PTSD + EMDR Revisited

When I was run down by a sixteen-year-old driver back in 2010, I never expected how deeply life would be forever changed. To the core of my very being, I am forever different. 

While many people get their education in classrooms, or in front of monitors, mine has come from the school of hard knocks. Life has given me On-the-Job experience in fields I never intended to study. 

In the 3,115 days since life was forever altered, I’ve become an expert in two most unexpected topics: Traumatic Brain Injury, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. While never classroom trained, and being only a layperson within the field, living for 4.5 million minutes with both a TBI and PTSD equates to a lot of real-world experience. 

Today I want to share my experiences with PTSD. It’s a long story, so grab a cup of whatever you are drinking, and let’s talk. 

While TBI can ruin most any day, PTSD is downright cruel. For the first year after my accident, I would wake fifteen, sometimes twenty nights a month weeping, yelling, thrashing, sweat-covered from the most horrific nightmares you can imagine. A “good” bad night meant one terror-filled episode. A “bad” bad night meant waking up from one horror-filled scene, doing my best to pull myself together, only to fall asleep into another nightmare. 

It was not a life – it was sheer survival. Sarah and I walked around for many years in extreme sleep debt, dark circles under our eyes. Suicidal ideation was ever-present. If you lived the type of misery that defined my life, you would most likely consider an exit strategy as well. 

I need to really hammer home how difficult this was. This was not just a short chapter following an accident. This went on for many, many years. Even on the nights without terrors, I was up two, three, sometimes four times a night. A block of sleep that measured two hours was a rarity indeed. 

For years, I errantly thought that most of my struggles were TBI related, with a splash of PTSD added to make life… interesting. Over the last couple of months, I learned that this was wrong. My PTSD, and accompanying sleep challenges, were causing more problems than I ever considered, but we’ll get to that soon enough. 

Never one to suffer needlessly, and certainly not one to play the victim, I sought professional help. I could fill a book about the pathetic experiences that I’ve had within the professional community. If I sound harsh, it’s because I laid my trust in others who seemed more interested in my insurance coverage than my well-being. 

There was that doctor early on who said that I would be “completely recovered” within 12-18 months. He walked back that comment a bit later, telling Sarah and me that it would most likely be five years until I was “normal” again. That was at our last meeting with this doctor. 

“Don’t forget to pay the receptionist on your way out!” 

Let’s not forget the next PTSD professional I saw. As the common thread in my nightmares was my imminent death, he suggested that I mentally “arm myself” before I went to sleep. Always willing to go to any lengths, I followed his advice. That very night, in my sleep, as I was being attacked by armed terrorists, I pulled out some type of really big gun (I’m not a gun person, so I can only call it a really big gun). I proceeded to slaughter the cast of characters in that nightmare-scape. It was a most horrific bloodbath indeed.

 That was my first, and last visit to that particular “professional.”

Still, the nightmares continued. I have died every way imaginable, and in ways unimaginable. “How so?” asked someone in the third row.

 How about drowning, burning to death, falling off cliffs, falling into space, being shot, beaten to death on countless occasions, burning to death again, a few more drownings, and the worst of the worst – being in the presence of some type of evil, unspeakably powerful supernatural entity whose intent was to have me suffer unmercifully until it killed me.

 These were the best of times, and the worst of times.

 Wait a minute, there was no “best.” It was one never-ending bag of suck. I would start every day with my own personal gas gauge well under empty, and struggle just to get through another day. I was not living; I was merely existing. It was fucking* horrible. (*Profanity used purely for punctuation to drive home how fucking awful it was).

 Several years ago, in absolute PTSD desperation, I sought out professional help again. Throwing a dart at the calendar, this would have been six, maybe seven years post-accident. My step-son had a great experience with a neurologist, a neurologist who also claimed expertise in brain injury.

 How excited we both were heading to a new specialist. We had hope.

 “I can fix you,” he proclaimed after our intake appointment. Can you feel the excitement building? We were at a low point, desperate, and in deep and troubled waters.

 His next comment will forever be part of our narrative. “You do NOT have PTSD at all, you have sleep apnea.”

 This left us both scratching our heads, but he was, after all, the brain injury “expert.”

 He went on to say that my night terrors were caused by lack of oxygen. Fix the apnea, the terrors disappear. It sure sounded appealing. Fast forward through the next three months as I wore a CPAP machine through countess nightmares. And so ended my experience with that doctor. 

By this time, we were resigned to the fact that this is just the way life would be forever. Multiple times reaching out for help brought multiple disappointments. It was devastating, but being who we are, we did the best we could.

 The years continued to pass. There were good nights and bad. At one point I went for a couple of weeks without a single nightmare, yet my PTSD remained alive and well. My eyes would fill with tears at every passing ambulance. Passing a motor vehicle accident scene while driving was perhaps my biggest trigger. My whole body would shake, and for the remainder of that day, I would be effectively useless.

 How sad a story this would be if this was indeed the way life was destined to be until the end.

 When I write, I often don’t know where I am going with an article. Today I had no intent to delve as deeply into what life was like when I suffered with PTSD, but it’s really important that you get a good feel for some of the challenges that we’ve walked through over the years. I say “we” as this is as much Sarah’s journey as it is mine. She’s been there, by my side, though the last 3,115 days since the accident. It was her presence in my life that stayed my hand from near-certain self-harm. I love her too much to leave her with that type of legacy. No way, no how.

 “Hey David, can you fast forward to the happy ending part?” There goes that guy in the third row again.

 Let’s do it!

 Back in September of last year, my mom had a stroke. I spent my 57th birthday in an ER, mom’s fate hanging by a thread. It was the most stress I had experienced in years, and with that stress came a full-blown resurgence of PTSD.

 For months, life was again defined by multiple horrific nights prompting me to tell Sarah that it felt like year one all over again. Though I despised my PTSD, time showed that I could live with it, albeit difficult.

 A couple of months ago, in absolute and utter desperation, I again sought professional help. Life had become unsustainable. The dying will do what the living will not. I jumped to the internet and searched for a “PTSD doctor near me.” That one search has forever changed my life.

 A week later found me in the office of a true and legitimate PTSD specialist. During our intake interview, as I shared my eight+ years of history, he nodded, took notes, nodded some more, and took more notes.

 He shared that treatment would involve Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, also called EMDR. At that point I was only vaguely familiar with the concept, having done just a bit of research prior to that first visit.

 In the spirit of 100% transparency, I was skeptical. C'mon, how could I not be, given my past history. But I was a willing skeptic and made the very conscious decision to be open to trying, and let the results be the true gauge of success.

 I will spare you the details of how the process worked, other than to say that watching lights move left and right, while holding buzzers in my hands initially felt a bit silly. But the results quickly made me a convert. The core premise is that trauma memories fail to get processed, and it is those unprocessed memories that cause PTSD. Effectively process the trauma memories, and the PTSD becomes manageable.

 There was an immediate relief from my more glaring challenges. Almost overnight the nightmares ceased. That alone would have been a good reason for happy jumping-jacks. But it got even better. A passing ambulance produced no anxiety.

 "But wait, there's more!" Said the channeled voice of Billy Mays.

 Crowds, heretofore avoided, no longer bothered me. In social gatherings, I no longer felt compelled to sit by a wall, or near a door - mindful of escape. My overall sense of well-being has shifted quicker than our climate. I "feel" better than I have in many, many years.

 Over the last couple of months, I had one minor setback, and my expectations are such that I fully understand that I am not cured of PTSD. It's just that the volume has been turned down dramatically.

 Oh, the joys of restful sleep. Prior to EMDR, I had one night of "through the night sleep," in over eight years. Let that sink in for a minute. Over eight years of sleep debt. Over the last couple of months, I have learned that many of what I thought were TBI challenges were actually PTSD symptoms. While I know quite a bit about all of this, I am still learning.

 Yesterday I let my doctor know that our sessions would be coming to a close. As the outset, he predicted one-to-two months of EMDR therapy. He was spot on.

 It's hard not to be excited about this new chapter. In the span of eight short weeks, everything has changed.

 Lest I need to remind anyone, I still have a brain injury. Just a couple days ago, I had a "tough TBI day." If you are nodding now, you get it.

 Life is all about moving forward. I will continue to live mindfully. My PTSD is well-controlled for now, something I never thought possible. I am sleeping like a baby. No more 2:00 AM waking up, head racing with thoughts, no more nightmares. It's stunningly wonderful, and close to unbelievable.

 Everyone has a different path in life. Odd as it sounds, I'm grateful for the path that my life has taken. I can see the reflection of how proficient, kind and caring my new doctor is by simply looking at my past experiences. I am not embittered, nor upset. That is part of my past. Today life is okay. And compared to where I've came from, okay is just about perfect.

 Peace.

~David