Can we prevent PTSD in everyone?

by
Chaplain Kathie

Recently there was a study saying that intervention after traumatic events was ineffective. Bloggers ended up posting it like crazy as if it was a proven fact instead of one study. If this is the case, then everyone doing it and participating in intervention is wrong. I really doubt that. Can we prevent PTSD in everyone? I wish we could but I am living proof that it worked for me.

4 1/2 pushed off slide onto concrete at a drive-in movie playground in Revere MA. Fractured scull, concussion and my brother thought I was dead. Trip to emergency room, tech missed the cracked scull and sent me home. Next day, different emergency room, found the crack and immediately admitted me. One week later I was finally able to go home. What happened after this was constantly talking about it with my family. Ok, we had a typical Greek family where everything was discussed do death with my Mom and her sisters.

Violent alcoholic father until I was 13 and he stopped drinking. Again, nothing was a secret in the family but outside it was a different story.

Car crash that totaled out my Mom's car with me driving home from work on Route 128 in rush hour traffic. I was hit in the rear end and thought I was going to die. The car went into a spin out and smashed into the guard rail. In shock, I couldn't stop laughing as I pushed the car from the passing lane to the breakdown lane. Laughing while waiting for the ambulance and did not stop laughing for over an hour. Again, we kept talking about it until I was done talking.

Ex-husband tried to kill me when he came home from work one night and absolutely lost it. He ended up being taken to jail and then stalked me for over a year.

Miscarriage of twins, which can cause PTSD especially when I was hemorrhaging.

After giving birth to my daughter, I had a balder infection that was never cleared up as the doctor thought it was. I ended up in the hospital with a massive infection, septic, with a bacteria count higher than my doctor had ever seen in a live patient. Again, I almost died, but kept talking about it.

My whole life has been one traumatic event after another and I have all the characteristics in common with people ending up with PTSD. I am deeply compassionate, as you must have noticed by reading my blog by now. I take on the pain of others. I am deeply religious. You cannot say that I don't have a violent bone in my body because when my ex-husband was in the process of trying to kill me, I was fighting back and did a lot of damage to him in return. (Ex-swimmer and jock so I packed a pretty good punch) The difference is, talking until I'm done dealing with it so that I can move on. Every time it was a bit harder to get over but I came out of it stronger. That's the difference.

Getting over traumatic events does not happen unless you work at it. Otherwise it takes control over you. This is why I believe so strongly in intervention after traumatic events. It's why I've taken almost every class offered on crisis intervention and became a Chaplain. The events in my life were out of my control, but what happened after them was in my control and in God's hands. I held onto them as tightly as possible. What happened to me was not created by God but He used my faith and my experiences to help others.

While PTSD cannot be fully cured, you can heal. You can recover parts of your life you thought were gone forever and find the "old you" still alive and kicking behind the wall of pain. I believe in prevention as much as possible to stop most of the people from having PTSD gain the upper hand and healing those who couldn't be reached in time.

Next time the bloggers fly off and post how crisis intervention does not work, think about me and remember that if I didn't have people to talk to, I wouldn't be able to do what I do now. I'm living proof it works and this was before any of the advances in intervention happened. My family just did it naturally without knowing what it would lead to.