Page 26 - QARANC Vol 14 No 10 2015

24 QARANC THE GAZETTE
happen to me and the kiddies. Checking doors and windows not once but three maybe six times, especially before bed. I would fall asleep just fine, well exhausted but I could not stay asleep after and hour or so the ritual would start, every single night without fail. Walking around the house, checking on the children, the windows and doors as you can imagine this eventually tips you over the edge. My functional ability has now gone; I can no longer function at home or on duty. Exhausted, living on adrenaline, on the edge, paranoid, I started to have panic attacks, public phobias and becoming very aggressive. Now those of you who know me know that I like a drink or ten but that’s usually a part of a good night out. Not this drinking it became excessive a bottle of wine in an hour, looking for a second bottle and if Damien had not been so supportive and understanding I dread to think where I would be now. We started to argue and my ability to cope with the children became less and less. A turning point for me, I am ashamed to say, was when I told my son Henry off over something minor, he had just flicked a switch, as all children do, and boom!!! I grabbed him and screamed at him and I must have looked so aggressive at him and he said “mommy your scaring me” he said I had a twisted face. How much lower can I go??? I started to feel more and more detached from everything and everyone.
Duty became more difficult, when people say “you look awful, did you not sleep?” on a daily basis, shaking due to so much adrenaline in my body feeling jumpy and paranoid all of the time, spaced out and detached from every one and everything. Hearing someone’s voice from tour (you know who you are) would tip me over, as back my mind went again on tour. It became a living hell and I knew I had to report sick but my ability to even pick up the phone and book an appointment had gone, yes maybe a little avoidance but I thought that I would wake up one morning and all would be ok.
I reported sick on the 17 Sep, after someone held the phone up in their office and made me call the Med Centre. Thank you!!! I presented as I have described above and was put on sick leave for two weeks. Now this just made me feel a complete failure and I had to admit something was wrong, I felt weak and that I had not coped with tour and ashamed. Believe it or not I can totally relate as to why certain individuals do not report sick as you feel like you are admitting to failure, all consuming failure. PTSD was not mentioned at this point and had not even crossed my mind. After this I was signed off for another two weeks as no improvement, well I was getting worse. I would say no sleep, no normal emotions, always on tour in my mind and angry, angry. I presented for the third time and this is when the Colonel said “I think you have PTSD” shock, horror but what a relief!!! There may be an answer to how I am feeling. Now this medical process I had been through in the last four weeks was normal, I was not a danger to myself and it may have been post tour stress so to put me on sick leave was the correct thing to do. When I got to the third visit it was just over three months from the onset of symptoms on tour and things had got increasingly worse with no improvement at all, then it becomes abnormal and the referral to DCMH kicks in, thank goodness!!!!
Ahhh the next phase Oct 2012 to Aug 2013. Under the amazing care of DCMH Portsmouth, this place was my sanctuary the professionalism from all staff was just outstanding and the treatment well.... I was treated with respect and dignity every step of the way.
Oh yes, sorry forgot to mention medication. I was prescribed a sleeping tablet, Mirtazapine 15 mg, at first by the Med Centre to help me sleep, interesting never want to
go there again. Frankly it did not help as I had undiagnosed PTSD (but we did not know that at the time). I did everything I was doing before, OCD, checking the kids but this time as a zombie. I was neurologically numbed , I could not stay awake in the day and felt off my head so naturally they were flushed down the toilet never to be seen again, not that I advocate this but they were not helping. I was then put on the correct medication for PTSD. Sertraline 100mg a wonder drug, worked for me and still is, although should be off it by the time this article is published. As with all medication it controls the symptoms but does not cure so the crying stopped, the OCD got a little less, social phobias and panic attacks reduced I just became very antisocial and insular as you are afraid to loose control. I started to sleep as the feelings of something dreadful happening are reduced but do not disappear. Alleluia I feel ok again; still not myself, but I have some functional ability back again.
Back to DCMH, due to the medication you do start to feel a little normal again but I did have quite a few reality checks whilst at DCMH when they reminded me that I was not well. Because you gain a little control back again you start to run before you can walk and the realisation that I was still very sick and had not started treatment yet hit me hard sometimes and would get really upset. I had to see the CPN twice a week, but you have to stick with it and go through the whole process of which I was only at the beginning, you need the appropriate treatment to move forward, function and of course hopefully finally come off the medication.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) was my next step in the treatment. This process can be pretty awful but conversely the results are fantastic, by the end I think I got addicted to it. I had EMDR every week for seven months (please look this up for further factual information as this article is not about discussing EMDR in depth). What ever triggers you are having are targeted through EMDR and hopefully resolved. I would feel mentally and emotionally exhausted for at least 24 hours afterwards, during the process when the EMDR was working I would instantly feel relief you feel it throughout the whole of your body, my heart would stop racing, shoulders relax, ahhhh heaven. I have me back again, I have control. For this to work you have to give your all to the CPN regardless of how upsetting it is as the only way to correctly target the triggers is to embrace the treatment, its worth it as the benefits are outstanding. To have lost control of everything in your life and to get it back week by week through EMDR is invigorating.
I would say though during this whole process I felt guilty about not being on duty, which further compounds the feeling of failure but the reality was that had I gone back too soon, without my triggers being dealt with I would have taken longer to recover. I had to switch off from this and accept that there is a process to go thorough and my ability to concentrate had diminished anyway as you can’t sit still as you have so much adrenaline pumping around your body and you are on edge all of the time. Remembering back to duty may not have been the end state any way, what is aimed for ultimately is back to functional ability, if you look at the chart attached you can see if you are to the right of the spectrum you do not/can not function so the aim is to get you to the left or as close as possible and back to some sort of daily functional ability, to remain in the Military is desirable.
As many of you are probably aware whilst all this is going on there are medical AGAI 99 and PAP 10 considerations which run concurrently; grading and Unit responsibilities. I have to say the treatment from my parent unit was beyond reproach I