Page 25 - QARANC Vol 14 No 10 2015

PTSD and me/
ME and ptsd
I have written this article to tell my story having had PTSD since July 2012 and so to inform and create a deeper understanding of the condition throughout the Corps and so...
On
whilst I was deployed on HERRICK 16a as NOIC ITU. What happened made me feel unsupported, a failure and most importantly I felt that my life was in danger.
The environment that I was in at the time also has major significance which was standing in the middle of ITU. Now the statements highlighted in red are something you need to remember throughout this article as these are the emotions, feelings and the place I would go back to throughout my PTSD. Other environmental factors for the following 24 hours after the event will also have an impact on the condition such as sounds, music, the environment that I was living in and people I was around which then further compounds the PTSD. All will come clear as I go on....
On reflection I knew that I was not well before I left Camp Bastian but I just thought “that was a really awful tour, can’t wait to get home” and that all feelings and emotions would just ease when I got home to my family and back to duty. But I could not go back into the hospital, I would avoid people and places due to the fear of bumping into certain individuals, I was living on adrenaline, uncontrolled crying, I had beliefs that I had failed and I felt so so angry which consumed my every thought. But interestingly my saving grace at this time was that I had moved into accommodation with my UK personnel waiting to go home and being with them was a place of security for me, they were a supportive hard working team many who had also had a difficult time and I knew that I had to try and hold it together for them, I was still the NOIC and was accountable for them.
We were delayed a few times leaving Bastian due to air frames which was an emotional time as I had to keep on going back to what I was trying to avoid and the fear of danger over and over again. We went through an extended de- compression in Cyprus once again due to air frame problems, but for me this was essential as it gave me more time to try and get my head together before I got home to my husband Damien and my children Henry and Charlie.
I arrived home on the 28 July and the next stage of this story is between now and final diagnosis in Oct 2012. Which is a short period in time thankfully and I call this my acute phase, this may or may not be the correct term but it was acute to me and I was really sick. My return interview with the CO and welfare were full of tears, anger and emotion but this was all pre POTL and for some people this may be normal, but it was out of character for me and I had no control over it at all.
POTL was fantastic, three weeks away sailing in the Channel Islands and catching up with family and friends, but it became apparent to me that the night times were becoming
increasingly difficult, I could fall asleep but not stay asleep, the day time was not as bad as I was not in a normal routine as we were away on the boat but I started to feel numb, fuzzy and detached like I was moving at a different speed to everyone else. Still I did not think anything of it really just a little stress post tour and of course as many of us know this period is strange anyway, you are getting use to being home again and interpersonal relationships can become a little strained, was I sick or just post tour adjustment?
So back to duty on the 28 Aug, uniform on and ready to be NOIC ITU, was an hours drive to get to work from my home, so I listened to music (which I listened to on tour). Little did I know I had been back to tour again in my mind. By the time I arrived at MDHU FP I was a mess, uncontrolled mess, jumpy, angry, heart racing. I pulled myself together and went to meet the person who had stood in for me as NOIC ITU for handover and I could not speak with the emotional outburst and tears. We went for lunch with OCN of which I was the same. This continued for weeks, no emotional control, but I did not understand why, what had MDHU FP got to do with tour? Concurrently life was falling apart at home and this combined with how I was on duty resulted in the inability to function physically, mentally and professionally, and by the way there is no “get a grip” or “get over it” as there is no control, PTSD takes this away from you. PTSD has now started to consume me but I was still not aware of what was going on.
Now back to home, well with PTSD you start to display strange traits, where do I start? Some are due to triggers and others due to anxiety and being in a constant state of adrenaline. Let’s start with triggers which would take me back to feeling in danger and in ITU. I remember saying to a friend “I don’t know why but whenever I am in the shower I am immediately back in Afghanistan” “the shower! How odd” we would laugh!! The consequence of this of course is an adrenaline rush, feeling in danger, upsetting re-living events over and over. It turned out it was the sound of the extractor fan in my en-suite which triggered my mind to return to ITU. Remember I said certain noises post the event would trigger things; well I slept next to the air con/generator which sounded like my extractor fan, so every time I was in the shower back my mind went to Afghanistan. Because I was having flash backs my behaviour also related back to being on tour one example of this was flushing the toilet for 6 or was it 7 seconds? You all remember those toilets in Camp Bastian you must flush for a certain amount of time or it will block, well that was me right back there again, but with this I started counting all the time over and over again and if I did not I felt I would loose control. OCD kicks in, in conjunction with paranoia, I felt as though something awful was going to
the 17 July 2012 something significant happened
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