For better or worse, life changes all of us

For better or worse, life changes all of us
by
Chaplain Kathie

Every event in your life goes into who you are at this moment in time. You change as events happen. Some events are good. The first time you fall in love, graduating college, the first grown up job, marriage, having children, watching your children take their first steps and then witnessing the changes in them as events happen in their lives. Bad events come too. The end of your first love affair, graduating college and understanding from that point on, you are on your own two feet to make it or break it, losing your first real job when you have rent to pay, marriages that are not happy, children born with birth defects, watching your parents reach the end of their lives and you know, things will never be the same again. These events, pretty much we all go through and these events are part of us.

No one leaves this earth untouched or unchanged by living lives.

Sometimes the events are not very important on the surface. You walk into a grocery store, having a really bad day, feeling as if you are invisible, then a clerk at your local Publix smiles, talks to you and makes you feel special. When you leave the store, you feel differently about yourself and about other people. That change in your mood is carried on when you return home. Instead of thinking your life sucks and taking it out on your family, you have a nice night and enjoy their company. Had the clerk not been so nice to you when you needed it, things could have turned out a lot differently.

Sometimes events are very important. From the moment they happen, you know deep inside yourself, you will never be the same again. You went to work one day then a stranger decides it's the day he will try to kill others. You drive down the same road heading to work and it is the same day someone decides to get behind the wheel of their car drunk and you were unfortunate enough to have gotten in their way. We face these changes unwillingly. We find it easier to understand what happens in "normal" life and how it can all change in a moment, change how we feel about ourselves, other people, our families and our futures as well as how we feel about a relationship with God, yet we cannot bring ourselves to understand changes when someone puts themselves in harms way willingly every day as the job they do.

We don't see a police officer as a person with a life, family, friends, hopes and dreams, another human changed by what they encounter everyday. We don't see a firefighter changed by one too many fires where they have had to pull unrecognizable bodies out once too often. We don't see an EMT after they have had to collect the remains from a roadway after another accident when a drunk driver has killed a family. Above all, we don't see what comes when men and women return from combat.

All humans, just like us, facing the same troubles and triumphs we face but they see what we pray to God we never see with our own eyes. The death and destruction they witness weighs heavily on their soul. No one ever leaves traumatic events unchanged. Sometimes they push it in the backs of their memories and just move on. Other times they find themselves unable to just push it away and they see the person they were slip away.

For everyone trauma does not have to mean that there is no hope even though there is no hope of going back to the way you were before. It does however mean that with the right response to it, you can be better than you were before.

Even for the older veterans of combat, we have seen remarkable changes in them when they are finally treated for the life changing traumas they endured. They learn how to make it through the day without getting drunk, without having to have a gun at their side at all times, without having to push everyone away and without hating themselves for what they had to do. We have seen them learn to trust again enough so that they open up and show how human they are. We have also seen the greatness of their compassion change the lives of others. Nothing about PTSD is hopeless.

Once people get past wanting what is not possible they can enjoy what is achievable. It is not possible to be the way they were before any more than it is possible for anyone to turn back the clock to their perfect day where all was well with the world. What we can do is to take what has come into our lives, good and bad, and then make peace with it so that we can be happier. If you have PTSD, the nightmares may stay but they will not be as strong. The flashbacks will come but they will not happen as often and you will break out of it sooner. PTSD is not the end of you but the beginning of who you can become with the right help to get you there.

If you are seeking help make sure you are addressing all of you. You mind, body and soul, as well as your family. They can either help you heal or they can make it worse if they do not understand. Even the best psychologist can't break down the wall of pain if your family is handing you bricks because of what they do not understand. Make sure your psychologist is fully educated on what PTSD is so they will not misdiagnose or guess at how best to treat you, You wouldn't go to a dentist for a broken arm so you should not go to a doctor that does not specialize in PTSD.

Find support groups where you can feel as if you can be honest and open. Use your intuition and keep looking until you find the right one. The same goes for medication. If you are on medication that makes you feel worse or is not helping, then talk to your doctor so they can find the right one for you to be on. What works for friend may not work for you. Make sure you get therapy and not just medication. Talking is very important in healing.

All of this will all work better if you understand what PTSD is and make peace with the fact you have it because you are human exposed to events that were life changing. Know why you feel the way you do and why you react the way you do so that you can focus on doing something about it instead of spending your energy trying to hide it. The people in your life know you changed even though they can't understand why.

Life changes all of us but what we do in response to it will change the lives we live from this point on.