by,
a sidelong glance, a down-turned eye.
Sympathy perceived, or offered
seldom fail
to unlock memory’s coffers.
~
A wafting wind brings to mind
a youth long lost.
Memory, our lost youth will find
and full strength, to us return
the dreams we had, the dreams,
that burn.
~
Remembered dreams will we hold tight
before reluctant, we them release.
Our slow drooping eye heralds sleep’s return,
Where we will find fresh dreams,
fresh hopes,
of peace.
~
Slumber grants new dreams,
we clench and grasp them, tight
but still we feel them slip away
as we awaken,
to a newborn day.
~

{Thank you for reading. Please remember I’m an author, your support in purchasing my works would be most gratefully received. If interested, head on over to [Samples], where you can read the opening of the first novel in my Epic, Malmaxa.}