Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is no laughing matter. I regularly hear people joke that they have PTSD from some ordinary unpleasant experience. Or that they’re “triggered” by things they simply don’t like. I can’t remember if I’ve ever done this, but I think I’m not above such things. I just don’t do it anymore, and I call people on it, as gently as I can muster, when they do it.
I have PTSD. I don’t know if the anxiety and depression I often experience are just part of that, or if they would qualify as separate diagnoses themselves. I also have fibromyalgia and chronic pain syndrome, and a degenerating disc between my C6 and C7 vertebrae, which has led to problems with my right arm and hand, especially two of my fingers. So I have pain and mobility issues, and the fibromyalgia is almost certainly the result of the PTSD, given how long it has been a part of my life.
Something happened when I was six years old. I’ll get to that in a minute, but first, it’s important for you to know that, while I kind of remembered the events all my life, I never really was conscious of them or spoke about them until I told a friend when I was 25 years old. And then I did nothing about any of it until I was in my forties and told another friend and then my husband. In October of 2015, a year after my mother died, I finally went to get help, and I was diagnosed with PTSD. I was about to turn 45, so that means almost forty years passed between the initial traumatic incident and me finally getting help. Nearly forty years of carrying and burying trauma causes anxiety and inflammation in the body. Hence, the fibromyalgia.
Now I will explain about the initial traumatic incident, sometimes referred to as an “index trauma,” that got me here.
Tommy lived down the street from us. He was always a weird kid. He was ten years older than I, the same age as my sister. When I look back on growing up where I did, Tommy was just always a neighborhood fixture. Weird, getting in trouble, later drinking and doing drugs, and much later just wandering around town in a pretty messed-up state. He always made me uncomfortable. I generally wasn’t remembering what he did, just that he was an unsafe person.
For a long time, I could only remember sketchy details. But they were always SO specific, and SO real, that I knew they were true, even if I couldn’t completely string them together into a coherent memory. It was almost as if I had watched a movie, but kept falling asleep and waking up at different places and only seeing the occasional scene. I could picture this little clubhouse type structure, in the driveway of their yard. I remember there being an upper level of some sort. I remember pages from pornographic magazines on the walls. And I knew, though I can’t say how because I couldn’t actually see it in my mind’s eye, that people were tied up. Was I tied up? I can’t be sure. I also remember walking up the hill toward my own house. I remember the police being there at some point. I remember my father being upset and angry. I remember that my brother was there too.
I just held this information, these memories, in some part of myself that I never knew existed. Somehow, I always knew but never really remembered. I can only imagine that the sudden death of my friend Billy in November of 1995 opened something up in me. It was his widow I told about these memories, one night while we were driving around and hanging out after Billy died. I described out loud what I could remember, speaking about it for the first time. Billy’s death, and how I learned about it, was the first traumatic event of my adulthood. It would be echoed over a decade later within my own family.
Losing my father in late March of 2008 was also very traumatic for me. The way I found out was hard. Our phones had been switched off and charging overnight. I awoke to multiple voicemails on our landline (we always kept that ringer turned off) and both our cell phones. I knew that was bad. When I finally got a hold of my mother, I remember that I was standing in the middle of our kitchen, on my husband’s cell phone because mine was still booting up or something, and I just started screaming and crying. I remember it well because I had flashbacks for months afterward. Dozens of times a day at first, then several times a day, then a few times a week. It gradually tapered off, and I remember thinking -- and even saying to some close friends -- that it was almost like what I imagine PTSD to be like. But PTSD was for veterans and others who had experienced war, right?
My mother’s illness and passing in 2014 was a different experience. We learned in early June that she had terminal cancer, and we had no idea how long she had. She died in early October. Four months from diagnosis to death. And it was grueling to watch. And most of that I did from the other side of the continent. Grieving opens up old wounds. A year later, in October of 2015, I found myself recounting every bad thing that had ever happened to me, including some other stuff from childhood and adulthood, to a psychologist. He diagnosed me with PTSD and prescribed trauma education group classes, which I attended weekly for probably six to eight months before moving into a smaller cognitive processing therapy (CPT) group made up of people I had gotten to know in trauma ed.
When my brother came to visit for my son’s baptism in May of 2004, I had tried to ask him about what had happened to us. He shot me down, saying “that was a long time ago.” So that was ten years before I got my diagnosis. In June of 2012, as I was packing and cleaning my classroom before leaving for another job, I called my mother to ask about what had happened. She simply sounded surprised when she said “you remember that?” I tried calling the police department of my hometown, but couldn’t find out anything. I asked my two oldest siblings. Neither of them knew anything about what I was talking about. When I was in CPT in 2016, I called my brother and found out what had happened. For some reason, he was ready to tell me about it then. And soon after that, I contacted the friend of his who had also been there and got a few more details confirmed. I was right. I was there. It really happened. But it didn’t happen to me. It happened to them.
I don’t know why, back in what was likely the spring of 1977, my brother (age 10) and his friend (age 11) were hanging around with this 16-year old neighborhood weird kid. But, annoying little sister that I was, I was following them around. I don’t know what all transpired. But at some point, these two boys were tied up and I ran for help. Up the street toward home. Were the police already there? Had they been trying to find out where we kids had gone? Were they called after I went for help? I know that my father apparently smacked Tommy around a bit and threatened his father, that if Tommy ever came near us kids again, he would kill him. (The father? Tommy? I don’t remember.) I found all this out from the two boys involved, my brother and his friend. But a part of me, somewhere deep inside, always knew.
It might not seem like a big deal. I mean, for a while, I felt better knowing it hadn’t actually happened TO me. But I learned in trauma education that we should never compare our traumas. Sometimes people are traumatized by what they’ve witnessed, and not even things that actually happened TO them. And I have learned since then that this still lives inside me. When I feel unsafe, when I am triggered, I am a frightened six year old again. I am alone and I need help and I don’t know what to do.
Fast forward to May of 2019, just a few weeks before I am sitting down to write this. I love going on my school’s senior trip. I had been twice before, when my own advisees were seniors on the verge of graduating. I volunteered to go again, despite having freshman advisees now. It’s an awesome trip. It wasn’t until we were there that I remembered the stage hypnotist show. It made me uncomfortable last year. All day that Monday, the dread within me grew. I looked forward to dinner with my colleagues at a local Belgian restaurant, but walking back to the resort meant heading back for this show. I sat at the back. When the gathered audience of kids began to stand for a better view, I didn’t arise from my chair. I didn’t even want to be there. There comes a point in his show, I recalled from the previous year, when the hypnotist has the subjects imagine themselves watching the funniest movie ever, followed by the saddest movie ever, and then the scariest movie ever. As this was unfolding, even though I couldn’t see the hypnotized students or their reactions, I became increasingly agitated. I had to go. I got up and walked out before “saddest movie” could change to “scariest movie.” I felt very removed from myself as I left. This was in an upstairs meeting room setting, and I went downstairs to sit outside. But I could still hear the reactions of the audience of kids. I had to get away. I took off for my hotel room, and parked myself on the balcony, facing the ocean and trying to let its roar comfort and calm me.
I had been crying a bit before escaping to my balcony, but now I was a mess. I hoped that the ocean would drown out the sound of me. I had duties assigned to me, but I wasn’t going to be of any use to anyone. I texted my colleague with whom I was supposed to oversee karaoke, something I had been looking forward to. I told him I wasn’t well and couldn’t be there. I waited a while. Being alone meant no one could see me in this state, but being alone is the worst for me when it’s like this. Being alone, when you’re a frightened six year old trying to find help, is terrifying. It’s isolating. It doesn’t feel safe. I texted another colleague about when a friend’s duty leading the poker game would be done, or whether it was. This colleague was kind and gentle but couldn’t really tell me anything. After a bit more isolation, I texted another colleague who I knew would be able to come to me, and who would understand without judging. (It’s not that I really think any of my colleagues would judge me; it’s just that when you’re at this place I can’t really even describe, you do a kind of high-speed risk management of “who can I trust?” that doesn’t make sense when you’re not massively triggered and reliving trauma.) I had her find my roommate and get let in to my room.
She sat with me for a while, I don’t know how long really. I told her everything. I told her the quick version of what I’ve recounted here, plus a few things I’m not including for privacy reasons. But I have another friend at work who knows everything, and whom I trust implicitly. They sent for him to come help me.
I wish I could put into words what was happening to me. Even thinking back to it and trying to describe it has me close to tears in Starbucks, and that is NOT cool. There I was, wrapped up in my hoodie and under a blanket, burning through a box of tissues and crying incessantly. And I couldn’t even explain why. There is a level of being terrified that goes beyond words. It takes over your entire being. You can’t feel safe. This is why I don’t watch scary or violent movies or television shows. I can’t even handle intense suspense in entertainment media. I didn’t even have the strength to be embarrassed by my ugly crying and my feeling and acting like a child. Like a six year old.
I had to have my friend stay with me until my roommate could return after checking in the kids in our assigned rooms. My friend and I both missed a chaperone meeting and the rest of our duties for the night. I ended up explaining some of it to my roommate. I could NOT be alone. She was awesome about it all.
I know I have nothing to be ashamed of, and that this happened to me because of something that wasn’t my fault, that was done over forty years ago when I was just a kid. But I am still struggling with how it feels to know that something outside yourself can trigger in you such a visceral, uncontrollable reaction, and that you have to be able to completely depend on other people just to feel safe.
I have PTSD. It causes me anxiety about things that other people don’t even notice. Even though I am trying to walk places (like walking to and from work four days a week) for exercise, it’s hard for me to walk out in public alone. When there are panels or plates or manholes in the sidewalk, I can’t step on them. Anything that is hollow underneath could collapse underneath me. It’s not safe. When someone behaves in an unstable way around me, such as one of the many homeless folks around my school and on my walk home, it puts me on heightened alert, in a way I suspect other adults don’t experience. Loud noises, such as the bang of a barista emptying a garbage can just now or a muscle car revving as it tears by, terrify me. When I travel, as I often do for professional development and a board of directors on which I serve, it’s really hard for me to be alone, especially in the hotels at night. I struggle with insomnia, at home and when I travel. I always have to have my keys and phone on me, and the doors of my home and car always have to be locked. These things had been improving in some ways over the past year, as I have gotten more exercise and been getting more help. But they’ve also been harder in some ways. Because when you work on stuff like this in therapy, which I attend weekly, it opens up a lot of hurt that you have to confront instead of burying.
I’m not sharing this to get attention for myself. I can get all the attention I want. I’m an educator, well known in my field, fairly smart and funny, and a good singer. What I want people to pay attention to is the fact that many people around them are struggling. We go to work, we shop for groceries, we plan trips, we go to the movies, but we are still struggling. We walk down the street, and that may be a struggle. We ask for help, and that may be a struggle. We try not to be a burden, and that’s definitely a struggle.
I’m sharing this because there is a stigma around mental and emotional health that is literally killing people. No one would ever think that what happened when I was six was in any way my own fault. And anyone who thought my inability to just shrug it off was a character flaw would be recognized to be a complete jerk. In 1977, working class people didn’t put their possibly-traumatized kids into any kind of treatment. They just didn’t talk about it ever again. They didn’t tell their older kids. They just got on with life and figured the memories would fade. My parents can’t be faulted for my not getting the help I needed. But it’s 2019 and we know better now.
We can teach like we know that a bunch of the kids in the room have experienced trauma. We can love like we know our friends and colleagues are carrying around some heavy stuff. We can live in this world in such a way that doesn’t trigger other people or make them feel threatened or unsafe.
Until recently, most people who know me would not have imagined that I carried around this baggage for most of my life. I present as confident, happy, successful, and effective in my life and my work. But sometimes I’m not any of those things. And now you know why.
