Is it Over Yet? (Dealing with Complex PTSD)

You and I may have our own opinions about which kinds of trauma impact survivors the most, have the most lasting effects, or are the most difficult to deal with. What types of injuries take the longest to heal -- physical or emotional? Sorry ... I'm not going to even ATTEMPT to answer that question at the moment. There's no doubt, however, that even once a wound heals, it can still cause pain (whether physical OR emotional). Interestingly enough, even the US military recognizes that just because a traumatic event may be "over" doesn't mean the effects of that trauma are "over."

(Quotes from articles in blue, my comments in black & any bold added by me for emphasis):

In an article by Sarah Williams Volf,  I read:

"For many military personnel the fighting does not end in the combat zone. Many returning service members face increased anxiety, sleepless nights, and rapid flashbacks that can immediately take them back to the combat field. It is also a fact that many individuals will not seek help out of fear of being stigmatized. Some may not be diagnosed until 10-20 years after their time in the Army; this can be particularly true for those serving in Vietnam. The symptoms of PTSD can arise suddenly, gradually or may come and go over time. It is imperative to get help. Avoidance will ultimately harm your relationship and quality of life. There are many professional and organizations that will provide excellent resources for you."

She's right.  PTSD can wreak havoc on one's life, both literally and figuratively.  And soldiers aren't the only ones who don't want to seek help out of fear of being stigmatized.  Who wants the label of  "mentally ill"  being applied to them? I know I sure don't!  The military has gradually provided more support to veterans that suffer from PTSD over the years, but even within the military, physical trauma still trumps emotional trauma when it comes to veterans being taken seriously and receiving the vital treatment and support services that they need. In fact, according to an article by Conn Hallinan, the Pentagon went so far as to decide not to award the purple heart to veterans who were "only" suffering from PTSD.  Hallinan goes on to explain:

"The official rationale for refusing to honor what is widely considered the "signature wound" of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that PTSD, according to Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen Lainez, is "an anxiety disorder caused by experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event," not "a wound intentionally caused by the enemy."

So, following that "logic," if a bomb is "accidentally" dropped in the wrong place and wounds or kills someone "unintentionally," then those wounds or deaths wouldn't be all that important?!

"The military has made little effort to deal with PTSD and MTBI (Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, a condition caused by being near where a bomb goes off. Its symptoms are virtually indistinguishable from PTSD).

Soldiers suffering from PTSD outnumber amputees at Walter Reed Hospital 43 to 1, but there is no PTSD center (yet they opened a multi-million dollar amputee center there  in 2007).

After diagnosis, PTSD sufferers usually go to the hospital's psych ward, where they are housed with bipolar and schizophrenic patients and tanked up with drugs. A study by Veterans for America (VFA) found that some soldiers were taking up to 20 different medications at once, some of which canceled out others."

PTSD and MTBI both result from deployment in combat zones. Large numbers of these soldiers were exposed to IEDs - but many didn't suffer visible injuries. To make "shedding blood" the only criterion for being awarded a Purple Heart (and the benefits that go with it) is to deny the nature of the wars the United States is currently fighting."
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Why am I even bringing this up?  Because I feel that it's unfair to expect someone who has survived over a decade of extreme emotional and sexual trauma to be able to simply "bounce back" immediately and function at a "normal" level.  Although the military may not deal with emotional trauma as effectively as it deals with physical injuries, soldiers returning from even one year in combat are still expected to need intensive counseling and are given a considerable period of time for recovery and readjustment. 

How is it then, that after nearly 15 years in a horrifyingly abusive relationship, I am somehow expected to simply set aside the flashbacks, the body memories, the nightmares, and just "get on with my life?"  Why can't people understand how crippling it is for a woman to endure an abusive relationship for years on end, with no hope of there being any end in sight?

In the army, at least you know who the enemy is and they don't switch sides.  In an abusive relationship, however, a woman must often rely on "the enemy" for sustenance.  Just to survive, she must learn to read her partner's every cue (both verbal and non-verbal), anticipate his responses, meet his every need, and obey his every command.  She constantly tiptoes across a tenuous tightrope, never sure if today is the day her partner will bring home flowers or ambush her by bringing home another woman and expect her to cooperate in some twisted sexual fantasy that he has conjured up.

Women in abusive relationships live in a combat zone every day . . . and must sleep with the enemy every night. 

There is no rest.  There is no hope.  There is no help.

There is only SURVIVAL.

They are constantly threatened -- threatened with physical harm, threatened with financial abandonment, threatened with embarrassment, threatened with annihilation, threatened with humiliation, and, perhaps worst of all, threatened with harm to or separation from their children.  They are ridiculed, tormented, and tortured.  They rarely know when an attack will occur, how severe it will be, or how long it will last. In the back of their minds, they often wonder, "will this be the time he finally kills me?"  And for some, the thought of death at his hands almost sounds like a blessed reprieve from the hell they endure day in and day out. 

What makes domestic abuse that much more damaging and painful is that, quite frequently, an abuser may treat his partner rather nicely on occasion.  He's not a "monster" 100% of the time.  If that were the case, it might be easier for women caught in the crippling cycle of domestic abuse to seek help.   However, men who are sadistically abusive at home can often behave as the "perfect gentleman" when in public.  They may be described by friends and coworkers as "such a nice guy."  And if a woman dares to disclose even a portion of what is going on at home, she is frequently dismissed as yet another "disgruntled housewife" who is just "looking for attention."

Strangers aren't the only ones who fall for abusers' "nice guy routines."  My ex-husband could be very charming when he wanted to be.  He'd buy me flowers, offer to fix supper, bring me breakfast in bed, etc.  Sometimes all it would take was an insincere "I'm sorry" from him or a small trinket he'd grab on his way home from work and I'd allow myself to believe that perhaps he had really changed for the better. 

From speaking with other domestic violence survivors, I know that I am definitely not alone in this.  Even the slightest acts of kindness from the abuser give a woman a false sense of hope that maybe things will be alright from now on.  She lets herself think that maybe the war is over and may "come out of hiding" for a minute.  Exhausted, she lets down her guard and dares to trust just a little.  Just when she thinks it might be safe, she is blind-sided by another wave of abuse -- and this cycle is repeated over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.  For years and years. Until the days and weeks and months all blend together into a discombobulated blur of nothingness.  There is no one to tell her that there might be a way of escape. No one to tell her that what is happening is not her fault. The only thing she can do is try to survive.

Just try to survive. 

I'm reminded of the stories of Japanese soldiers that didn't know World War II was over (from an article by Cecil Adams):

"In early 1945 Japan had about three million troops overseas, about a third of them dug in on islands throughout the Pacific. These men were thoroughly indoctrinated in the warrior's code of Bushido, which held that it was better to die than to surrender — and by God, that's what they did. Of 23,000 Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima, for example, 21,000 were killed and just 200 captured. Only after Emperor Hirohito ordered his forces to surrender following the dropping of the atom bomb did Japanese troops give themselves up in massive numbers.

In an era before the pocket pager, however, not everybody got the message. Many Japanese soldiers had been cut off from the main army during the Allies' island-hopping campaign and continued to resist. Sporadic fighting continued for months and in some cases years after the formal surrender. Two hundred Japanese soldiers were captured on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines in 1948, some others surrendered on an island north of Saipan in 1951, and a few hard-core types didn't surface until the 1970s and later.

One much-publicized case was Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda. He had been stationed on Lubang Island in the Philippines when it was overrun by U.S. forces in February 1945. Most of the Japanese troops were slain or captured, but Onoda and several other men holed up in the jungle. The others were eventually killed, but Onoda held out for 29 years, dismissing every attempt to coax him out as a ruse. Finally the Japanese government located his commanding officer, who went to Lubang in 1974 to order Onoda to give up. The lieutenant stepped out of the jungle to accept the order of surrender in his dress uniform and sword, with his rifle still in operating condition.

Onoda was hailed as a hero in Japan, as was another holdout, Shoichi Yokoi, who surrendered in 1972 after decades in the jungles of Guam. Yokoi's comment to his countrymen: "It is with much embarrassment that I return." He felt he'd let down the side! That's Japan for you: good on stick-to-itiveness, maybe not so good on midcourse corrections. Not to encourage slackers, but there's such a thing as knowing when to quit."

So . . .  here I am.  The war is over, but I don't fully know it just yet.  I'm still "wandering around in the jungle," so to speak.  Sort of.  On an intellectual level, I suppose, I realize that the abuse isn't happening anymore. However, my bodily response to external stimuli (or internal for that matter), doesn't always reflect that realization and still sometimes "does its own thing" without warning (i.e. heart races, hyperventilate, stop breathing, urinate, cold sweat, shaking, etc).  My emotions don't always realize that it's over either -- especially when my abuser is still able to manipulate and harass me from afar via the phone and internet/email (not to mention toying with my children's emotions during & between visitations as well as continuing to torment us all via the legal system). 
 
Maybe there are simply gallons of tears "stored up" somewhere that I never got to cry & I've simply "stashed it all away" for safe-keeping.  They have to come out sometime, and I can't always predict when that's going to be.  Every now and then I'll just start bawling for no apparent reason and gush like a freaking baby.  Really, it's quite pathetic!  Other times I'm able to hold back my emotional & physical responses to stressors, but that containment process requires such an enormous amount of energy that I don't have any brain cells left to process all of the basic daily information I'm bombarded with at work & at home (sometimes leaving me a virtual vegetable, intellectually speaking). 

How do I cope?  I write myself notes.  Lots and lots of notes.  :o)

People sometimes get irritated with me for emailing them (they say, "Why can't you just pick up the phone and call me?").  But honestly, sometimes email is the only way I can keep track of who I've talked to, when I talked to them last, and what we have and have not spoken about.  I can't always remember telephone conversations or times when I speak to someone in person. Verbal conversations often simply float right out of my head (especially if I'm doing several things at once when someone speaks to me; and chances are, if I'm awake, I'm doing at least 3-4 things at once).  But if a "conversation" is written down, I can read it several times and/or refer to it later and remind myself of what was said, to whom, and when. 

I'm terrified to tell anyone that I'm having this much difficulty concentrating, though.  I don't want anybody thinking I've "lost it" and shipping me off to the "loony bin."  So I write my adorable little post-it notes, I work my 50 hours a week, I scramble to fit a therapy session in every now & then when I can, and I do my best to "function normally."

Deep down, I can't help but wonder, though . . . if my arm or leg were mangled, would someone expect me to run a marathon? 

[Begin sarcasm] BUT, Since it's only my psyche that's mangled, though, I guess it's okay to expect me to not only solve my own problems, but to solve other people's problems as well.  It's not at all unreasonable to ask me to have it all figured out by now and to get on with my life as though nothing has happened.  After all, isn't it all about putting one's mind over matter?  Apparently, I'm just not trying hard enough. 
[End sarcasm]

Please don't judge me, my words, my thoughts, my feelings, my level of functioning, or the way I communicate based on your upbringing, your education, your life experience, and/or your belief system.

You were not in combat with me. 

You didn't lie beside me in a puddle of your own blood, urine, and/or vomit, trying to nurse and soothe a terrified infant while being raped. 

You didn't cringe in silence when he brought the butcher knife into the bedroom . . . and you didn't secretly wish he would finally use it to put you out of your misery.


You didn't barricade yourself and your children in the bedroom, desperately moving furniture in front of the door while he split it apart to force his way in.

You didn't have to provide sexual favors in order to procure money to provide for the basic needs of your family.

You didn't stay up for hours on end preparing your abuser a meal from scratch in the middle of the night because ravaging you had caused him to "work up an appetite" . . . and then have to clean up the broken glass and food when he threw it at you because he changed his mind and decided he "was in the mood for something else." You didn't have to stay up even longer to cook him something else, only to hand him the plate and be informed that the "something else" he really wanted is you.  You didn't have to stand there as it dawned on you that "round two" was on its way, whether you liked it or not . . . and maybe round three . . . or four.
Please don't take this to mean that I am discounting any part of your experience. You may have had a great deal of pain in your life as well.  You may have had your share of sorrow.  Your experiences might have been just as bad as mine . . . or maybe even worse.  I do not know.  I could not know, even if you told me . . . because: 

Your experience is yours, and my experience is mine. 

I can't begin to tell you what is right for you to feel or when it's right for you to feel it.
Likewise, I'd sincerely appreciate it if you would please stop telling me how I should feel or behave or how long I should feel or behave that way.  I "should myself to death" enough already.