I have rushed this together to get feedback from spouses and carers. I do not need to know about spelling or grammar issues, as the document will be fully re-written once edited (it currently sucks reading wise), but if you need more information anywhere, please let me know so I can add that into the final version before proofing and editing begin early next year, so the final version that goes live within the learning centre has everything you believe you need to know in understanding the sufferer.

This is now an updated version, final version, as at: 27 Sep 2007. Thank you Kathy, Evie and Jim if you had a hand in there also, for helping me get this edited and final.

Attached Files

understanding-ptsd1.pdf (131.2 KB, 139 views)

Anthony, It's very good-- I certainly have a better understanding after reading it. I sense you're writing an ending?

Thank you anthony. Have it saved, going to print and read.

Jim.

Damn computers, I can't open it. Will wait till hubby is around to see if he knows how to. Looking forward to reading it! Again Anthony I can't thank you enough for taking the time to do this!

Your welcome. Good point Tig... yes, I do have a conclusion too it, and I have just been writing that this morning... not the usual summary type that documents have, but just a few different ways to look at things. You know, those lovely analogies of mine... :)

Thanks Anthony I have printed it out and will sit in a quiet corner and read it over the next couple of days looking forward to becoming a bit more educated.:claps:
Jen

I found it printed out on my desk here and just finished reading it. It's really good anthony.

Hi Anthony your information package is very good and explains a lot.
One thing that I as a spouse would like to understand more is what is going on in hubbys head ( I will use him as an example).I understand over time trauma is eating away at him bit by bit and weakens his mental capabilities but what does he see? I hope this isnt confusing to you!
When he is laying in bed while his wife goes to work is his mind thinking gee I should be getting out of bed and doing something ( which is what I would do) or is his mind completely somewhere else.
When he asks my opinion on a simple decision, as his confidence and self esteem is rock bottom is it to check on himself, in the Army 25 years getting to Warrant Officer it still surprises me about this one.
One thing I often think about what is going through his head is it a blur is his mind racing all over the place?
Is it a feeling you get when you are pissed (tiddly) like a numbness? I find myself sitting there looking at him when he doesnt know thinking what is going on in your head now?
I told Hubby about your information he seemed interested so hoping he may read it.
Thanks Jen!

In his mind, he is basically continuously reliving every ounce of trauma in his life, over and over, like watching a movie. This is what PTSD does, in that we make it grow, larger than what it should be, larger than what the initial trauma caused it to be, we are our worst enemy, have no doubt.

If you think about something that goes wrong in your life, what do you do with that information? You dwell upon it, think about it, maybe resolve it. If you resolve it, emotion goes away. If you don't, it gets stored in your memory bank as an emotion that it is. Now whilst you can do this and not get much backlash as a result, when you have so much trauma, and abnormal life trauma at that, all these emotions (PTSD) are now joined, so many of them and it gets worse depending on trauma duration, how many unique situations, etc etc. Put them into a tumble dryer and turn it on, that is now what is happening in his mind. If you removed the front door of that tumble dryer whilst spinning and tried to find the right emotion to what you felt, how would you? You couldn't, because their not sitting still long enough. That is whats going on in his mind... trying to find something so simple, but yet so far away.

PTSD loves to create its own trauma. Think of PTSD like a pepetual device, it just keeps increasing with time. PTSD does the same, because as he thinks about his trauma, tries to find emotions, he is also making conclusions which don't exist, what ifs, how come, etc etc... basically feeding himself more negative information, creating it so to speak. PTSD thus relies on negative emotions, fear and everything bad, so what does PTSD tell the mind to do? Lets create our own.

Ok, now I am probably confusing you... lets think images.

Think of your brain as the sun. Our emotions are water. We then have our tear ducts and mouth for speaking. Between the sun (brain) and our tear ducts and mount (emotional outlets) we have a space. What does the sun do to water? It evapourates it into a cloud form (mixes emotions if many). Now, what do women do best? They talk and they cry. What do males do best? Not talk and not cry. As an emotion goes in (water) our brain absorbs it (the sun). Whilst a low number of emotions go in and get evapourated, there is still not much to put them together, retrieve them. When people do this, the formed cloud between the sun and our outlets, we talk or cry and release the cloud, or for a easier though, the cloud rains, thus releasing the formation of the cloud itself. No more cloud and a clear view between the sun and its outlets (clear thought).

Whats a common thing you hear here in regard to people who have PTSD? Something bad happened and they didn't talk about it. They didn't allow the cloud to rain. So the sun has evaporated all these emotions, mixed them up and formed our cloud. What does heat also generate? Condensation. What is condensation? Water. What are we referring water to here? Emotions. So now our sun (brain) is creating emotions for us, evaporating them into our cloud and forming more emotions that came in through our five senses.

What eventually happens? In our space we have a very thick cloud, one that can no longer see our outlets in order to rain.

So what goes on in the brain then? Nothing much past creating more emotions from the only thing we can see, the cloud.
Now your compareing your mind without the cloud, to his mind with it. You now know about the emotional cup, which is where all our cloud is stored. He knows he has to get out of bed, but remember the cup when broken down, he also has these other emotions in there, so what he is thinking without knowing, is I am about to explode, but by laying here in bed it is under control. Why? Because he isn't adding that good stress to his day yet, because his cup is so full of all the negative emotions instead.

Jen, his past is so clouded now that he can't find all the positive emotions within him, instead all he see's is this big negative cloud. It doesn't take much for negatives to outweigh positives, thus self esteem is shot to shit. He can become a very confident person once again, but he has to fight in order to break the cloud up a little so he can atleast get through it at times, not see through it at this point, but atleast fight his way through the cloud, grab a few positives, then come back again.

The same things go through our minds when PTSD controls us, its just that we can't do anything about them, because we know that if we do, we overflow our emotional cup in minutes and break ourselves. When we do this, our PTSD block of emotions expands two fold with this action, but doesn't come back very quickly, so our cup remains overflown for a day or two, with no room to handle any extra actions. Thoughts still remain, but that is as far as it goes.
Its complete frustration that is often present. We want to do thing, but know if we do, we will explode. We have thoughts of doing everything as we always have, but can't because we explode, thus frustration is caused within ourselves, being another of those pepetual emotions that continue to increase.

Ok Anthony I am starting to understand it now!
He knows he has to get out of bed, but remember the cup when broken down, he also has these other emotions in there, so what he is thinking without knowing, is I am about to explode, but by laying here in bed it is under control. Why? Because he isn't adding that good stress to his day yet, because his cup is so full of all the negative emotions instead.

So being in bed may be a bit of a security blanket? But as you say he needs to get his butt moving.

Jen, his past is so clouded now that he can't find all the positive emotions within him, instead all he see's is this big negative cloud. It doesn't take much for negatives to outweigh positives, thus self esteem is shot to shit. He can become a very confident person once again, but he has to fight in order

I really hope that confidence comes back you can see in his eyes a real questioning look like am I doing this right? With anything like cooking dinner to any little job?
BUT I must say he seems a little bit better lately still not getting out of bed but his mood seems a bit better so one step at a time.
Anthony thank you for helping me understand what is going on his head!!
Jen