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The Voices Know My Name
Nobody knows why one person can survive a plane or auto crash and hop right into the next plane or car, while another will relive the grinding impact, the dead bodies, the chaos, and may never fly or drive again.
Nobody wants to talk about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, nor will they read a non-fiction treatise on the subject. So, this story is in a novel format, a layman's attempt to make the problem more understandable for all of us. Perhaps understanding will hasten the advent of a cure. With suicides at an epidemic proportion, we need to face the problem with compassion.
In this story a young soldier with PTSD tries to kill himself, but he is stopped by a total stranger, a civilian. After the event, he remembers nothing. The rescuer has no intention of getting involved, but she soon realizes that he is not the only one who hears voices or can't cope with bad memories. Together with three others who become friends, they search through crisis after crisis for a way to find "normal," or at least a "new normal."
Following two years of research and over 150 interviews with victims of PTSD and their families, we find that life is filled with trauma...no one can escape it, and each person responds to it differently. It isn't so much what happens to us, as how we learn to handle the evemt The new designation is simply Post Traumatic Stress (PTS). A former president, George W. Bush, worked for seven years to get the "disorder" removed, since in military parlance, disorder means a mental disease, and one can be removed from the military for having it. This is NOT a mental disease. Without the "D word," patients are more apt to seek help rather than trying to hide their affliction.
PTSD/PTS is not confined to soldiers, though they no doubt are exposed to more trauma than most of us. We all experience some type of trauma in our lives. From a child's loss of a pet to an adult's diagnosis of disease, from a rape to a home invasion or the death of a spouse or child. The "fight or flight mechanism" is your body sending endorphins to your brain to help you survive the immediate danger or distress. For most, this "rush" of adrenalin shuts down soon after the trauma is over, but for some, it never does. People with PTSD may relive that trauma painfully again and again, even though it may interfere with their daily lives.
Follow the five characters in this novel as their lives entwine to search for answers and hope. They will convince the victim to seek help, and the rest of us to begin to understand.
(note) Should you see yourself in this book, or perhaps a friend or loved one, look at the Appendix in the back that provides numbers and emails of places to seek help.
Nobody wants to talk about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, nor will they read a non-fiction treatise on the subject. So, this story is in a novel format, a layman's attempt to make the problem more understandable for all of us. Perhaps understanding will hasten the advent of a cure. With suicides at an epidemic proportion, we need to face the problem with compassion.
In this story a young soldier with PTSD tries to kill himself, but he is stopped by a total stranger, a civilian. After the event, he remembers nothing. The rescuer has no intention of getting involved, but she soon realizes that he is not the only one who hears voices or can't cope with bad memories. Together with three others who become friends, they search through crisis after crisis for a way to find "normal," or at least a "new normal."
Following two years of research and over 150 interviews with victims of PTSD and their families, we find that life is filled with trauma...no one can escape it, and each person responds to it differently. It isn't so much what happens to us, as how we learn to handle the evemt The new designation is simply Post Traumatic Stress (PTS). A former president, George W. Bush, worked for seven years to get the "disorder" removed, since in military parlance, disorder means a mental disease, and one can be removed from the military for having it. This is NOT a mental disease. Without the "D word," patients are more apt to seek help rather than trying to hide their affliction.
PTSD/PTS is not confined to soldiers, though they no doubt are exposed to more trauma than most of us. We all experience some type of trauma in our lives. From a child's loss of a pet to an adult's diagnosis of disease, from a rape to a home invasion or the death of a spouse or child. The "fight or flight mechanism" is your body sending endorphins to your brain to help you survive the immediate danger or distress. For most, this "rush" of adrenalin shuts down soon after the trauma is over, but for some, it never does. People with PTSD may relive that trauma painfully again and again, even though it may interfere with their daily lives.
Follow the five characters in this novel as their lives entwine to search for answers and hope. They will convince the victim to seek help, and the rest of us to begin to understand.
(note) Should you see yourself in this book, or perhaps a friend or loved one, look at the Appendix in the back that provides numbers and emails of places to seek help.
221 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 3, 2017
3 people want to read
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