Thursday, March 27, 2014
It's finally warm enough to rain here in Minneapolis. We call this progress towards Spring. It's not even 8:00 a.m. and gray light is filtering in the windows as I attempt to wake up and do something I have done many, many times. I am trying to remember the past as a way of liberating myself and welcoming immense future possibility.
When I met with my therapist this week I asked him to prepare a statement that I could keep as documentation for possible use when I attend a week long Workforce Center training the week of April 7-11th. I asked him to make an educated guess about something that is not at all inconsequential and likely not at all easy. I asked him to make an educated guess, based on his knowledge of my personal history, as to when my PTSD first actually developed. Considering a correct and vague answer to this question is probably 'very early in my personal development' this may prove to be quite a task.
One challenge I face is that people I might try to speak to for clues are themselves not necessarily reliable sources of information. Why? Because their own capacity for healthy recall of the past is, in my opinion, questionable. Yes, that is my opinion and opinions can be incorrect or misguided. But now that I am the healthiest I have ever been in my life (and I believe this is a correct assessment) I feel inclined to believe my own opinion has merit.
It's my understanding from what research I have done on PTSD that individuals can develop this stress disorder even if they are not the actual person who directly experienced the traumatic event. It thus follows that parents, siblings, children, partners and perhaps even friends of an individual impacted by a traumatic event could potentially develop the disorder themselves depending on the particular circumstances under consideration. For example, if a person experiences and survives torture or survives a horrific accident the emotional distress that person exhibits later might be so severe as to truly (and vicariously in a sense) traumatize people who are closely connected with that individual. It thus follows that speaking to my father's siblings about his health as well as my own might not be a valuable use of my time. I believe their own judgment is sufficiently questionable as to render them not valid contacts to speak with in regards to my earliest life history.
I certainly do not think attempting to speak with my father himself is a wise idea because I believe he himself has untreated PTSD due to the attempted murder that nearly claimed his own life at the age of forty. He has chosen to take the route of never seeking out any sort of intensive counseling for this trauma and other stressors in his life. At least that is what I understand to be true. I do not agree with his choice but I respect it nonetheless. Unfortunately, however, his choice leads me to eliminate him as a credible source of correct information about my earliest years of life as well.
I cannot speak to my own mother to play detective because she now has a degree of dementia and has been in lifelong supervised care for her schizophrenia. The stress of asking her to dig into her own memory of my childhood is not something I would wish to subject her to (and I don't believe I would be allowed to do so by her doctor even if I wanted to).
In a sense I am thus thrown back onto my own resources and my own memory. I can look for clues to my early life history in pictures, letters and other records of my earliest years. I am going to have to play detective. And this might be as challenging as when I went through those difficult times in 'real time'.
It's finally warm enough to rain here in Minneapolis. We call this progress towards Spring. It's not even 8:00 a.m. and gray light is filtering in the windows as I attempt to wake up and do something I have done many, many times. I am trying to remember the past as a way of liberating myself and welcoming immense future possibility.
When I met with my therapist this week I asked him to prepare a statement that I could keep as documentation for possible use when I attend a week long Workforce Center training the week of April 7-11th. I asked him to make an educated guess about something that is not at all inconsequential and likely not at all easy. I asked him to make an educated guess, based on his knowledge of my personal history, as to when my PTSD first actually developed. Considering a correct and vague answer to this question is probably 'very early in my personal development' this may prove to be quite a task.
One challenge I face is that people I might try to speak to for clues are themselves not necessarily reliable sources of information. Why? Because their own capacity for healthy recall of the past is, in my opinion, questionable. Yes, that is my opinion and opinions can be incorrect or misguided. But now that I am the healthiest I have ever been in my life (and I believe this is a correct assessment) I feel inclined to believe my own opinion has merit.
It's my understanding from what research I have done on PTSD that individuals can develop this stress disorder even if they are not the actual person who directly experienced the traumatic event. It thus follows that parents, siblings, children, partners and perhaps even friends of an individual impacted by a traumatic event could potentially develop the disorder themselves depending on the particular circumstances under consideration. For example, if a person experiences and survives torture or survives a horrific accident the emotional distress that person exhibits later might be so severe as to truly (and vicariously in a sense) traumatize people who are closely connected with that individual. It thus follows that speaking to my father's siblings about his health as well as my own might not be a valuable use of my time. I believe their own judgment is sufficiently questionable as to render them not valid contacts to speak with in regards to my earliest life history.
I certainly do not think attempting to speak with my father himself is a wise idea because I believe he himself has untreated PTSD due to the attempted murder that nearly claimed his own life at the age of forty. He has chosen to take the route of never seeking out any sort of intensive counseling for this trauma and other stressors in his life. At least that is what I understand to be true. I do not agree with his choice but I respect it nonetheless. Unfortunately, however, his choice leads me to eliminate him as a credible source of correct information about my earliest years of life as well.
I cannot speak to my own mother to play detective because she now has a degree of dementia and has been in lifelong supervised care for her schizophrenia. The stress of asking her to dig into her own memory of my childhood is not something I would wish to subject her to (and I don't believe I would be allowed to do so by her doctor even if I wanted to).
In a sense I am thus thrown back onto my own resources and my own memory. I can look for clues to my early life history in pictures, letters and other records of my earliest years. I am going to have to play detective. And this might be as challenging as when I went through those difficult times in 'real time'.
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