A Hard Day Experiencing PTS

I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress by the MD’s at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (better known as Walter Reed or WR) and confirmed by my own therapist in Chicago,

I entered the Iraq combat zone at a very deep emotional and spiritual level when I entered WR.

I have encountered very different “triggers” to the PTS since coming back to Chicago.

Today I had a really difficult time.

For the first time since WR I had to spend the whole day at a hospital (for tests for hyperthyroidism.)

By the end of the last test I was weeping.

I had eaten at a window overlooking the grounds of the hospital and the feelings of deep sadness and pain arose.

I always sat by the window at Walter Reed overlooking the grounds and had a déjà vu experience,

I was back at the cafeteria, isolated, fearful, grieving the losses for Jason. It was in the cafeteria that I was told by one staff member, “Some parents don’t belong at WR” looking directly at me. I told him that I would stay as long as Jason needed me.

During the tests I kept flashing back to accompanying Jason to his tests especially as I sat through the sonar of his leg looking for blood clots. I could see his flesh and blood pulse through Jason on the tech’s screen. I remembered feeling queasy (but fascinated by the technology to let us see inside the living human body) and I felt queasy again.

Went to social work and processed the reawakened experience of grief with a very supportive hospital social worker.

But I feel very raw and crying today.

I have had probably 10 such major triggers for the PTS since returning to Chicago.

I honor my grief and my tears; they connect me to my deepest experience of feelings.