An Open Letter to Gabrielle Giffords

Thursday, January 9, 2014


Yesterday I read what I found to be a very moving op-ed in the New York Times.  It was written by Gabrielle Giffords on the three year anniversary of the mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona that nearly claimed her life.  As I have disclosed in earlier entries in my blog I have been personally deeply affected by the issue of gun violence.  I share below the contents of the letter I wrote to her today.

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Dear Mrs. Giffords,

I was very moved by the op-ed piece you wrote which appeared in the Wednesday, January 8^th edition of the New York Times.  I have been going through an intensive process of recovery from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder these last six months.  My PTSD developed in part as a response to events in my childhood.  I nearly lost my father to gun violence.  Thus like you I have been very personally impacted by the scourge of gun violence.  I would like to share some of my story with you as it might give you hope and encouragement that there are many American citizens who feel as passionately as you do about the need to address this public health crisis.

I realize you are going through a lengthy process of recovery.  Thus it might not be the best choice to hear about other people’s trauma.  But since you created the organization Americans for Responsible Solutions I assume you might be interested to hear other people’s stories even as you focus on your own recovery.

My father was shot and nearly killed in June, 1982.  I was only eight years old at the time and was visiting my father’s parents three hundred miles away when the incident happened.  My stepmother, though not the person who made the attempt on his life, was responsible for the crime.  It was actually a minor, a teenage boy, who fired the gun that nearly killed my father.  There are many pieces to the story I will likely never know.  I often consider it only dumb luck that my father survived.  The bullet entered his chest and missed his heart by a mere inch.  With the assistance of a neighbor he was rushed by ambulance to Parkland Hospital in Dallas county (Texas).  He survived the incident and eventually was able to leave the hospital and resume something of a normal life.

In the early 1980s PTSD was still very poorly understood.  As I understand it this diagnostic category was initially created to describe a host of symptoms commonly witnessed in veterans returning from conflict.  As research into PTSD has grown it has become clear that a variety of non-armed conflict situations can also induce the genesis of PTSD in an individual.  Physical, verbal and sexual abuse, abduction, attempted murder and natural disasters can all trigger the development of PTSD.  My own PTSD was a result of being exposed to my mother as she became ill with schizophrenia when I was a very small child as well as subsequent abuse I experienced in my father’s second marriage.  It did not help that I grew up in Texas.  As you likely know given your own life history Texas is, politically speaking, a very conservative state.  The NRA has a strong base of membership there.

When I was diagnosed with PTSD last year I was quite surprised.  I had been in therapy earlier in my life but the diagnoses given had always been depression or anxiety.  I had never understood my own life history through the descriptive lens of PTSD.  As part of my own healing process I reviewed my medical history and also consulted with the psychiatrists I had seen earlier in my life.  I wanted to understand how so many medical care providers failed to diagnose my condition in the best way possible.  Though it was true that I had experienced bouts of depression at different points in my life my symptoms were never previously articulated to me to be indicative of trauma and thus I did not understand that I was affected by something like PTSD.  After receiving the diagnosis last June I entered into therapy yet again.  With the help of a treatment technique I had never worked with before (Eye Motion Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy or EMDR therapy for short) I have found a depth of healing I never had experienced before.  Over six months later I can honestly say I have never felt so good in all my life.  It is truly amazing what modern medicine can accomplish.

As I noted earlier in my letter I felt motivated to write to you because of your focus on the issue of gun violence.  As part of my own recent therapy I decided to look into the incident that nearly took my father’s life.  My own trauma was compounded by my feeling that several important institutions also failed to do their jobs well.  For example, my stepmother was never prosecuted for the crime of attempted murder.  I will spare providing the particular reasons behind that but it was a matter of police corruption.  I also had long wondered how the hospital where my father was admitted and treated could have failed to do something of a rigorous psychiatric assessment for him as part of his required care.  And this brings me to one aspect of the issue of gun violence that I found of specific interest to learn more about. 

I have studied public policy (with a focus on environmental policy) as part of my education.  I have two graduate degrees.  My major in my more recent graduate degree was international environmental policy.  I recently completed a fellowship awarded to me by the American Council on Germany.  You can thus conclude I am an intelligent man.  In my opinion (even though I am not trained in criminology or medicine) it seems it would be very wise if patients admitted specifically to emergency rooms of hospitals in which their admission is due to a life threatening injury caused specifically by someone they know (in my case it was my father’s wife) should be required by the admitting hospital to undergo a psychiatric evaluation of some sort (as a means of screening for PTSD) as a standard part of patient care.  To my knowledge my father never received any mental health counseling as a requirement for his discharge from the hospital.  To my knowledge my father never subsequently sought out any counseling to address the pain he experienced as a result of his wife’s attempt to murder him.  It is my opinion my father has an untreated condition (I suspect it is PTSD) that has undermined his own quality of life ever since.  It saddens me to believe this is true but I suspect I am correct.

As with the many well publicized events of gun violence in recent years in this nation (Newtown, your own shooting, Aurora, Colorado, Columbine High School, etc) one can endlessly debate that mix of factors which acting together made it possible for such horror to unfold.  In my own particular experience there were a number of factors: a teenage boy had access to a weapon and acted under the instruction of an adult to attempt to murder my father.  What the decisive factor was (if there was one) that led to the attempt is difficult to ascertain.  But I do believe it safe to say a teenage boy would be much less likely to attack an adult man with a weapon less powerful than a gun.  Having access to a gun was an important factor in  my father’s near-death.

It saddened me greatly when attempts to pass sensible gun safety legislation failed in Congress.  I have been disheartened with Congress for a long time now.  I do not believe much of Congress represents the needs of most of the American citizenry.  Congress has become too influenced by powerful special interests (like the NRA) whose primary motives are maintaining a status quo that meets their needs and their needs alone.  This is not democracy.  When a minority is able to foist its will on the majority the democratic process is sickly at best.  I am contemplating leaving this country and living and working in Europe as I am very concerned about the direction our nation is going.  And gun violence is just one major issue that leads me to contemplate such possibilities.

I suspect you have a lot to deal with in your own life.  I congratulate you that your own physical therapy has continued to help you to heal.  I have also been in physical therapy these last several months.  I thus know how agonizing it can be to work towards the most incremental of improvements.  I want to thank you for the inspiration you provide to me and other Americans who have been adversely affected by gun violence.

Shortly after my diagnosis I started a blog to document my own recovery from PTSD.  You are welcome to read from it and share it with anyone you know, personally or through professional circles, who might benefit from what I share.  The address for my blog is http://bcwellkamp.blogspot.com.  I use an assumed name as I want to maintain a degree of anonymity; I have very strong political opinions and prefer to limit the possibility of receiving the electronic equivalent of hate mail!  My own recovery is going quite well.  I sense I will be able to achieve my goal of being un-diagnosable for PTSD by the end of 2014.

I imagine that despite your ongoing recovery you nonetheless receive a significant volume of correspondence from former constituents and other citizens throughout the nation.  Nonetheless I would greatly appreciate it if you could confirm you received and read my letter.  I receive many compliments on my writing skill and would appreciate knowing that it somehow brightened your day.

I wish you the very best in your continued recovery and in your efforts to help make this nation a safer place for all of us!

Sincerely,

Christian Wellkamp