It’s an hour and half past nautical twilight and I’m sitting on my back porch with the tiki torches lit and beer by the laptop. I spent the day in the sun, working in the field, and I’m played out.
The boys have been a great help this week and I need them to be; the goats are coming.
The Reluctant Farmer
Our children have been asking for goats for a long time. Our fields have been empty too long and so we decided it was time to give them the gift of responsibility, kids of their own…
The preparation for their arrival is on going. The summer schedule has been jam-packed with kids needing to be all over, so many other obligations and personal objectives. Finding time to write is an exercise in intentionality.
Fencing has been the number one issue. I finished up work Monday night and completed the post, PTSD “Awareness”. I’ve had “PTSD Awareness month” scribbled on my whiteboard for weeks now, meaning to write about it. Not that I haven’t extensively discussed PTSD and my journey with it, but I felt it appropriate to specifically mention its awareness month.
(Never-mind that one of my sons altered the note on the white board to say, “PTSDeez Nutz Awareness month,” it’s hard for me to not laugh at such teenage antics.)
I distributed the PTSD Awareness post in my usual places with the tag line:
“If you never submit yourself to the process, it will never work. If you think therapy never did anything for you, ask yourself: did I actually give it my all? What was I holding back??”
I got an interesting comment.
“This isn’t a particularly useful sentiment. It took me over fifteen years to find a clinician as an adult willing to respect my boundaries and who was capable of listening to my trauma without lashing out at me. Not all therapists are equal and most are simply not equipped to treat extreme trauma. I would talk about armed violence and trafficking and get ejected from therapist’s offices without a second thought.
Social media comment
Not everyone can afford good therapy.”
ME: “I’m sorry this happened to you. No journey from trauma is an easy one. Some have an extremely difficult time finding the right fit, type of therapy or therapist. “The sentiment” as you call it, is for those that have found an appropriate person or protocol and have been holding back. I believe in the validity of the statement and though it may not apply to your situation, that does not reduce its truth.”
“Your opening salvo is very clearly worded in a way that blames the patient for failing to open up as opposed to examining the competency of their therapist.
Social media comment reply
Sure, people who go to therapy and don’t try probably won’t get anything out of it. But most people go to therapy with genuine and sincere intentions and unfortunately they are not assisted because the therapist just plain sucks.
Telling people “Oh therapy didn’t work for you? Are you sure you tried hard enough?” is condescending at best.
“The process” is vague and completely unscientific and in a community where many of us are survivors of interpersonal violence suggesting we “submit” any part of ourselves over is egregiously tone deaf.”
Background
Thorns ripped through my flesh when I was trying to open up the path around the field. When we moved to this house seven years ago the path around the field was narrow and overgrown. The vines, bushes, trees, and thorns were all intertwined and competing for survival. There was honey suckle and poison sumac, trees, and what I thought was the most aggressive thorns I’d encountered to date.
Turns out, those thorns were blackberry bushes.
“Blackberry roots are perennial, but the canes themselves are biennial. Canes begin to grow one season, when they are called “primocanes,” produce fruit the second season on canes called “floricanes,” and then die. At any given time, blackberries will have canes in different stages of growth.”
–Home Guides article on Blackberries
So one year they’re just evil and rip you to shreds and the next, they produce fruit… but can still tear you up. After being called “tone deaf” I disengaged. I had a few hours of sunlight left and went out to mow more of the field.
Round and round, row by row, my thoughts sifted by the vibration of the Diesel engine. I began to humble myself and question how tone deaf I really am. I let the defensiveness drop away and stopped the creation of possible responses and began to consider what I DON’T know. Yeah, it’s a lot.
I don’t know what you’ve gone through, are going through, where you’ve been or what you’ve done. But, you don’t know me either.
Drew
So, I decided the best COA would be to contact several trusted therapists I know and submit myself to their scrutiny. This is the beginning of my message to them:
“I know you are quite busy but I am making a humble request for your time.
Could you please read https://mentalgrenade.com/ptsd-awareness/ and tell me what is wrong with it? From a clinical stand point what have I missed or gotten wrong?
I’ve encountered a few instances where there has been significant backlash from the poly-trauma/complex PTSD crowd to things that I’ve written/published. I’m trying to understand it more. I realize that my understanding of PTSD is somewhat limited to my own experience, the veteran perspective, and those that I’ve talked to. You have talked to a great deal more people with a greater cross section of diagnoses.
This question is sparked by a “conversation,” an exchange of comments on social media, in which I was called tone deaf. My initial desire to respond aggressively was tempered by my lack of time and the need to maintain a higher perspective. I spent a few hours on the tractor last night just thinking as I was mowing. It’s good to question yourself and your motives, to acknowledge your fallibility and check yourself.”
I got some excellent feedback.
“Therapy, when it is done in the context of a caring, empathic helper who is trauma informed and PTSD trained, can be very beneficial in the Post Traumatic Growth process: making meaning from the hurt, finding an appreciation for life, becoming more aware of emotional responses, connecting to faith and spirituality in an uplifting way, and giving back to others who are hurting. Therapy, done poorly, has just the opposite effect. When the therapist pushes too hard or moves too fast OR the individual isn’t ready for the trauma work, therapy can further wound and erode trust, making symptoms more severe and isolation more likely.“
There was a lot more to my conversations with them; they provided some person suggestions and pathways to growth. Hopefully I won’t just be thorny in the future, but I’ll produce fruit. When something doesn’t go to plan, are you questioning yourself? Blaming others? Something else?
Reaction vs Response; take a season and wait. You’ll be a floricane yet.
Drew founded Mental Grenade Jan 2020. He is a follower of Jesus Christ, a medically retired Marine, EOD Tech, husband, father, writer, mountain biker, photographer, facilitator, and fly-fisherman. He seeks to bridge the civilian – military divide and bring hope through honest communication about difficult issues.
These Veteran stories of struggle, adventure, and post traumatic growth need to be heard!
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These Veteran stories of struggle, adventure, and post traumatic growth need to be heard!
Join the cause to de-stigmatize mental health issues.
Please SUBSCRIBE, share our website with friends / co-workers, and support us by donation or at the STORE.
Lou
July 1, 2022 21:44I am appreciative of the fact that you sought out therapists for insight on helping yourself in order to help others. Keep on keeping on.
dakorillon
June 30, 2022 15:30PTSD, Therapists, Depression, Anxiety, Chronic Illness, Alternative Therapies.
There are a lot of problems and a lot of ways to solve problems. And sometimes they work great, and sometimes they just take the edge off and sometimes they make things worse… I think that people forget that medicine (physical or mental or even spiritual!) are a practice. Which means you don’t get it perfect (or the doc doesn’t get it perfect or the spiritual advisor, or…you get it.) And you have to practice, and they have to practice, and together MAYBE you can find things that work better, or even best, for YOU.
(Lawyers practice, too, by the way!)
Other careers generally are a job, have certain outcomes expected when certain procedures are done. And while with doctors and psychologist, therapists, etc, there are some general rules of thumb that have come about over time and PRACTICE, Sometimes, they just aren’t going to work the same way for Man, Woman and child or elder. And they have pushed, and people have come to believe that they are infallible, but it’s just not true. There are some things that they are pretty near “perfect” at, MOST emergency medicine. But anything else, I’m going to shop around, because I get tired of someone on their high horse telling me that this is what is going to work, with no thought that it may not work for me. And telling me this isn’t going to work, again no matter how many times I tell them, that something works or works better.
I have yet to find a therapist that I can work with. They are very set in their “knowledge”, and I’m just a HS grad who never did anything else “educated”. Despite the life I’ve lived, places I’ve served, things I’ve done, research I’ve accomplished, and living in and with this body and mind for mumble decades.
So I have issues that would probably be helped by a good therapist that I can work with? Yes, undoubtedly, because otherwise I wouldn’t still have issues. Will I ever find someone beside my spouse that can help? Unlikely while they are set in their ways, and especially while moving in the VA system which discourages any deviation from the “formulary” no matter how much better, cheaper, or more useful for the vet.