Yes Jane, it really is an unexpected journey. I had always thought that things happen even bad things happen, you find your way through them and it's over. I never imagined that while we "survive" things and we get through them and they are over, our brains really do not handle it that way. And because we can see that when we develop PTSD, we don't feel like we were survivors, we see we really were hurt, and that is why the anger and sadness is challenging. What is hard is that when we see and feel so much we realize so much more than other people, we see the incredible ignorance too.

PTSD stops a person in their tracks and begins to show them things they did not realize. People around us are hustling around in their lives and they have their coping methods, little structures that work for them, are often very self important and opinionated and there is so much they just don't see. At one point a person with PTSD wishes they could go back to being that way too and yet as hard as they try, they have seen something different, deeper, more meaningful, and they are forever changed.

However, what is really happening is that someone with PTSD, yes being very sensitive, is really sitting still and they are seeing so many things that the average person just isn't paying attention to. Did you ever watch Life that documentary, we sit there and we get to see all these captured moments of different ways animals and insects and all kinds of nature mates, how they are born, what they do to survive, and as we sit there we think about how all these things happen while we are so busy hustling around with work and dealing with other people in our own little worlds and just do not realize how much is going on around us. People that filmed all that spent a tremendous amount of time out there finding all these things and waiting and watching to capture these moments that we sit and watch. We sit there and watch it, take time out to do that, but we do not realize the tremendous amount of effort it took to capture all that we are watching. We appreciate what we see, but the only way we can really appreciate it is if we spent "real time" with the people who work very hard to capture on film all that we are seeing as the final product. The reality is, that human beings do not really appreciate or see things unless they experience it first hand or do whatever it takes to achieve whatever is achieved. The reality is that most people are really in their own little worlds in their own heads and they get so busy with that, that they don't see or appreciate or even recognize the gravity of a lot of important things. Most human beings have an idea of different things, but they genuinely don't see the gravity or depth. The constant advice that people offer is "just" and what they are really saying is "just make your mind up to be blind and choose not to see the gravity or depth or real value".

When vets come home from active duty and have spent a great deal of time seeing some horrible things that human beings do, how tragic it really is, they are forever changed. The have a horrible time adjusting back into what we call "civilian life". What I am talking about above is their reality and they quickly recognize how "the average civilian" worries about, gets angry about, things that are not very significant in the scheme of "true reality". Their reality is "no" they cannot not "just" like so many average "civilians" do and when a person sees them and says "thank you for your service" or when the average person says to them, "welcome home soldier", often that is a trigger and can make them angry. Because when people do that, it is "just" an empty statement.

When I joined PC, the first year I met a Vet and he was struggling with PTSD and was really challenged. He did get easily triggered and he often chose to distance from people completely. It didn't take much for him to get angry and disgusted when he interacted with people that began their "just" comments. He kept saying "people don't get it, they just don't get it, and I hate it when they say welcome home". What I said to him is that I understand what he is saying, I did understand on a closer level because I was really struggling with PTSD myself and while I didn't go off to war, I definitely experienced something that profoundly affected me that no one was validating or seeing the real gravity of. I told him that I was sorry and that while he is struggling so much and people trigger him, they genuinely don't know what he would like them to say. I told him to think about writing down what it means to him and what he would prefer people say to him. He liked that idea and decided to try it. After a while he came back and said, "you know, what you told me to do is really, really hard". I did say, "I know", and even though it is hard, at least try to make an attempt to "improve the ignorance" on some level if you can, because the reality is, people actually do want to know "what to say that means something to you and others who come home".

Jane, when I saw my neighbor's dog do all that damage to so many of the ponies/horses I spent so much time training and loving and getting together to do what I do with them. It was devastating and what was even more devastating was that in spite of all my efforts to get these people to contain their dogs, explain to them what I was doing, the value of my animals and how challenging it was, they still didn't respect it, were negligent and it resulted in wiping me out and devastating me in ways I could have never imagined in my wildest dreams. And what made it even worse is when it just broke me and I reached out for help, the professionals I sought out failed to see the gravity and depth and misdiagnosed me and treated me like I didn't have a right to be so upset. Even my own sister came into the psych ward and sat across from me with her angry face and told me "you better get with it or you will lose your family and your farm". I was in shock and crisis Jane, I really was and I was even shivering in shock, and I was basically "yelled at and blamed". At the time I didn't know about post traumatic stress, or what emotional and psychological crisis was, all I knew is I could not seem to function at all.

Jane, I believe you about how hard it was for you after you almost died and your sister reacted so badly, I AM INCREDIBLY SORRY FOR THAT, BECAUSE THAT WAS WRONG. You really needed others to see the "gravity and depth" of what you were experiencing, yet all these people thought of is "it was not fair to them", I get that loud and clear, because that is exactly what I went through too.

But ((Jane)), you are really not "alone" with that experience. It is very hard to process that and build up the will to get to a point where you choose to rise above it and choose to embrace an entirely different way of seeing life "in depth" that "yes" many others choose "not to see, or can't see". It definitely takes time to "gain enough" so you can finally accept it and embrace it realizing how much you can learn on a very different level. Forgiveness isn't about deciding to say that someone who did something bad is somehow "ok" or that this person had any right to do whatever it was that was bad or hurtful. All it means is that you have gotten to the point where you can see that this person didn't recognize the "depth and gravity" of their actions. It never meant that you were unworthy, or undeserving in any way either because you somehow didn't predict it either. We often say and mull over, "I should have seen it and known better somehow". But, when you actually "embrace" your own healing and slowly begin to deal with "the depth and gravity of it yourself", you will also forgive yourself and you actually "can" get on a much higher level than many people who choose to "just" and never really do see the true depth and gravity.

There actually have been a lot of people that have done this and they have left the lot of humanity some significant messages to ponder and learn from that brings them "more depth" and has made a difference.

Something to ponder, I know you have not reached that level, but you actually "can" get to it and as you do that, the symptoms of PTSD will weaken. Often the symptoms of PTSD are there to make us pay attention and learn. We are often so taken by it that we don't realize that however. When different people through our human history have recognized "depth and gravity", they were compelled to talk about it, so much so that we created the written word so we could have a way of recording whatever we are enlightened with so others may gain from the "depth and gravity we have learned to see".

OE