We'll Make It Through

PTSD everywhere...

The light coming through the cobwebs | My parent’s garden at sunset | Fujix-Pro2

We are no longer living in times where something as serious as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is reserved for those who saw battle or survived the horrors of war. In the last several decades, PTSD has found it’s way into the lives of many.

“PTSD affects 3.5 percent of the U.S. adult population, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or approximately 8 million Americans who live with the condition. Approximately 37 percent of people diagnosed with PTSD display serious symptoms.” - UAB News, Alicia Rohan, 2019 - and look what the world has barely just come through.

The aftereffects of a World Pandemic, Natural Disasters, Accidents, War, Crime, Abuse, Estrangement, etc., loss, grief, lack of sleep, anger, addiction delivered in an endless loss of normal focus.

There is running for fun and sport.. and then there is running for your life.

What if we imagined every single person we encountered as maybe having “a form” of PTSD? Something that is keeping them from living out their purpose or communicating what’s really going on. There’s that old saying of walking in someone else’s shoes.. but do we? How do we measure stressful events? Perhaps the time is now for tenderness, listening and patience, especially with our younger generation that lost so much during the pandemic.

If you know me by now.. I love my music. Also, in order to run past some of my own demons I will once-in-awhile binge a series late at night. My husband is getting to know when I’m twisted up and running. He’ll often join me with late-night snacks, hold my hand, and fall asleep halfway through. He’s there and that’s all that matters.

The opening aerial scenes are stunning. Filmed in the beautiful British Columbia municipality of Squamish, the fictional smalltown of “Virgin River” is full of campy Hallmark style annual events, gossip, endearing and often annoying characters, plus just when you’ve had enough, there’s an undertow of “bad-guys” camped on the other side of town dealing illegal Fentanyl. Those characters are 180 from Hallmark. All centered on it’s two stars full of passion for one another and a lot of PTSD… I keep going back for more. Their issues are so real and gut-wrenching, how could I possibly have troubles of my own? Bonus: at my age I get a good dose of new music and will stick the series playlist on my Spotify so I can stay semi-hip, not regressing into what I consider the best music from the 70’s (it is. but.)

Post-traumatic stress disorder was a major military problem during World War I. At the time it was long called “shell shock.” The term itself first appeared in the medical journal, The Lancet, February 1915, six months after the war began.

In the 1950s, nearly 2,000 Holocaust survivors were repeatedly hospitalized in psychiatric hospitals in Israel. The most common diagnosis then was schizophrenia. In 1998, there were 700 such patients hospitalized in long-stay wards.

Holocaust survivors had poorer psychological well-being, more post-traumatic stress symptoms and more psychopathological symptoms. There were no significant differences in cognitive functioning or physical health.

In 1973, the year that most of the remaining American soldiers came home from Vietnam, a PTSD diagnosis would not be included in the American Psychiatric Association's manual for diagnoses for seven more years.

PTSD is diagnosed when symptoms persist beyond one month and impair daily function.

Interestingly, more men and women came home from Desert Storm or the Persian Gulf War (Iraq) with PTSD than any other war. It more than doubled from other wars which can be attributed to many things, including societal changes, cultural differences (i.e., female soldiers suffered more sexual assaults) and the initial physical and mental health of the soldier.

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“The root cause of PTSD is a traumatic event, but the symptoms are what overwhelm people to the point where it is diagnosable. People with PTSD often have recurring, distressing and upsetting memories of the trauma, and continually have upsetting memories that are hard to stop.

Symptoms can include flashbacks, night sweats, insomnia, panic attacks, and isolating themselves from friends and family.

U.S. National Library of Medicine research indicates that, when people experience trauma firsthand, it changes the brain. Several areas of the brain are involved. A stress response includes the amygdala, hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. PTSD and trauma can cause lasting changes in those areas of the brain.

There are other disorders and mental health conditions that can appear along with PTSD, including generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and substance abuse.

Many who experience PTSD also may struggle with suicidal ideation and may attempt to take their life.” - University of Alabama News, Alicia Rohan

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As I was going about my week, watching the PTSD scenes in Virgin River, it reminded me of an amazing encounter I had with a Gulf War veteran.

About eight-nine years ago, I had a great opportunity to teach photography through my then mega church. The program was called S.O.F.A. short for School of Fine Arts. It was free and centered around the communities of Pomona, Californa to encourage students how to read music and perform. Then there was me, the only visual artist. These eight week sessions would end with a recital and a photography showcase in the lobby of the sanctuary.

I taught about 7 eight week sessions over the course of a few years and had about 15 students, on average, aged 15 to 87.

In eight weeks, I doled out ten lessons, enabling the majority of my students to shoot in full manual mode. It was extremely fulfilling and although I stumbled at first I was given a chance to develop something solid.

I also inadvertently added real life-giving purpose to some of my student’s lives.

About three sessions in I had this great guy in my class. Late 30’s or maybe 40 years old? He was very quiet, produced all his work beautifully and really perked up during the art of night photography assignment (no external light sources - just your camera). He did so good in fact, that when the end of the course was upon us, and we went around the room to talk about favorite lessons, images, moments, he had some heavy confessions to make, even asking if it was okay to speak about hard things.

Of course it was okay and we were in a church. It was safe.

As he began to speak, you could hear a pin drop…

“After doing four tours of Iraq, the last thing I remember, when an IED went off under our tank, was carrying half of my best buddy to safety. After that and time overseas in hospital I came home and was done. I worked as a police officer (in a local city) and they put me at a desk job. I used to do car chases and normal police work. It’s been two years of barely being able to get out of bed. I have a wife and two sons. They play baseball and I’ve missed a lot. I have PTSD and the Veteran’s Hospital I go to is heartbreaking and hard to get appointments.”

“My wife has been attending this church and encouraged me to sign-up for this class. I recently submitted my night photography work to my sargeant and he was so impressed that he assigned me to a three week course, paid by the department, to learn about non-fatality car accident reporting and what photos were necessary. Many of these incidents are at night. The “professional photographer” he had hired uses on-camera flash and the quality blows out the details they need for accident reporting. Soooo your class has given me the chance to be a valuable part of the police department again.”

He went on to be the official Police Department Photographer.

I honestly couldn’t get the picture of him carrying his buddy out of my head. How are you here? This is big. Humbling. I never felt so grateful and blessed to be teaching something I loved.

As the lyrics of this Ray LaMontagne song (from Virgin River) go:

Where do you go when there’s no road to follow?
Faces look hollow, only strangers to you, now..
Where do you turn, when this livin' starts to burn through
Layers that you learned wrap around your heart somehow

I turn to you
I always do
I always do
I turn to you

The point of this story, this PTSD world we live in where there’s not much we can handle anymore, big and small, is that without the unconditional love of another, (like my student’s wife), without belief, great faith in God, without our spiritual core intact, we can’t see the light.

There is a deep history of hidden struggle, but we can pull the light out of the darkness. And together we’ll make it through.

This is The Family We Keep.

Double-click, hit > play > then you can minimize again - I think you will love this song and the video.