I have a couple of things I feel the need to comment on. The most important one is addressed to Sunnydaze. It was very difficult for me also to admit the need for the meds. I hate pills. When in the hospital, the T. spent an entire group session on how we all would stop our meds on our own. That it was something we all do, mislead by feeling better. But she stressed that in order to live, survive and have "a life" we would be on our meds for the rest of our lives. I have finally accepted it---don't like it--but accepted it.

To Ruddy I am in the same boat as far as having a base line to relate to. When you don't have a before, so to speak, it is hard to know what you or who you really are.

But I just don't see how going through our own individual traumas can't help but change us. The hard part is realizing that fact and dealing with it IMHO

Very well said herc... very true. We change from learning and understand our own experience. Some choose to ignore their experience, some choose to learn from it. I choose the later.

I think some of you must have been reading my mail. In my earlier days, I was wild, out of control, a total jerk. Kind of a nice guy, asshole, all rolled up into one. The ability to think and act appropriately did not reside in me, except in my work, and that was tenuous.
I had PTSD no telling how long, though it was not diagnosed until I was 39 or so. I was the sum total of every kind of DISTORTED THINKING that is known to exist...( Even this sentence has some distorted thinking )
Like Ruddy said, I have no baseline to know what I might have been like.
The only coping mechanism I had was to drink alcohol or abuse drugs. I finally ended up in a treatment center.
I came to realize something. I had suffered, survived and endured a whole lot of punishment in this life. But I had not learned one damn thing from it.
I have thought about this topic one topic, a lot over the past 4 years. I don't know what I would have been, but I do know what I am today. And to me, that is important.

My coping mechanisms are to stay buried in logic or (if that doesn't work) retreat (hide) or engage in sarcistic humor. It's probably self destructive but I could have done much worse.

Somewhere along the way I guess I was supposed to have learned to express emotions. Instead I learned to suppress and ignore them. One time my therapist asked me how I felt about something in my gut. I told him my gut felt fine; I didn't have indigestion. HUH?

Am I supposed to learn to express emotions and stop hiding behind sarcasm at this stage in life? Well, life is full of challenges and we're never too old to learn. On the other hand I really don't want to abandon my sense of humor and turn into some sappy cry baby. As Anthony stated earlier, it's a matter of finding that middle ground. At the moment I'm feeling a little uneasy - torn between moving forward and hanging on to the past.

I have noticed the same changes in my wife since Hurricane Katrina. She has less ambition, her personality has changed a lot , she almost seems not to care about most daily things. Not sure if the meds cause this. I am new to this condition as a spouse. It is hard to see someone you love and knew as an outgoing and energetic person become trapped inside of some kind of mental prison. I do what I can to just be there and support her any way I can.