USA Today: Hundreds of soldiers with PTSD given diagnosis of "personality disorder"

I am speechless at the way our warriors are treated.

Excerpt from USA Today: Hundreds of Soldiers with PTSD incorrectly dismissed

Unlike PTSD, which the Army regards as a treatable mental disability caused by the acute stresses of war, the military designation of a personality disorder can have devastating consequences for soldiers.

Defined as a "deeply ingrained maladaptive pattern of behavior," a personality disorder is considered a "pre-existing condition" that relieves the military of its duty to pay for the person's health care or combat-related disability pay.

According to figures provided by the Army, the service discharged about a 1,000 soldiers a year from 2005 to 2007 for having a personality disorder.

But after an article in The Nation magazine exposed the practice, the Defense Department changed its policy and began requiring a top-level review of each case to ensure post-traumatic stress or a brain injury wasn't the underlying cause.

After that, the annual number of personality disorder cases dropped by 75%. Only 260 soldiers were discharged on those grounds in 2009.

At the same time, the number of post-traumatic stress disorder cases has soared. By 2008, more than 14,000 soldiers had been diagnosed with PTSD — twice as many as two years before.

The article continues with one soldiers story...

Luther was seven months into his deployment as a reconnaissance scout in Iraq's violent Sunni Triangle in 2007 when he says a mortar shell slammed him to the ground. He later complained of stabbing eye pain and crippling migraines, but was told by a military doctor that he was faking his symptoms to avoid combat duty.

Luther says that he was confined for a month in a 6-by-8 foot room without treatment. At one point, Luther acknowledges, he snapped — biting a guard and spitting in the face of a military chaplain.

He "snapped".

After a month of confinement following being dismissed as "faking" his physical pain.

Go figure.

Read the entire article here: Hundreds of soldiers with PTSD incorrectly dismissed

Empowering Solutions: Special Edition!

Join us this Thursday August 19th at 8EST/7CST/5Pacific Time on Blog Talk Radio for this months "Special Edition" of Empowering Solutions!

This week on "Empowering Solutions: Special Edition" guest Angela Utschig who owns an Addiction Intervention Service in Wisconsin shares her knowledge and experience in identifying the life-cycle of trauma from childhood to adult and some empowering solutions to support your own journey to wellness!

Register for your free email reminder here at Heal My PTSD!

Empowering Solutions is all about recognizing our own personal power to affect the change we want in our lives. Each month our goal is to offer information, ideas and resources that will empower you to take charge of your healing journey and create your own best life each day!

Life Lessons and Zebra's

Zebra Long Wing Butterfly

Photo Credit

Life Lessons from a Butterfly

let go of the past
trust the future
embrace change
come out of your cocoon
unfurl your wings
dare to get off the ground
ride the breezes
savor all the flowers
put on your brightest colors
let your beauty show

— Author Unknown

Over at Zebra Sounds Judy got me thinking about the life lessons that we learn from our life experiences.

You see - in the past I had believed the lie that I was the cause of all things bad in my life...so it was pretty impossible for me to see my life experiences from a positive perspective of life lessons.

So today I wanted to throw out there the idea that when we can begin to see ourselves as separate from others and life circumstances we become free to be that "student who is ready"...

Here are a few life lessons I've been picking up on lately....

1. When I stop trying to figure it out I usually figure it out:)

2. Insomnia is usually caused by #1

3. Eyes really are the window to the soul

4. Every behavior is an expression of an emotion; every emotion is the expression of a thought

5. I don’t have to know it all or do it all when I simply do my best

6. Multitasking is the cause of insanity:)

Q: What are some life lessons you've had lately?

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How To Be Alone and Dance like No One is Watching

How to be alone

By Tanya Davis

If you are at first lonely, be patient. If you’ve not been alone much, or if when you were you were not okay with it, then just wait. You’ll find its fine to be alone once you’re embracing it. We can start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library, where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the box, your not suppose to talk much anyway so its safe there....(continue reading here....)

Taking Time, Living in Wellness

Blue Flowers

May 2010

Part of creating a new paradigm of "Wellness" is living in balance, taking time to look at things, to enjoy the moment intentionally...to truly experience the abundance of life that we can find in one

simple

moment....

leaving "busy" behind and taking a breath.

For just a moment....

find something of natural beauty in your own world...

the sky

a cloud

a rain storm

a puddle

a butterfly

a bird

and watch it in it's natural state of "being"

without judgement

or question.

Just knowing

that it

is.

Experience this moment

observe

the breeze

the color

the texture

the scent.

For a moment

just

be.

Then - if you would be willing to share - I'd like to invite you to come back later and share what you experienced in your moment of "being" and creating that balance in your own day.

Namaste :)

Writing a New Ending to the Trauma Experience

Background photo credit here

This picture hangs on the wall by my front door. I created it as a part of my healing process to exemplify my experience of what it was like for me to "go through" the pain to "get out of" that dark place of shame and claim my "me-ness" which btw - was the exact place where I discovered that in spite of the past, the traumas, I could begin to create my best life each day. This is where I made the mind-shift to lay claim to one of my tag lines...

"No longer a victim and more than a survivor; creating and living my best life!"

Today let's take a look at part of the insight - those "aha!" moments - that led me down this path...

What's the diff between "story" and "story"?

What I've found along the way is that I would often get stuck in "story"...

the "reliving" of the past where nothing good ever came of the situation.

This is that place where I am literally "stuck" in the anger and injustice at the past.

Where I'm focussed on those people who wronged me

the situations and circumstances where I felt powerless and indeed may have been powerless - like a car accident, an abuse situation, or where I trusted someone and was betrayed.

This is "rumination".

This is where I lived in resentment

and grudges.

My anger was often justified at those things - those people places and things that I had put my trust in and in some way I was injured.

But I have since learned to use this anger to propel me through the healing journey.

How?

By recognizing "anger" as part of the natural human healing process

and

with intention

moving from the anger at the injustice and pain

through the emotional healing process

to reach the grief

the tears

the deep inner wounds

and let go

of the idea of finding justice where there may be none

accepting that I was truly powerless in this situation

that ruminating it over and over will not create a different outcome

or give me power to force justice for my pain

and in letting go of the "anger"

and telling the "story" over and over in my head and to anyone who would listen

I was able to get to my "story"

embrace and integrate the pain of the past

into my today

and allow the end to finally be written

in my tears.

Haiku

Listen in to how I learned to use anger to fuel my healing and find freedom from the pain of the past Empowering Solutions: Letting Go of the Battle

Q: How have you made that shift from "story" to creating the ending, finding closure and creating your best life in spite of past traumas?

Empowering Solutions: Us Against Them/Me Against You

Part of this healing journey can take us through some very dark places; places where sadness, depression, anger and rage can consume us; we can find ourselves feeling “mad at the world” and projecting this anger at those around us. This month we’re going to explore this dilemma and offer some “empowering solutions”.

Listen to internet radio with Heal My PTSD on Blog Talk Radio

Transparency and True "Informed Consent" in Mental Health Care

Photo Credit

Personally I do not advocate "for" or "against' psychiatric medications for anyone. I believe that each individual must come to their own conclusions.

What I DO advocate for is complete and truthful transparency that those who suffer are given all options and accurate information that they can make their own informed and educated decisions regarding their health care with all options provided - including the view that cognitive and emotional distress are not a biological disorder but a normal human response to overwhelming life experiences - and that we can learn the life skills to manage the thoughts that fuel the emotional and cognitive distress called "mental illness".

Below is a quote from and link to an interview between Steve Coe and Robert Whitakre regarding Whitakre's book "Anatomy of an Epidemic"...and the interesting point here is the source of Whitakre's research material.

"And what I'm doing in this book is looking at the research done by the NIMH, the research done by the World Health Organization. And, all I'm doing here is saying, look at what your studies show over time. I'm not doing the research. I'm really only the guy holding up the documents and asking what story do they tell over time." ~ Robert Whitakre Interview with Steve Coe April 2010

"Consumers" of mental health services have been speaking up for years about the issues of overmedicating and available alternatives to the medical management of human distress. But to be anything other than a "compliant" patient is to put oneself at risk of losing what support and resources have been available.

Unfortunately once having been marked with the label of "mental illness" these people are often not heard and frequently dismissed as "disgruntled", "difficult", resistant" and simply "mental", dissidents and troublemakers, who are at risk of being further labeled and experiencing some consequence for having an opinion that differs from that of the mainstream pharmaceutical position.

So thank you, Robert Whitakre, for speaking up for those whose voices have been silenced and dismissed as not worthy of being heard once having been branded as "mentally ill".

Read the entire article here.

Whitakre is scheduled to be a Keynote speaker this fall at the National Conference for the Mental Health Recovery Movement in Anaheim California.

Anatomy of an Epidemic at Amazon.com

Q: Have you had a personal experience that you would like to share - either positive or negative?

Grief is an Emotion, Not an "illness"

Photo credit links to story on Oprah.com

I don't often watch television since I've left behind "illness" for this new, full life of "wellness"...

I don't watch a lot of television but one day earlier this week I got home and flipped on the tv to a program on Oprah. The story was heart-wrenching - when he was just 9, Aaron's twin brother died of a brain tumor.

Aaron told his Mom that he "didn't want to be here anymore".

Aaron's Mom of course, calls the pediatrician who saved Aaron's life in more ways than one.

First, instead of labeling him "mentally ill" with "suicidal ideation" and "clinical depression" and so on....

she listened to him and heard his pain, saw his grief.

Then she helped Nate to make meaning from this horrendous loss and honor his brothers memory by using his pain to fuel his passion for cooking.

Grief is a normal human emotion....

a normal human response to loss

not an illness.

Aaron missed the "magic bullet" and the drugs that would have changed him and his life forever.

Three cheers and a whole bunch of hurrahs for a doctor who listened and allowed this boy his tears instead of labeling him "disordered" and giving him that lifetime membership to "Club MI".

You can read the entire story here.

Intellect and Insight

"Insight is the light in the darkness"

Photo by Susan 2010

"Intellectualizing" and "insight" are two buzzwords that seem to carry quite a bit of weight in the field of mental health....and are also very vague in application to ones own journey.

So what's the diff?

Well - lets think about it for a minute.

Intellectualizing to me is the shopping for that "nugget of truth"; it's like going to the supermarket and holding up a can of tomatoes and reading the ingredients to determines which brand will be most economical, which variety has the spices that will best serve the recipe I"m putting together.

In the Dictionary:

intellect |ˈintlˌekt|nounthe faculty of reasoning and understanding objectively

It's the taking in of information that will empower me to make the best choice for my purposes.

It's also a term often used in the mental health industry where I was discouraged from doing exactly this - taking in information that I could make my own choices about how my journey would play out...

I saw the providers as the authority - and since I doubted myself so deeply - I had committed to being a malleable "patient" - a "good" patient that was compliant and submissive to their authority, I accepted the labels they offered and their assessment that there was no hope or solution to what they had termed an "illness" and that I was "disordered".

"Intellectualizing" therefore was discouraged in my journey through the mental health system under the (perhaps well intended but harmful) assumption that since I had experienced emotional and cognitive distress that I was therefore incapable of coming to my own conclusions and was "intellectualizing" to avoid the "hard work" of the therapy relationship.

So I was discouraged from finding my own "insight"

my own answers

from finding an understanding that I was not "ill" or "disordered"; an understanding that would free me from dependence on people places and things outside of myself to maintain my "stability"

but that I held the power within myself to develop the awareness that I could learn the life skills and seek the knowledge that would empower me with the wisdom to create and live the life of my choosing

every day.

insight |ˈinˌsīt|nounthe capacity to gain an accurate and deep intuitive understanding of a person or thing

One of my first "insights"?
Was that coming from a background of abuse that was based on power and control that I was extremely vulnerable to the labels that were presented to me and that I adopted as my "truth" and by which I came to define myself.
And - that in order to begin to define myself and let go of "illness" I had to see myself as a person who had been injured - not a diagnosis - to begin to find "wellness".
Insight then is the application of the truth discovered through the intellectual understanding
the "aha" moments where we see the light in the darkness.

Letting go of Labels is a post I wrote earlier this year.
If you would like more information and resources about creating your own journey from "illness" to one of "wellness" please check the Resources page here.
Q: Have you had your own "aha" moment of insight that changed your journey?

I realized that I was not the cause of all things "bad"

In making that mind-shift from living in and managing "illness" to learning to live in today and live a life of "wellness" I did a couple of things; I learned to listen to and connect to my thoughts, my emotions and how these fueled the choices I made...and I learned to trust myself.

Unrest. That feeling of "something's not right" was not something I was familiar with "listening to". In fact - if things were not "A-OK" then I knew....I just knew - that I had done something wrong and I would work myself into a frenzy to try to "figure out" what I had to do to "fix it".

That came from part of that belief system where I had been programmed from the beginning to believe that I had little or no value outside of that which my family (the term "family" used very loosely here) said that I had.

It also stemmed from the need for safety and security that was lacking having grown up in a less than (huuurrrmmph) stable environment.

So I would frantically try to understand what it was that I had done to "cause" the unrest in my world and when I viewed myself as the source of world domination (ie all bad things were somehow my fault)

I carried a tremendous, unbearable heavy load that over a lifetime became overwhelmingly more and more difficult to bear.

And in time, when I could no longer carry this burdeon that I was somehow defective, bad and the cause of not only my own discomfort and pain

but that of eveyone around me

I shut down.

I got very reactive

defensive

and unable to, even in my own mind, make much sense of things.

And it took time some time and practice but I learned to use those "reactions" - that sense of "somethings not right"

the negative thoughts about myself that I am the sole cause of others pain and anguish

and thus their happiness

the fear of what someone else might do or say if I make a choice different than what they might "approve" of

to guide me from "there" in that "dark place" where I am both the villain and the victim searching for someone to tell me what to do, how to make the "right" choice, how to "fix" whatever it is that is causing the unrest within my own being

to that place of peace and acceptance where I am in control and the Maestro, orchestrating not the world that belongs to others

but that of my own.

Owning it

Meet Zeus!

I'm always looking around inside and outside of myself to find ways to explain what it is that I've been able to do as I've created this new paradigm of wellness for myself...

It's one thing to know that I've been able to make that mind-shift for myself from "illness" to "wellness" it's another thing to be able to share with others just how I did that - how I found my way from "there" aka that very dark place to "here" where I live in the light and create the life of my choosing each day - minus the chronic "symptoms" of "mental illness" and the smorgasbord of "diagnosis" that I had accepted for many, many years. (More on my journey is here)

So today's metaphor comes from my dogs. Well - one of them lives with me (Brindle:)) the other visits when my son is out of town (Zeus:)).

And today I'd like to introduce you to Zeus - and tell you that when he and Brindle are playing, he OWNS his rawhide...

"Owns" as in he walks around with it in his mouth, he tosses it up in the air and pounces on it like a puppy, shakes it back and forth as though he was the magnificent hunter that brought home dinner....

He doesn't hesitate, doesn't seem doubtful of himself.

He is "dog".

He IS

and he doesn't doubt that.

He is Master of the Rawhide.

Confident....sure of his place in the world of rawhides:)

And this is what I've found to be so vital to my own healing, making that mind shift from the dark tormenting thoughts that could drag me down and cause me such misery and recognizing the source of that doubt as from the lies of the past where I was taught that I was "less than"

not "good enough"

couldn't do things "right enough"

that whatever was wrong in the world it was

"my fault".

I learned that I had to OWN my existence - my "I am-ness" and become master of my own journey and my healing, not question it or doubt it but to embrace it, play with it, experiment in my days, find the internal confidence that cancels the doubt that could keep me frozen and inert.

I used the negative thoughts to guide my changes and learn to "over-ride" the negative messages that ran constantly in what I call the "subtitles" in the back of my mind that fueled that feeling of "less than" and caused me to instinctively want to isolate from the world and hide in my shame that something was "wrong" with me.

Is this kind of internal change "easy" to come by?

No.

But it is so well worth it.

See "Was it Worth It?" here.

Q: How have you learned to OWN your own wellness and create that mind-shift from "illness" to one of living in "wellness"?