PTSD Getting help, getting well

PTSD from sexual trauma in UK

Saturday, December 1, 2007 3:06 PM US/Western


Getting help, getting well
By MIKE JOHNSTON


If the same thing had happened two years ago, Monie, a 49-year-old woman living in rural Kittitas County, doesn't know what she would have done. It possibly could have sent her into a self-destructive spiral of depression.

A flood of hurting emotions and memories of a childhood lost rushed in earlier this week when she heard the tinkling of Christmas bells on a television movie.

The sound of the bells was something connected to Monie's experience of 14 years of physical and sexual abuse from her late father, an alcoholic.

In the past, such a strong tug of emotions drawing her into her former life would put her into her "own private hell," as she puts it. She would revisit the loss of self-esteem and personal value as a victim of abuse and remember past, poor choices in failed personal relationships.



But this time Monie used techniques and "wise mind" responses learned from two years of counseling and classes at Central Washington Comprehensive Mental Health, or CWCMH. They kept her from sliding into a deep depression and overwhelming anxiety from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

Monie "graduated" from her program with CWCMH in October.
go here for the rest

http://www.kvnews.com/articles/2007/
12/01/news/doc47510ec2e7bfc612072316.txt

Here is a look at PTSD from a fireman

Compo man's ordeal by fire Australia
December 02, 2007 12:15am
A FORMER fireman has won a major court victory by successfully suing for workers compensation based on post traumatic stress disorders from the 1960s.

Tom Schwerdt, 61, of Christies Beach, won the victory in the Workers Compensation Tribunal after a seven-year legal battle, but the payout was limited to the period before 1986, when a new Act with a tougher test came into force.
Mr Schwerdt is now appealing that part of the verdict with a view to obtaining backpay to 1991, when he left the Metropolitan Fire Service.

"There are 28 other firemen with similar circumstances lined up behind me to see what happens with this case so I'm sure the powers-that-be are watching it very closely," he said.

Mr Schwerdt served from 1963, when he signed up as a 17-year-old, until 1991 when he was forced to leave after a lengthy period on sick leave.

In later years he found himself bursting into tears when watching news bulletins showing accident scenes, and in 1999 was diagnosed with PTSD.

He lodged a claim in April 2000 under the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1986, and a second claim in April last year under the Workers Compensation Act 1971.

Mr Schwerdt said he received no counselling during his career despite repeatedly being involved in situations where he saw terrible deaths or injuries, and being in events where he feared for his life.
go here for the rest

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/
story/0,22606,22854878-2682,00.html

It doesn't matter what country you live in. It doesn't matter what kind of trauma caused it. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is after trauma. It is a human illness.