Hi Anthony. The grass is short because the horses have been eating it.
What does this have to do with me being abused when I was young by my step-father. My Psycologist said that it was ptsd, so I don't understand why you are asking me these questions. Writing that thread was upsetting for me, but I had to get it out, as it was tearing me apart. And you asking me these things is upsetting as well.
Scott

Scott, the reason I have just asked you this is to show you something, more so to help you actually, because your chasing your tail at present I believe, thinking that everything has to do with combat stress, when in fact it doesn't. The questions I asked you relate to knowing your age of trauma using mental imagery, so yes, I just removed your conscious from the equation, as that is what mental imagery does.

Your age of trauma is 6 - 8 years old. What that means, is that your combat issues ARE NOT the current cause of your instability or the like, but in fact your most significant trauma is between this age, which you have outlined from being sexually abused. You see, your concerned about going to seek help for military issues, when in fact you need to be seeking help for being sexually abused as a child, as that is the most significant trauma at your subconscious level.

Now do you see where I am going with this? Your going in the wrong direction with all this combat treatment nonsense, none of it is going to help you, as your not treating the actual real problem, which is the sexual abuse as a child.

Hi Anthony, thanks for your explanation. I am allowed to get help for my Combat Stress, plus the ptsd from me being abused as a child when I go to Hollybush, the psycologists there help with that as well. Combat Stress is my major problem, and as I said in my thread I've tried to put that past to the back of my mind, for the moment anyway. The dreams about it are not as bad now, but not on the same scale as my flash-backs from Bosnia.
But this was a major part of my earlier life, and I felt that I had to tell it.
Thanks
Scott

Scott, don't get me wrong here, your stress from military service is an issue, but its not what your brain is showing as the primary issue. Sorry, but your sub-conscious doesn't lie. Your conscious believes its all about Bosnia, as your admission above, based on your nightmares, however; your sub-conscious is saying that your actual trauma that is affecting you the most right now, is that off which happened to you between ages 6 - 8, not as an adult.

That sounds good that they help you with both, but I will tell you, I believe your barking up the wrong tree with what to treat as a priority. Your admission again above, "I've tried to put that past to the back of my mind" just continues to clarify the real issue. Your in denial, for a better term, of what the real issue is that is currently affecting you.

We all do what your doing Scott, we all look in what we perceive to be the problem areas, but what we think and what our sub-conscious thinks, are two very different things. Our logical brain, being a conscious, does not affect us overtly compared to our non-logical brain, sub-conscious.

Hi Anthony
I forgot to say that when I had the drink problem in the army at 16 it was due to me getting this abuse. My Sergeant put me in touch with a councilor who dealt with this at the local hospital in Aldershot. I spoke to him about it and he helped me quite a lot, and that was why I dried myself out and got on with my army career, which meant a lot to me. I still saw this councilor twice a month for about 6 months so does that explain to you, that that part of my life is in the past, although it is still in my mind, but thankfully not, much. I just thought that I would write about it in the ptsd section, as I was reading a couple of posts about the issue, and I wanted to put in my story. My trauma from that period ended when my parents died in 1997.
My problems now stem from the time that I was in Bosnia, with my regiment. And to the horrors that I saw there.
So my friend, could we please call time on this Paddock thing, as I'm getting very fed up with it.
Scott

Scott, your decision mate, nobody can help you except you... ignorance is bliss, but your choices, and whatever choice you make is right for you.

I tried looking at that Mental Imagery explanation... its too long. If you asked me, I would describe a paddock like what I remember seeing on TV, which would probably be similar to Scott's answers. Reading this whole MI paddock thing aggravates me too... I say burn the whole paddock down, especially the surrounding vegatation! Problem solved. Preliminary conclusion on MI for me... its BS. However, Anthony, aside from the MI stuff, I do agree with the rest of your explanations. I'm not a psychologist/expert though, so my beliefs really don't mean sht.

Scott, here in the US, you would have an especially hard time trying to convince our VA to help you for an injury (PTSD) that your claiming to have had, or once had, prior to your military service- whether you were previously cured or not. The VA here would definately agree with your claim of having PTSD since childhood because that means they aren't necessarily liable to help you now. IMO though, you seemed to have had a good career in the military up until the Bosnia incident happened, and this, during participation in a combat arena, caused serious/gross aggravation to your psyche. If I worked for the VA, I would grant you help/compensation. Reality though... "CLAIM DENIED". Once again... I'm not a psychologist/expert though, so my beliefs really don't mean sht.

I believe that stressors/mental trauma's from someone's past (PTSD or not) can weaken and/or predispose them to totally succumbing to a stressful event or trauma in the future. What does not kill us... does not always make us stronger. I'm not a psychologist/expert though, so my beliefs really don't mean sht.

Hi Mac, thanks for your reply, you seem to agree with me on most things on this. But my ptsd from my younger life was treated, before I finished my training. Thats what I was trying to explain to Anthony. I fought in the 1st Gulf War and I suffered no ill effects from that, as I served with courage and distinction. I was trained for that. But I wasn't trained to experience Genocide in Bosnia, no soldier is. The Flashbacks that I suffer at night time come from Bosnia, nowhere else. And I'm claiming for that from the MOD pensions, not what happened to me when I was 8 year old. When I was in the Army, my mind was totally focused on my job, and being a platoon sergeant I had to be, as I had 40 men depending on me to get them through the Gulf War and Bosnia in one piece. Which I'm proud to say I did.
Thanks for listening Mac
Cheers
Scott

Mac, I totally agree with what you said above actually, I too would also deny any claim associated to PTSD. Mental imagery is ment to provoke your psyche, that is the idea of it. Two people here have done the full interview with Dr Roerich last weekend in the trial, both blown away with what they learnt about themselves, where their real trauma is located and what they need to be concentrating upon now.

Scott, you confused what PTSD is I believe, because you refer to you childhood incidents as all being solved before you joined the military, yet your telling me absolute BS here, because in one breath you say it was all solved, yet another you tell about your issue with alcohol in the military because of what happened to you as a child, and your SGT or the like helping you out of that alcoholic stage to concentrate on yoru career in the army. Your not constant hear, hence why I can still see and get very clearly from your words, this has not been resolved at all. It doesn't matter what causes PTSD, it doesn't matter whether your childhood abuse actually resulted in PTSD, or whether it was simply predisposing you for when you hit Bosnia, it is all irrelevant at the end of the day, because you have PTSD, and its not curable, it NEVER just goes away. PTSD is with you for life, and that means to manage PTSD you must go back and ensure every single aspect of trauma in your life is resolved, is dealt with, no stone unturned so to speak. You say in one breath your childhood abuse causes you no more issue, yet in your initial post of this thread, you where breaking down in tears just writing about it. Then in a further post you mentioned how you just had to get this out of you... all the time your opinion of your true feelings have constantly changed throughout this thread. That says denial all over it, it says you haven't resolved the core of this issue. Your dreams have nothing to do with what directly affects you. Yes, dreams are the minds way of telling us something is wrong, however; our sub-conscious is actually more accurate to determine what is wrong.

To be absolutely honest, it doesn't even matter where you begin in healing, it doesn't matter whether you focus on your dreams, and what is causing them, because its all healing, and that you are doing, you are trying to heal. I am merely just pointing out, I think your denying yourself of your true emotional depth here, besides this will be eventually taken out of your hands, because if this childhood issue isn't really resolved as I expect, it will come back and replace your dreams of Bosnia once you heal them. This forum is about helping people move totally out of denial, into where everything can be looked at, turned over and viewed, if nothing negative comes from raising a past memory, then there is not issue, but you have expressed negative emotions from even raising this point, which means everything isn't as rosie as you think it is, or are trying to make out to us here.

Scott, I know all too well the impact of operations, as I discharged a SGT, they wanted me to stay because they where promoting me to Warrant Officer soon, yet I had to leave because I knew I would kill someone with my PTSD being so far out of control, the little I knew off it at that time. I have been on operations from CPL level, SGT and CSM, commanding up to 200 troops in operational environments, I know all too well the stressors and impact of war zones, peace keeping zones and humanitarian aid missions. I was in denial about a lot of things for a long time, and it wasn't until someone finally pushed me to shift out of denial, look at everything, just take a peek, when I soon discovered more things impacted me than I ever thought did.

Hi Anthony, you could be right, I did have a drink problem at 16 because of what happened to me before. And when my sergeant caught me that day being drunk, I told him why I was drinking, and he helped me with that and my drinking problem, by getting me councilling. After that I concentrated on my army career, although as you say the problems were still there in the back of my mind. But as you know through your training, you concentrate on what you are doing.
I put that thread in to get some advice on it, more than anything. I know, as you say, that once the Combat Stress is sorrted out in my head, if it ever will. The other thing will come back again. That is why I joined this Forum, to get advice on my problems, and when I put that thread in I felt that I was ready to speak about it again. So I'm sorry if you think I'm BSing you but i'm not. I'm just totally f"£%$cked up mentally with everything at the moment and very confused as well. I just wanted advice that's all.
Cheers
Scott