Ghosts of trauma past
John Roberts on controlling his own, and other people's, post-traumatic stress disorder: just a TV programme, a film, a smell or the wrong word might set you off
An incident will have been so shattering that it dramatically changes the situation they're in and influences the way they'll behave and think for years. In contrast with other responses to disaster, post-traumatic stress disorder (P.T.S.D) has delayed effects. Feelings of anger and terror don't go away; they are continually re-triggered in panic attacks and flashbacks.
Your heart pounds, you feel dizzy, everything makes you jump out of your skin. Adrenaline is pumped round your body. After an attack, you're lethargic; it's like letting air out of a balloon.
There is no cure, but there are ways of learning to cope. A simple thing like pinging an elastic band you wear on your wrist can prove an instant distraction during a panic attack and stop your thoughts.
I'm offering P.T.S.D recognition courses and training to staff of Parents Like You, a charity in Liverpool helping social services and the local youth offending team to support parents of children with challenging behaviour. They may have been sexually abused, or witnessed a horrific incident. I've just been asked by a child protection team in the Wirral to talk to a woman in her thirties who saw a murder when she was six years old.
I've developed risk assessment courses for the Greater Manchester Fire Service that will become an integral part of firefighters' training. One aim is to show ways of spotting people susceptible to P.T.S.D and set up an "at risk" register. If someone started blowing their top in situations they'd previously managed well, and if they didn't revert to their former selves, colleagues could be on alert. Those changes might just be a phase or they might be an indication of the onset of P.T.S.D.
Unlike most other people, firefighters, paramedics and the police cannot evade danger but must run directly into it - and that increases the potential for PTSD. I see my work for the Greater Manchester Fire Service as an acknowledgment of the real danger of P.T.S.D for people working in the emergency services. The fire service already has a counselling and medical team in place. But, as denial is such a major part of P.T.S.D, getting people to use the facilities is problematic.
I've specialised in P.T.S.D counselling since 1995. It focuses on changing how people view their environment, rather than delving too much into the past. I've developed an assessment document to see how people deal with anger, how they look at the world, what influences that outlook. A 12-week course of one or two weekly hour-long sessions will move individuals along and help them change the way they look at things. For public sector agencies, courses are short, educational and geared to suit different levels - from managers to front line staff.
Because I've suffered from P.T.S.D, I can ask things others can't. I can get people to describe a panic attack by telling them about mine.
It took 27 years for me to realise, in 1993, I'd had P.T.S.D since 1966. I was a 21-year-old airman off duty in Aden. I'd run over and killed a child - the son of a wanted anti-British terrorist. A price was put on my head. For six months before the inquest - at which I was absolved of liability - I'd had no protection and left the base never knowing if I'd return alive.
The accident was devastating. From being a mouse, I'd become an aggressive, demanding obsessive. In later years, I fixated upon my kids' safety to ensure - having killed one child - that mine would be super-secure. It was classic P.T.S.D stuff.
The first step is accepting that you have the condition. Then you must identify the triggers for your flashbacks, your night sweats, depressions, mood swings, memory losses and rages. Just a TV programme, a film, a smell or the wrong word might set you off. If you manage to control your responses to these triggers just once, you know you've found some solution and can do so again.
Working or living with a P.T.S.D sufferer is nerve-wracking. Families feel they're having to walk on eggshells to avoid the outbursts they assume they've provoked. But they're not responsible. That's why P.T.S.D family therapy is important.
Guardian.co.uk
