PTSD Part 1 of 7
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PART 1: PTSD and ATTACK ON WTC'S and PENTAGON:
Arming for Terrorist Attacks in the USA with
homeopathy and flower essences
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NOTE: There are four articles by this author on www.medicinegarden.com, front page that deal with homeopathic remedies to have on hand in case of chemical and biological attack. The articles cover:
1. Chemical attack (nerve gas attack/Sarin, VX, etc.) 2. Plague 3. Anthrax 4. E-coli
Please download these. Everything you need to know on how to find a homeopath, buy a homeopathic kit, and the remedies you need on hand, are in these articles. They are companion articles to this PTSD series of articles.
POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER: REMEDIESFOR CURE
Part 1
PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is
a lot more prevalent than one may think. Those who have heard this term,
usually connect it with Vietnam War Vets. It's far more pervasive and
widespread, although the theme of 'war' is carried through--in many
different ways. For instance, childhood abuse, incest/rape, spousal abuse,
a raging parent, a teacher who strikes at a student, seeing or being a
part of a horrific car accident, seeing or walking away from a plane
crash, surviving a hurricane or earthquake, can cause PTSD. These are all
'warlike' situations. Being a police officer, paramedic, EMT, doctor or
nurse or firefighter also set a person up to be exposed to potential PTSD
symptoms.
Who is susceptible to PTSD? Everyone. With the World Trade Centers being destroyed, and the Pentagon attacked, and more potential attacks by terrorists on USA soil, everyone in our country is at risk for SOME PTSD symptoms. It's just a question of your vital force's ability to deal with sudden or prolonged trauma. Trauma is defined by YOU. Everyone is unique in how much or how long we can take trauma. And different trauma affects each of us differently. Our society, nowadays, is highly stressed (another series of articles on this will be forthcoming). Our vital force is in the overwhelm position more times than not by our every day living. That stresses our immune system, and sets us up for all kinds of physical symptoms, such as colds and flu, to name just a few. It also sets us up to be more susceptible to trauma, which is just another, more intense degree of stress. And that is when we become susceptible to PTSD symptoms. As you read this series of articles, you may find yourself in here.
My intention with this set of articles is not to go over previous ground or necessarily approach PTSD from the psychological juncture. Although, within the psychotherapy community, new 'tools' are being discovered as to help to heal PTSD, I want to look at alternative methods of consideration to create cure. Because of my Native American lifestyle and training as a shaman, being a medical astrologer as well as a trained homeopathic practitioner, I want to explore PTSD in these unique frame's of reference, instead. This is not to say that these alternative medicine tools are the answer for everyone, but if a particular 'tool' strikes a chord deep within your knowing, then, you should explore it further at that point.
In the Navy, I knew a lot of Marines where I was stationed at USNAS Moffett Field, California. In 1965, half of my friends were shipped off to Vietnam. In January, 1966, my husband, a Marine, was shipped off to that far away place. When I got out, I waited in California for my husband's return. He was in the thick of it: Da Nang, Con Thien, Quang Tri--names of places that any Vietnam Vet will instantly recognize. My husband then turned, in the last few months of his 16 month tour, to becoming a sniper. And he was very good at what he did.
In the meantime, about half our Marine friends who had went over to Nam, had died or were severely wounded, and were not coming back. The few who did, always stopped by to see me in San Diego, where I had an apartment and worked for a stock brokerage firm as a teletype operator. I gave them a bed to sleep on, real, home-cooked food, friendship, and a place to 'adjust' to coming out of the 'bush' back into the 'real world.' It was then, as I would be awakened in the middle of the night, in my own bedroom, to their screams, their night terrors, their shrieks of absolute panic, that I began to see my father's previous behavior in them.
Over and over, I would spend nights, awakened, throwing on my robe and going to the other bedroom, to try and help. Sometimes, our friend needed just to talk after being jolted awake by reliving his horrific experience. Sometimes, they would collapse into my arms, holding me so tightly I thought I couldn't breathe as they sobbed and shook. Other times, they pulled away, not wanting to be touched, not wanting to talk and asking me to leave them alone--they had nothing to say--they'd be all right.
These men all mirrored aspects of my father's personality, the daily way he lived. Most of our friends would stay at least a week with me--they'd tell me they trusted me--they could let down, they could be themselves. They were afraid to go home to the family or spouse--they weren't ready to face them just yet. I was a safe place in their hellish storm of combat that they'd managed to survive after thirteen months in the Vietnam bush.
I learned so much, sitting on the edge of their bed those dark, fathomless nights, about what war really does to a person. Through the months, the learning, the tears I sometimes cried with them and at other times, swallowed, I saw my father's behavior more and more. I began to wonder if war did the same thing to all of them to varying degrees and intensity. I learned that war is horrible. It's not the glorified John Wayne movie where right always wins. In war, there are no winners. Just survivors. Mostly wounded survivors who are torn apart on their spiritual, mental, emotional or physical levels.
By the time my husband came home, I was an expert on what war did to men. Unfortunately, my husband was the stoic type. He never talked about it; he never wanted to. He shoved and repressed all the horror he'd seen in the I Corps area of Vietnam. Our marriage, after five years, quickly disintegrated because the war got between us and he refused to deal with it--but in the end--it destroyed our relationship and our marriage.
I railed at the world. These men wouldn't go to 'shrinks' or therapists for help. They distrusted them, too. They distrusted anyone who hadn't been in the military. I kept in touch with a number of our Marine friends after they'd left the service and went into civilian life. Many had the same problems my father had--unable to keep a job, unable to cope within normalized society, raging, violent, suffering from insomnia, restlessness, unable to keep a marriage together or becoming loners outside of society's boundaries. I found myself wondering if there was anything to help these men. I also realized my father's war wounds had changed him irrevocably and what saddened me the most was I never knew what my 'real' father had been like before his war experiences and traumatization. I had to rely on his sisters and brother to tell me what he was like before--an entirely different man. One that I would never know. One that had been destroyed by war. What a keen, eloquent loss. I can count on one hand those moments where he seem to be free of the PTSD symptoms, and I had the good luck to see the man beneath--and those times are special, even to this day.
Back in World War II they called what my father suffered from, Battle Fatigue or the "Ten-Thousand Yard Stare". After the Vietnam War, the psychiatric community finally came up with a group of symptoms that mirrored what war did to men and women, and called it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. When I started reading some articles on the symptoms, I recognized my father and my Marine friends and ex-husband, among those entries.
In 1970 when I discovered homeopathy, over time as I read Boericke's Materia Medica and Repertory, I recognized my friends and ex-husband in those pages--their personalities, their 'quirks' caused by the war horror they'd survived. I realized then that a remedy could have helped them; could have healed their gaping, bleeding wounds in their psyche, and help them return to their original personality. I grieved when I realized that Mercurius Viv. would have, in all probability, cured my ex-husband of his wounds.
However, I realized that it wasn't too late for other veterans. And that was the good news. Over time, I came to realize that I had an over lay of PTSD, as did my other three siblings, because we grew up in that type of household. Looking at myself, I had many of the symptoms. And no wonder! My father had brought the war back with him. Our home was a war zone. Why wouldn't we have all suffered from PTSD? We did.
Let's look at PTSD. Let's get familiar with it because you know what? You don't have to go through a war, or live in a war-like household, in order to become a victim of PTSD. ANYONE can get PTSD--military or civilian. It makes no difference. And as a matter of fact, many households around the world are combat and war zones--only they are called dysfunctional family environments, instead. Childhood abuse--whether verbal or physical--can create the same PTSD-like wounds in the child. Spousal abuse is another kind of 'war' where, usually the woman, receives endless verbal and/or physical abuse--that is no less a war zone. That is no less, combat where she cannot properly defend herself. The outcome is the same: trauma, sudden or prolonged, that eventually caused PTSD symptomology.
HOW DO YOU GET PTSD?
1. It can be a sudden, unexpected stress. For example, you see or survive a bloody automobile or a train wreck, you live through an earthquake, you see a plane crash (or you survive one), you live through a flood, or some other kind of natural disaster, such as a tornado or hurricane. An explosion can cause it. Being involved in a fire, or seeing one wreak havoc, can also trigger this cascade of symptoms. The attack on the Pentagon and World Trade Centers is ripe for PTSD symptoms--for not only those caught in this horrible holocaust, but those who viewed it on television or heard it on radio not only in the USA--but around the world. So, you don't need to have been there to "get" PTSD symptoms. We are all vulnerable to such global trauma.
2. Men or women who have 'gone to war'--whether in armed combat, or the 'war' on the streets as a police person, firefighter, paramedic, ambulance attendant, gang-banging, or the war in the family, all qualify. The Gulf War vets, as well as the Vietnam vets, have earned their PTSD symptoms from encountering the gory, super-stressful, bloody horror of war--up front and close. Their lives may have been threatened. Maybe not. Just living in a war zone is enough to trigger PTSD in some people. Terrorist attacks can create it. Living in a 'war-zone' neighborhood, or the inner city, will trigger these symptoms. Places such as Yugoslavia, now carved up into fiefdom, is another good example--all people of that area have suffered some form and exposure to PTSD. Israel is under constant threat of attack and I'm sure many of them suffer from these symptoms.
3. If the person is exposed to inhumane treatment--and this includes verbal or physical abuse (spousal), incest or rape or actually being a POW, prisoner-of-war, PTSD symptoms will manifest. Torture comes in many forms. If one lives eighteen years in a dysfunctional family, that is a special hell and torture in its own right. One doesn't need to be put in a cage somewhere in Vietnam to garner the same PTSD symptoms. Either environment will create them. If an individual views atrocity, that can trigger symptoms. Again, it doesn't have to be in a war zone or in combat--it can be at a train wreck, an airplane disaster, a terrorist attack. As an example, the Oklahoma City bombing has, quite literally, created a city of PTSD survivors. Many police and firefighters view human remains at accident sites all the time--and never received help for what they view. Some did, fortunately--but others did not. Human or animal atrocity affects all of us. The question is just how much. At some point, we all have an inner boundary where inhumane treatment, torture or atrocity, will affect all of us.
Now, the latest trauma, the terrorist attacks on our Pentagon and the destruction of the World Trade Centers in New York City have, once again, created a massive PTSD epidemic in the wake of these assaults on our collective, USA psyche.
4. The psychological and constitutional elements of ourselves, which is known collectively to the homeopath as the "vital force" will create more or less susceptibility to PTSD symptoms. Ten people can view a plane crash. There will be ten different, varying levels of reaction to it. Those whose vital forces are more susceptible to this type of trauma, will be more profoundly affected and they will be the ones coming away with PTSD symptoms. Others may be less affected or not at all. Four children in an abusive household will have four different coping mechanisms and reactions to the war-zone environment and each vital force will respond a little differently to it--but they will all walk away wounded with PTSD. It's just a question of how much damage has been done and where. Some people's psyche/vital force, are more resilient than others. However, the more long-term the 'war zone' that is encountered, the more sure you are that they will all be effected. It's just a question of how much, at that point.
5. Any of the above situations combined with physical abuse or bodily injury will cause PTSD. Injury, particularly to the head region, will guarantee it. Homes where children are slapped, beaten, thrown around, will have a high degree of PTSD symptoms unless they have a very tough, strong vital force. And even then, they will still be wounded; but perhaps not as deeply as some other individuals who are more susceptible to such a combative environment.
6. PTSD symptoms can worsen especially if there is no social net or fabric in which to seek help or protection from this warlike environment or warlike person. Without an abuse shelter being available, without the means to talk to someone who recognizes the bottom line of the problem, survivors, if left in such an environment, simply become worse over time. A military vet who cannot seek help, is left to suffer in his or her personal hell that only deepens and stains their entire life, year by year. PTSD symptoms, if not caught and reversed, only become worse with time. It ruins marriages, children, and stains the PTSD survivor irrevocably. In a sense a PTSD survivor is still in their POW cage--it just isn't visible, but it's there.
SYMPTOMS OF PTSD
1. Re experiencing the trauma. This can occur at any time and it's uncontrolled, intrusive and can be during their sleeping hours or during the day. It is recollections of the event(s) that are stressful to the person.
2. The survivor can experience disassociated states of consciousness in which he or she relives the traumatic event as if it were actually taking place in front of them, around them, once again. Sometimes called flashbacks, they are usually 'triggered' by something. An example is a car backfiring on the street, and the Vietnam vet diving for the sidewalk because he thinks it's a rifle or mortar going off, nearby. He will relive the entire episode because of that car back firing. Or, it can be an odor that may set off the rape survivor--a particular smell reminds her of her rapist.
Sometimes, there is no noise and the flashback appears, anyway. (My sister once told me that the chicken she had baking in the oven was burning and when she went in there, her flashback was of seeing and smelling the Buddhist monk who had set himself on fire--and she had seen the whole, gruesome event--and it brought it all back to her in that moment--along with horrific emotions she experienced while viewing the event.) It takes total control over the individual and they are helpless to stop it from occurring. The inner torture they experience from seeing and feeling a repeat of the experience cannot be put adequately into words.
3. Along with the flashback, there can be chronic anxiety experienced with it, a hyper alertness, insomnia, the inability to concentrate. Some people experience memory impairment and they can have huge chunks of 'memory loss' or they have problems with short term memory. The nightmares or night terrors, can predominate their dark hours during sleep. Sometimes, they are afraid to go to sleep, or they fear the twilight or dark coming on at the end of each day. They are afraid to sleep and will eventually go into a sleep deprivation mode. With prolonged sleep deprivation, they will get a whole new list of symptoms added onto what they are already laboring under to carry.
4. Some survivors of PTSD develop a phobia if they are forced to recall the traumatic event(s). If they are forced into such exposure, it will only open their PTSD wounds even wider. At that point, they can become disassociated in order to survive the re-exposure, or become phobic, such as not wanting to be in a closed room, claustrophobia and must escape to get outside in the wide open spaces and fresh air. Others are just the opposite--they seek the protection of an enclosed area, which is the only place they will feel safe. They may hide in a special room or space that feels safe, and not move from there for hours or days until they feel safe enough to come out once again.
5. A PTSD survivor may also be an emotional like a roller coaster; an emotional barometer swinging from euphoria one moment, to rage or depression, in the next. They can become restless, constantly moving around, moving room to room, unable to sit still for any length of time. They will take off for the mountains, to hunt or fish, is their excuse, but really, it is to be alone, to feel safe in the wilds. Irritability may be high and obvious. Their hands may tremble or they may feel an 'inner trembling' within their body, even if their hands remain stable and unaffected. Worst of all, there can be episodes of unexpected explosive anger or vitriolic rage. This may or may not escalate into violent, physical behavior against the unlucky person or child who was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
6. Some people turn to drugs or alcohol as a way to anesthetize themselves against this backdrop of nightmarish pain and memory. It is a way to put a distance between them and the traumatic event(s). Some drink alcohol to sedate their extreme hyper arousal state. This hyper alertness is being too sensitized to noise, in particular, but an odor can set off a string of events, just as easily, or a word, a shout or some kind of threat, a touch on their body by another person, as they perceive it. They can't handle someone walking up behind them and often, they'll cringe, whirl around and go into a protective position to protect themselves.
If you want to easily spot someone with PTSD, check out a restaurant--and many cannot handle crowds at all, but those who can tolerate it for a short amount of time--will be found sitting in the corners of the room, with their backs to the wall, so no one can come up behind them. It also gives them the fullest access to watching everyone and it is the safest position in a public place--against the wall, with your back up against it, or in a corner seat.
Because this hyper alert state, which is really too much adrenaline and cortisol pouring constantly into their bloodstream that keeps them on 'alert', they must seek quiet and being alone in order to 'come down' or take the edge off this state. I have found that adrenal exhaustion is often behind a number of PTSD symptoms and many in the medical world haven't put this together, yet. If one looks at adrenal exhaustion symptomology (chronically, it is known as Addison's Disease, but there are milder levels of this which go unrecognized or undiagnosed), they would see it is the same as some of the PTSD symptoms: physical weakness, fatigue, low blood pressure, weight loss, dehydration, anorexia, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, and a sub-normal temperature. Mentally, they become insomniacs, they feel as if their body is in pieces, floating around them, they feel disconnected, quite literally, and spacey or as if the real world is not real at all--but some waking dream they are having.
The other side of the coin to continued hyper alertness is the opposite medical state known as Cushing's Syndrome, where too much cortisol is being manufactured and pumped out by the adrenal glands because on the inner psyche level, the person is still in a combat-preparedness state--and it doesn't matter if it was a war overseas or the war within the home--it still can pour too much cortisol into our bloodstream creating this hyper alert state. The symptoms are: muscle wasting weakness, skin is thin and wounds heal poorly, there can be high blood pressure, purple streaks on the abdomen, kidney stones, osteoporosis, reduced resistance to infection, temporal balding and in females, menstrual irregularities (amenorrhea), impotence, excessive hair growth over the body, edema, diabetes mellitus and a plethoric appearance. Many will have adipose fat, especially 'fat pads' and what is known as a 'buffalo hump' on the back.
7. There can be a 'numbing' to their emotions to the point where they don't 'feel' any more. This is a symptom of shock, but the shock doesn't wear off, as it's supposed to after the trauma has occurred. Shock helps us protect ourselves in the moment from some overwhelming event that has occurred to or around us. We unconsciously protect ourselves by distancing ourselves from the scene we just lived through and this is known as disassociation--splitting off or away. As this occurs, many have said they see themselves floating above their body, watching the scene as it unfolds. They are, quite literally, out of their body, but it is their astral body which has left their physical form in this instance.
Each time they are threatened, their astral form jerks out of their physical body and they may or may not be 'remote viewing' of themselves and the incident. Sometimes they just feel 'floaty' or 'spacey' or 'like a balloon floating on the air'--detached and away from the scene of the pain and torture. I have found that I have this ability and inevitably, any time I'm truly threatened by something, usually physical nowadays, I see myself above me. The latest occurrence of this happened in August of 1996, when my horse fell in a stream, slammed into the bank and then flipped over backward, carrying me with her. I viewed all of it. I didn't feel the impact as we landed on her left side against that steep, bush-covered bank.
I didn't feel the pain of a thousand pounds of horse slamming my entire left side into the bank--or her nearly rolling over on top of me. I felt no pain when she reared upward, trying to get back on her feet, and she lost her balance and fell over backwards. I saw myself kick away from her, shoving with hands and foot and moving to the right or where she was going to fall. I could have died that day--but when I'm out of my body like this, I've always been protected from dying and injury. I walked away from this particular event with some bruises--which I took care of homeopathically--and that was all. So, leaving one's body does have it's plusses!
Shock symptoms for a PTSD survivor do not wear off--it stays with them. They have been emotionally overwhelmed with what they saw, experienced and lived through. They live in a limbo state where there is no happiness, but no sadness, either. It is a gray zone, an emptiness, a inner hollowness--an emotionless Twilight Zone. They will tell you that they feel 'emotionally dead'. Sometimes, along with this numbing state will occur emotional detachment--even if it is traumatic, gory or horrific--they will have no emotional reaction to it, at all. They often feel estranged from others, as a result.
In the next article, we'll discover what a PTSD survivor needs from you in order to begin the healing process. And, how you can help them. After getting PTSD symptoms, they can be turned around and utilized in positive fashion, and we'll explore those possibilities, too.
REFERENCES:
Schmookler, E., Ph.D., Trauma Treatment Manual, 1996, http://members.home.com/e2000/manual.html
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition, American Psychiatric Assn., Washington, D.C., January, 1995
The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, 16th Edition, edited by Robert Berkow, MD, Merck Research Labs, Rahway,NJ, 1992.
Butler, K., The Biology of Fear, July/Aug., 1996, The Family Therapy Networker, Washington, D.C.
Nauman, E., POISONS THAT HEAL, Light Technology, Sedona, AZ, 1995
PTSD Part 1 of 7
PTSD Part 2 of 7
PTSD Part 3 of 7
PTSD Part 4 of 7
PTSD Part 5 of 7
PTSD Part 6 of 7
PTSD Part 7 of 7