I was sitting in the waiting room of my pdoc the other day & saw a magazine on psychotherapy. There was an article about PTSD that caught my attention since that seems to be mostly what I am going through right now.

The article basically said that with PTSD, "that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger". Then came my question of "when does that finally happen.....when will I get stronger, if ever?" There may be some truth to this, but I haven't felt it. I had many thoughts that came to me after reading this.

Yes, I had an experience what many people in this world haven't or will never experience & yes, I lived through it (it didn't kill me). However, the fear I had of being killed or being extremely harmed during the experience isn't something that just goes away then the experience ends. I know that I continually have nightmares that just won't go away. How in the world is that making me stronger when I am haunted daily with the memories. And then to top off those memories, it left me with horrible feelings towards my mother who died. To add to my anger, I realize that the RN is still on the prowl because the police had to drop the case & so did Adult Protective Services.

Nothing I did to try & stop her worked. The worse part was that I was constantly reacting to what was happening to me & my Mother & in reacting, I actually stopped anything from happening that could have caught her. I just talked to the man that is the go between with APS & the police. It sounded like the APS report I made was dropped because my mother couldn't tell them what happened (either her mind was gone with the cancer or she had already died by the time they tried to contact her). How in the world does that make anyone strong. When talking to him about what the report was about, I ended up in tears, wondering how in the world could this make me stronger. I feel so much anger because nothing I did was good enough to get her caught, to pay for what she did to us & to many others before us....besides, she is free to continue repeating her same abuse to other cancer patients.

I just realized that the anger I have been feeling must be associated with this. My anger gets so bad that I end up throwing thing & breaking anything in sight. My anger has been really bad since this happened & isn't getting any better, if not worse. I am actually afraid of myself & have to stay away from things that I could really hurt.

I wonder if according to the article, I am allowing myself to react the way I am reacting. It seems like it just happens & so do the nightmares. I just can't stop some of the things from happening.....but "I am supposed to be stronger"????

The man from APS did suggest that I get in touch with the hospital social workers & other people who deal with families who are dealing with terminal illnesses & who need support. They are the ones who are vunerable to people like the RN. I know that it would be a great thing to get involved with others who need the support I never got. I know this would be very good but then comes the realization that when I talk about what happened, it turnes into tears & I end up without a voice. That is definitely proof that strength isn't yet the outcome from the situation I was in. Maybe someday, I will be able to talk with out being smothers with my tears & ending up in an anxiety attack that won't go away for days.

I will hope that one day in the future, that I will find strength enough to get out there I let people know how important it is to protect themselves against people who prey on them with their illnesses.....but until that day, it is still someday in the future when the strength may show up instead of the constant nightmares.

Even to this day, I don't know if my pdoc actually realizes that PTSD is so much a part of what is causing me the horrible problems I am experiencing today. My DX is still nothing more than chronic clinical depression. But maybe that is what ended up making my reaction to the experience worse that it would have been otherwise. Every experience we have has it's consequenses.....hopefully sometime in our future lives, these experiences will finally make us stronger.

Debbie