And Now For Some Physical Therapy

Wednesday, July 31, 2013


I truly feel like a warrior many days lately.  It's amazing how much I have on my metaphorical plate to deal with.  It is also amazing how much discipline I am calling forth from within myself to create a structure that will facilitate my own healing process.  And it is still even more amazing that I am doing so well considering how little family support I have to go through this process.  Healing should ideally never be a solitary process.  Thankfully I have created a good team of people from numerous fields to help me restore my health.  They will effectively substitute, to some degree, for my blood family that simply doesn't seem capable of showing up and bearing witness to what is unfolding in any real substantial way.

I went for a physical therapy appointment today after work.  I now plan to incorporate a variety of exercises into my daily routine to help improve my health.  I have been experiencing issues with my low back, hip and neck.  Yes indeed the PTSD is not challenging enough to deal with alone!  I am confronted with additional challenges at the same time.  I might sound as if I am wallowing in self-pity. I do not believe I am.  I simply am marveling at how much hard work I am doing on myself.  I firmly believe one day this immensely transformational time will be behind me.  That will indeed be a time of celebration!

Lately I have also been thinking about my diagnosis and have found myself repeatedly wondering how it is that mental health professionals I have seen earlier in my life never detected PTSD within me.  Given that some of the traumatic experiences in my life history occurred very, very early it seems perfectly reasonable to infer that I likely had some degree of PTSD when I was a younger man and even a child.  I have been debating the merits of contacting the individuals I previously worked with to inquire how it is that they missed this diagnosis.  I believe mental health and diagnosing related issues can be a very complex endeavor and thus do not believe it should necessarily be easy to make a diagnosis of PTSD.  Yet at the same time the people I previously worked with were quite skilled; it baffles me that something like this could go unnoticed for so long.

I have set a goal to be complete with the therapy I am doing with my therapist by September of 2014.  I feel this is a very reasonable goal to have made.  I have made the commitment to go to therapy twice a week for the next year.  Hopefully that will be enough time for me to deconstruct the issues that were never resolved and find a way to move forward as a man finally and truly unencumbered by the past.

Tomorrow I will make a visit to my primary care physician to discuss my current medication, a potential referral to another local doctor whose background might prove very helpful to me as well as some of my thoughts about the process I am now going through.

I find it very difficult to follow the local or national news here in the United States.  So much of it consists of stories of trauma and human suffering.  I have plenty of my own to deal with these days.
The challenge is to find that fine balance between contemplation and seclusion.

Every step I take is a step forward.  I remind myself of that frequently these days.  I feel I am building good momentum now.