Doc Bailey: How I Survived Crippling PTSD
Our own Doc Bailey writes at his own blog, the Madness of a Combat Medic, about his trip back from the edge after his deployment during the surge in Iraq. As you probably know, this is a big issue with me, and I think that the key to helping the recent war veterans through their adjustment back to productive civilians resides in each of us “old timers” who’ve made that adjustment. Doc contributes to that process;
You know it really wasn’t until I got to the WTB that I really knew what a “flashback” was. I had had training in methods of reducing or treating Combat Stress, I could recite all the symptoms of Acute Stress Reaction in my sleep. As a Medic, I was the one stop shop for all the medical needs for 35 men. I had a reference book (a very good one that I still have) that I carried with me for anything that I couldn’t fix right away. I could tell you all the methods of alleviating the inevitable stress that would come from combat losses. None of that knowledge or reference material helped me a damn when I was the one that needed help.
You should read the whole thing.
Category: Veterans Issues
I hear you brother im there my anger my rage from PTSD has cost me the love of an awesome woman I am getting help but just hard to live with out her thaks for your post it helps knowing there is someone else like me out there
A quote from one of the soldiers who Doc saved:
“Doc, shut up. You saved my life. That’s all that matters”
Semper Fi, Doc. Your deeds and compassion will live on in the hearts and minds of those soldiers you treated, and their families, long after your birth certificate has expired. Bless you, and thank you.
His description is really on the dot. The hand-shaking bit hit me pretty hard.
I have a bad surpise for you sandbox warriors. I have nightmares and nightsweats still just so often. unexpected loud noises still bring a flinch. Surviors guilt is a tough one to handle. Doc,I lost a good Corpsman and friend. After the Nam, just a few years ago.He drank himself to desth because he could not forgive himself for whose who died while in flight to a Med Bat. You still have a unfilled purpose yet. AS I do . If you need to talk ,I am available 24/7. This offer applies to all who PTSD. I will not tell what to do but really listen to you.Jonn has my phone number. I could not read your whole story. I started going where I did not need to be.
It saddens me to hear of your journey but also gives me hope. You’re not alone and PTSD is an equal opportunity condition, regardless of rank or position. I lost my wife and kids, battalion command, and prematurely ended my career because of it. The only thing that stopped me from doing myself in was my religion and the fact that I was too chickenshit to pull the trigger. But there is help and it seems that helping others is a way to look outside yourself and alleviate some of the pain. I was lucky to find a good doc but of course it never goes away. If you’re out there suffering, get help before those most important to you are driven away. You may have to swallow your pride, but in the end you’ll be alive and moving forward to cope with your past so you have a future. If you know someone who needs help then take action. They may not like you, in fact they may hate you for awhile but have the moral courage to help your brothers in need while you still can.
Still trying to clamp that femoral artery before he bleeds out.
If it was crippling then you wouldnt have aurvivied it… But you have survived what You went thru…. Kudos
If I can stop one Veteran from making the fatal plunge then this is all worth it. I came very close to the edge, and was saved from said edge. I want to help others. I still get angry, my hand still shakes, I still have a hard time sleeping. The 25 th of June and 17th of July are always hard days they might well always be so.
That does not mean that I can not live a full and productive life.
#7, you are dead wrong about whether this stuff can be “crippling” — but it may be treatable.
I’ve read Doc Bailey’s article, and noodled around the advertising in the nearby link, and I don’t see any kind of physical therapy for PTSD. Recent, personal experience has convinced me that overwhelming bad memories can result in physical changes in the body and the brain that result in emotional storms.
While talk therapy is helpful and possibly essential, to get the affected person’s decision making back on track, treatment of a potential physical injury within the nervous system can drain much of the impact, and pain, from the emotional storms.
The type of therapy that worked to drain the pain and put an end to the emotional storms and rat-in-a-maze thought patterns for me was called “mind-body-balancing” and it was available through a civilian, non-medical setting. From my point of view, therapy consisted of initial talk therapy to bring up just the edges of troubling emotions, followed by massage treatment with essential oils to clear the entrenched emotional responses and loosen their connection to parts of the body they had affected. This is not a one-time shot, but the person being treated ought to be able to tell very quickly whether this therapy is useful.
That sounds “foofy” to me even as I write it, but there’s real science to back it all up. Unfortunately, there’s an entire cottage industry devoted to this stuff that is mainly nonsense, and I don’t have a good way to separate it out.
Anyone who has these symptoms, or loves someone who does, should push for this kind of treatment.
The best help I had was at a Vet Center. Funded by the VA but ran by Vets only. Usually located in downtown area , away from the VAMC.More Grunts and Docs,I was the only flight crew there and they throught I was the crazy one.
We lost one of our brothers to PTSD / Suicide. 7 Tour OIF/OEF/HOA highly decorated Marine 0311/0211. His passing was unfathomably challenging to process. We wish comfort to all our ailing Warriors.
MWMC
#9- There are numerous and varied types of physical treatment for PTS, actually. They run from cranio-acral massage to hippotherapy to aquatherapy, and many more.
That was meant to say cranio-sacral, flipping crackberry.
A great resource is Charles Hoge’s “Once a Warrior–Always a Warrior: Navigating the Transition from Combat to Home–Including Combat Stress, PTSD, and mTBI”
The key learning point is that cognitive behavioral therapy (talk therapy)usually does not work is that PTSD is a normal lifesaving adaptation to life threatening circumstances which occurs in the Amygdalia or the lizard brain which controls our flight or fight responses. Needless to say, this primitive part of our brain learns survival behaviors quickly and permanently. And while these behaviors serve a very positive function in combat, they become troublesome when redeployed. Add a good dose of seeing friends killed or maimed and survivors’ guilt and you have a potent mixture that is generally unresponsive to cognitive therapy. While we can’t control our thoughts and memories, we can learn to recognize these situations and develop the ability to not immediately act on them. The greater the “flash to bang”, the greater our ability to control our actions. I know this is an overly simplistic generalized summary but I highly encourage you to read DR. Hoge’s book. He is a soldier and was an attack helicopter pilot before becoming a psychiatrist and his theories are based on surveying soldiers downrange and followup upon their return. He speaks to soldiers in understandable terms and offers specific coping strategies. Every soldier should own a copy.
Never thought my hand shaking was or could be because of my noodle before. Always thought it was from my nerve damage. Reading the article made me think of when and where my hand shakes and it is in stressful or my ill perceived stressful situations and places. Thanks for the food for thought doc. I will keep fighting till I have nothing to fight then I will fight some more.