Seeking mental health care can be frightening. I didn’t want to jeopardize my job as a nurse manager or lose the security clearance tied to my 25-plus-year career as a Navy reservist. I didn’t want to be labeled or have my work second-guessed. I didn’t want to be called crazy, psycho or just plain nuts. I didn’t want to have my co-workers worry about me or think I might harm a patient. I felt like I was in a no-win situation. I was in trouble if I sought care and if I didn’t.
How My Symptoms of PTSD Emerged
My symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) began almost as soon as I returned home from my first deployment. After having been in such an intense environment with little opportunity to decompress or process all of my experiences caring for combat wounded, I felt empty. The PTSD symptoms I had were relatively common and included severe anxiety and deep depression. I was easily angered, struggled with concentration, couldn’t sleep, and did not want to be around people because I felt exposed and vulnerable. You could think of it as being in a constant state of a fight or flight response. I now know it is called a hypervigilant state, a symptom of PTSD. I discovered once I began therapy that my history of surviving childhood abuse and neglect is prevalent among those diagnosed with PTSD after an adult trauma.
Each Day Was a Struggle
I was just exhausted at the end of every day from trying to keep others from seeing how broken I felt. I just knew they would see how inadequate I was for the work. How broken I was. I lost confidence. I second-guessed myself. I never felt good enough or perfect enough. My journey to seek help happened the day I contemplated driving my car into a pole to be free of the emotional pain. I made my first appointment that day. That was over 10 years ago, and it was the best decision of my life. I have been in and out of therapy since then. I only really committed to treatment after I retired from the Navy Reserve.
Therapies That Worked for Me
I have tried a variety of therapies to treat PTSD. Some worked better than others, but I do genuinely believe they all helped. I have had eye movement desensitizing and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, in which a therapist uses repetitive movements while you think about the trauma, to allow your brain to reprocess the experience in a healthier way. This treatment for PTSD was especially helpful in dealing with my childhood traumas. I have had cognitive processing therapy, a type of behavioral therapy that helped me challenge unhelpful beliefs related to my military trauma. Lately, my focus has been mindfulness work, especially self-compassion. I have found this treatment helpful because it forces me to focus on this moment in time and not get lost in remembering the past or worrying about the future. It has also helped me to forgive myself for my lack of perfection. My way of practicing mindfulness is to spend time each day in prayer and meditation focusing on gratitude.
Why I Shared My Story
I originally shared my story because of the COVID-19 pandemic. I saw my fellow nurses in a war not unlike my own. I originally wrote to say there is hope because that is what motivated me on my journey to health, although I still had a lot more work to do. This work wasn’t just for my mental health but also for my physical health. I want to share a little more about my continuing journey to whole health.
I don’t have regularly scheduled therapy anymore. Both my therapist and I reached the decision that I had gained enough tools to control my anxiety and depression without a fixed schedule of sessions. I now meet with my therapist on an as-needed basis. It is a great feeling to know I can take charge of my mental health!
Mental Health Support Tools
The first tool I use frequently is the STOP method to calm myself. This method allows me to slow down, take a breath, and shift my mind out of autopilot and back into the present. I use this method for those times when I start feeling overwhelmed or anxious.
STOP stands for:
- S - Stop
- T - Take a breath (or two!)
- O - Observe what you are feeling, thinking and/or experiencing in your body.
- P - Proceed/Pause. Ask yourself, “What is the next best action for me to take that moves me in a positive direction? How does this action fit my values? How do I change my situation if needed?”
The second tool I routinely use is challenging negative thoughts. I can be my own worst critic, and that is not always a healthy mindset. When those negative thoughts occur, I now automatically challenge them. When I make a mistake, I don’t berate myself (although that is my first instinct). I tell myself how much I just learned from that situation and strategize how I will do things differently in the future. When I feel sad, I notice the feeling and then remind myself how grateful I am for all the good things in my life. I remind myself that being sad is normal, but it does not have to be the dominant feeling in my life/mind.
I mentioned earlier in this update that I have been working on my whole health. Like many other people, I gained weight during the pandemic and stopped doing my routine physical fitness habits. Once I got a handle on my mental health issues, I was ready to work on regaining my overall health. I have a family history of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, which motivated me to take a hard look at the negative impact of weight gain on blood pressure and A1C. I started a weight loss journey and have lost 20 pounds so far. I want to stress that my choice to lose weight was motivated by a desire to improve my health, so I have committed to this journey the way I did with my mental health journey. It took me a couple of years of therapy to regain my mental health, and my weight loss journey will take time as well. I am practicing the same patience with myself that I did while recovering from PTSD.
I also started working on physical fitness. Before the pandemic, I ran the 4.2-mile Pat’s Run, which raises money for Arizona State University student scholarships for military veterans. Pat Tillman was a pro football player who gave up his football career post-9/11 and died while serving in Afghanistan. I’m a little older now, and running is a bit hard on my knees after 25-plus years of nursing, so I choose to walk and am up to 3 miles a day. My goal is to walk Pat’s Run next year, and I think I am well on my way to that goal!
Hope With PTSD
If you are on a journey through PTSD, there is hope and actions you can take. I am proof of that. There are many ways to manage PTSD. It requires vulnerability and a willingness to commit to the sometimes prolonged process of healing emotional wounds through professional help. Let’s heal together.
Resources:
- Call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Hotline at 988.
- Visit the Suicide Prevention webpage.
- ANA - “Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation”
- “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)”
I write this to say there is hope. If you recognize yourself in the description of my post-deployment PTSD, reach out for professional help. Will you?
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