Keep going

I have a lot of magnets on my fridge. Most are photos of places and people I like to look at every time I’m in the kitchen. My fridge is a giant collage frame, but with yummy things to eat and drink stashed just behind the memories. There are a few other magnets too, like a pretty maple leaf from Vermont, a bison from South Dakota, Rosie the Riveter, Dehn’s painting Spring in Central Park, and a small magnet from the Holocaust Museum that says, “Never Forget”. One of my favorite magnets has a quote on it that’s often attributed to Winston Churchill. A little fact checking on its origins brought up more questions than answers, but I don’t really care who said it – even Hallmark would be ok in my book. During the past two years, it’s simple message has focused my attention on many a dreary day.

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

Thank you, Mr. Churchill or Ms. Anonymous, message received.

In the first days and weeks after the crime, I had no choice but to keep going. There were a lot of moving parts in my life and I was the only one who could figure out how to put them back together. As I’ve said in prior posts, this was not the time for me to stop moving. It was not the time for me to cry or rage or break down in any way. This was not the time to think about or feel the full impact of what had just happened to my son and to my marriage.

I was in hell. I kept going.

I don’t think this phenomenon is mine alone. It seems like a pretty standard reaction for anyone dealing with a traumatic event. It’s how police officers, firefighters, soldiers, emergency room doctors, and any number of other trauma-exposed professionals deal with mind-blowing crazy shit on a daily basis. It’s how normal citizens cope with earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, or wars being waged on their streets and in their neighborhoods. Human beings are built to file away their emotions until it’s safe to feel them. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t moments of gut-wrenching emotional clarity as the chaos roils all around. It just means that we have a temporary out so that we can live to see another day.

Eventually though, the time comes when we have to deal with what happened. We have to let ourselves process and feel. Otherwise we can get seriously jacked up, developing odd avoidance behaviors and symptoms that are disruptive to our health, our relationships, and our very lives.

This discovery and recovery process is different for each of us. For some it may seem like everything is ok for a very long time before it becomes apparent that some repair work needs to be done. Others, like me, may realize early on that trauma symptoms are causing serious disruptions in the way we live our lives. If our trauma was a sudden event, the before and after differences in our behaviors and feelings might be crystal clear. But if we’ve accrued a collection of traumatic events over a long period of time, or if we experienced abuse or neglect in childhood, we may not even realize that many of our “normal” behaviors developed as a direct result of trauma.

About fifteen months after the crime, I thought I’d made it and wasn’t going to need to take action. I was healing. I was confronting some of the odd trauma behaviors I’d developed. I was making progress. Then, while on vacation, I had the first of two triggering experiences that made me realize how much trouble I was in. It was a small thing really. My niece said something inappropriate and I was the one to stand up and verbally correct her. This was not a big deal type of altercation. This was a minor battle of wit and word, the kind we all have to have from time to time – whether with a loved one, a co-worker, or a friend. When it was over and I was walking away, I started shaking uncontrollably – just like I did after my son first told me about the crime. For the next few nights, intrusive memories of the trial played through my mind on an endless loop. This was a defining moment for me. It was when I first understood that I might need to seek help.

A few weeks later, after receiving a hate message from one of my ex’s supporters, I no longer wondered if I needed help – I knew it. After months of feeling better, I was once again battling intrusive memories, nightmares, anxiety, depression, physiological symptoms, forgetfulness, insomnia, anger, and an abrupt return of compulsive safety behaviors – it was bad.

That’s when I finally made the call and went in for my initial Prolonged Exposure therapy appointment. The first week or two were simply sessions designed to prepare me for the actual treatment process. They were ok, but I knew that we were building towards an event that was going to be a challenge and this made me very nervous. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this type of therapy, let me explain. The basic idea behind Prolonged Exposure is to repeatedly expose yourself to your traumatic memories until they no longer trigger high-level activation of your PTSD symptoms. 

You repeat those ugly memories over and over and over again until you can talk about them without eliciting an extreme stress reaction. During some sessions you tell the whole story once from start to finish. In other sessions you only talk about one significant part, maybe for five or ten minutes, but you repeat it as many times as possible for the remainder of your session. You record each session and your homework assignment for the week is to listen to yourself talk about the trauma repeatedly.

I’m not going to lie – it was brutal. During that first week I had to make sure my son was elsewhere before I could do my homework. I didn’t want him to hear me sob uncontrollably as I listened to myself recount those initial moments of terror.

I was in hell, but I kept going and it got easier.

Within another session or two, I noticed that even though the endless repetitions were emotionally draining, I felt as if I’d been somehow cleansed by the process. I would leave my therapist’s office feeling exhausted, but calmer and lighter than when I’d arrived.

The second component of Prolonged Exposure therapy is called in vivo exposure. This is where you take one of the disruptive behaviors you’ve developed since the trauma and practice not doing it anymore (or practice doing a beneficial behavior that you want to resume). For instance, I had developed a compulsive lock checking behavior. One of my goals was to reduce the number of times I checked the locks every day. With help from my therapist, I broke down this goal into a series of small steps and practiced each one until it no longer made me significantly uncomfortable. By the end of the week, I was actively refusing to check the locks even when I felt compelled to do so.

In all, my therapy process took about four months. Even though I still had symptoms, they had all been significantly reduced and some had been eliminated outright. And, I had a plan of attack for keeping on top of them and making sure I did not let them take control again. Exposure therapy gave me back my life. It saved me.

If you’re going through hell, don’t give up – just keep going. Eventually you will reach the other side.

If you have PTSD, there are a variety of programs out there that are proven to help reduce or eliminate your symptoms. I was lucky to find my perfect match on the first try. Maybe you’ve tried one or two and haven’t found success. Don’t give up – just keep trying different methods or seeing different mental health professionals until you find the one that fits you best. You really can take your life back. Check out my resources page for more information about where to start.

Today’s photos are from a magical afternoon spent at Mt. Rainier National Park last weekend. We took a couple of short hikes from Paradise so that we could explore the vibrant foliage of the alpine meadows. We saw three marmots and a chipmunk all filled out for winter. It was the perfect fall day on the Mountain.