How have you dealt with PTSD?

Unlike many I know who have various levels of PTSD effects I had zero effects , I attributed this to my mental discipline from a lifetime of study of Martial Arts. Until one day roughly 10 year's ago during a firestorm in Oklahoma I caught the smell of smoke and things burning and I suddenly had a flashback at 70mph and found myself reaching for my weapon and helmet not finding the items brought me back to reality and another close call . LoL I blew a fuse that day ,so I took the week off and meditated and I drank chilled Saki to help calm the mind . One thing I have learned ,no matter how each of us deal with it age works against us. Eventually the safeguard breaks down and we blow a fuse from a trigger , mine came from the Movie . Nicholas Cage about the Navajo Code Talker's I had watched a few day's before finding myself in Oklahoma during the biggest fire in the State. Seemed very strange to me as WW2 was my father's war ,anyway I was able to reset the fuse through Meditation and chilled Saki .....

Strangely, exposure to the military seems to subdue problems. I was a basket case when I went into the Reserves and then wound up back on Active Duty. The more tactical the base the more at ease I am and live fire made me happy, if not somewhat weird

CPT (Join to see) Well for myself after being in denial for so very long I finally got help at the VA. Not knowing myself why i was acting the way I was. It really didn't hit me until it started to affect my family and my work. I didn't have the slightest idea what was happening to me. Until one day having a discussion with a Doctor about insomnia. That lead to me being sent to mental health and from that point after seeing two Physiologist for sometime they both came to the conclusion I was suffering from issues from a tragic accident I had in the military in which I almost died. I never thought much it. I should have listened to my youngest daughter when she always said daddy you have issues. LOL.

Peace!

TLC is a solid cure foundation for treatment of PTSD, I feel. Even if the entire treatment fails, the affected will earn a group that can help prevent relapses of traumatic incidents.

After my second deployment I put everything I had into my work. I was taking medication which seemed to help a lot. As far as counseling I tried it at the VA but I wasn't going to talk to counselors that admittedly had no experience in our kind of problems. One even told me she went to a 2 week seminar to help them.
So medication help me. After I retired last March I started experiencing some of the same issues again, my girlfriend suggested a pet, which I thought was crazy at the time but we got one anyway a Pit Bull. I'll tell you he sure has helped me.

I have dealt with PTSD for 50 yrs. and it does not get easy,I worked at it like step 12 in the AA,I worked around it and with it.I became a National service Officer for the CFW and then the MOPH for some 35 yrs.Fooling myself all that time and when they had me give it up I was scared and it was great that I had made some inroads to PTSR I knew the Medical staff and got good counseling For a short time at least,and before long they had me facilating the group,and you all know the program so I kept reversing the tables and got them off on another tangent and not me.We have all learned how to do that.So listen and learn,stop your drinking,no drugs(I know they keep some of us so high we don't need anything else)but you have to deal with this head on.Are you ever going to forget hell no,but you can find ways,start your own groups,meet for coffee and BS amonst yourselves you will even start laughing at your self and some of the stupid shit we used to do.Always use the phone and keep in touch these guys or women are going to become your knew family,kind of sorta,never let this new force interfer with your own family obligations.
J.connolly

By having this kind of reach out program and a no label and judgment free zone. We all can make a difference for each other and for ourselves. I will not leave a fallen comrade behind. I remember hearing from somewhere........

I am revisiting this post and so happy to see service members reaching out to one another for support. As you were.

This is not so much a reply to the original message as it is a comment on the thread. I believe that somewhere down this thread is part of my story meaning I am speaking as one of you. I am an insider who has PTSD and has dealt with it for many years and it is a continuing issue.

My comments is that people care about each of you that has posted on this topic. I care about you and know that help is out there. In the movie Galaxy Quest the team motto is "never give up, never give in" or something like that. Yes, I threw in some humor, it helps. Find a small group where you can talk and be accepted as the person you are, where you are. Friends/colleagues who will not judge you for having issues but who will simply listen and love you, right then, right now and who will walk with you. I would hate being in jail with a CSM like someone named Michael or any one else.

You/we have been to the edge and know what it looks like both good and bad. You/we rose above the ordinary to reach a level only a few will reach. There is much good that can be said about the men and women (especially about nurses) so focus on that.

Well I have been living with PTSD for 43 years. I recently met a World War 2 was just diagnosed with PTSD. He has been living with it for over 60+ years. I can speak with experience it never goes away. But if it is managed it will only bother me 10% of the time not 90%. I have had some success in managing it. For me it is three parts to keeping at the 10% level. 1) proper diagnose from the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress within certain VA's (mine assessment was completed in Boston with both clinical and hard data (on the PTSD machine)).
2) proper medication it took a nurse to get the correct medication and proper dose over one year. Even now it is still twitted.

3) is proper one on one counseling and/or group sessions. This has been the most problematic for me. Because only in the past few years that treatment has gotten more closely to my everyday reality.

So that is my 3 cents of advice

Philip Bienvenue
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