Upcoming TV programmes

Hi everyone,

Just dropping a line to say that there are two tv programmes coming up that are about soldiers suffering from ptsd. One is this sunday 6th sep, 9pm BBC2, and the other is the following night monday 7th sep, 8pm, channel 4. I am in scotland so i hope the tv schedule down south is the same as here.

Thank you Freedom, for the information. I made sure that we watched this programme last night. It was awfully bleak, I didn't expect Mary Poppins, but it was very negative re the future. The two younger men seemed very very damaged, but I'm not too sure how they were to start really. The older man, I felt might be able to regain some form of control on his life with the right support. I shall certainly do my best to watch tonights programme too. Many thanks. Millie

Hi Freedom

Thanks for the info. I've just checked the tv guide & the schedule is the same for the south too.

Its about time our illness was highlighted then maybe other people would understand that we battle with this on a daily basis & are not just after sympathy.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Rosie

I managed to watch the second programme. Poor blokes.

Also I have watched programmes on September 11th attrocities. There are so many people who have PTSD from that day.

During the last few days I myself have been better but I still suffer that phobia of shopping malls-I walked in yesterday then turned around and walked out again. My head feels like its gungy and I have too much acid in my stomach.

That breathing problem I developed seems to have subdued now, so thats good.

Peter, you hit the nail on the head with shopping centres. My husband has been home nearly two weeks, and the one thing that I see really changes him is shopping centres, or any sort of crowd situation. On Saturday night we had a sort of benefit thing for our son's school, and he was fine until the end when it got a bit crowded, and I had to make a quick charge for the exit clearing people out of our path, in case he tried to eat one of the innocent parents! He is now seeing a counsellor once weekly and he felt really good after seeing her, and he said he couldn't stop talking! Normally getting him to open his mouth is like trying to open an oyster with a toothpick! I am getting better, I can now watch him and see his face change, and know that he's getting all steamed up, and then we sit down and talk about it and he can get out of the feeling. With the exception of crowds. Also, and I don't know if anyone else has a problem with this, but driving. I don't mean traffic jams, but just driving, seems to get him in a right doo dah. Also, last Wednesday I got the new Paul Mackenna? Control Stress book with Hypnosis CD. He hasn't read the book yet, but has listened to the CD and says it's fantastic. I haven't personally listened to it yet, but will give it a go, but it seems to really relax and unwind him. He's never done anything like this before, and would have been somewhat dismissive if I had suggested such a thing before. However, I think this situation has in someways been an eye opener as he didn't believe he could ever feel or think the way he has been over the last couple of years, and I think it's made him more open to what might previously have been 'no go' areas if it's going to make him feel better.

Hello MIllie,

Strange old World aint it?

Remember that when I write on here (admitedly with a false name) I can speak openly and honestly. The reason I do so, is because I want others to know and understand why they might feel the way they do-should they have experienced the same thing or they feel the anguish I too feel.

I have to date, gone through the emotions of feeling survival guilt, thinking I am going mad, I am aware I have been repetative in what I write (don't mean to) I have cried many tears, I have felt discust at myself and that of the offender. But the most important thing is, that one day I became innocently involved in an incident that through no fault of my own- and with the police holding details from me also- resulted in someone sadly being murdered!

I have asked a thousand questions seeking a thousand answers, but even months later I appear to be no further forward in finding out the truth. Did the victim become a victim prior to my run in with that perpetrator, or was I supposed to be the first victim but lucky enough to realise the dangour? I have also considered that the perpetrator was not happy with their find and seeked a further victim to fulfil their expectations?

For those that are interested- feelings of survival guilt does lessen as the months pass by. I admit that I did one night have dark thoughts but that passed long ago too.

I no longer feel I am turning mad, in fact I see myself as I should have done months ago, as a victim!

I appreciate that the police are not allowed to disclose their findings of factual evidence (prior to a court case) not even to me as a witness, but that has been no comfort to me. I sometimes blame myself for being able to write all I have wrote.

Both my mother anf father have died, but this person killed has caused me more heartache! How could this be?

Millie, at least you can tell your husband he does not suffer his phobias alone, as you know I too have them.

I maybe right or possibly wrong, but I think for me, the phobia stems from being looked at-stared at-watched, scrutenised, as one day I will have to say in a court room I survived that day but I am sorry to the relatives / family, sadly your special person did not!

Being a witness in a murder case aint much fun, but I am obliged to do so as a normal caring individual who will do all they can to make sure no one else could become a victim of the perpetrator!

I hope that you (MIllie) and your husband no longer feel alone.

Peter x

Yes, there is a joy in the anonimity here, no one to judge or to measure one persons fear against anothers. I have had a fair few 'funny' things happen to me in life, but my greatest fear happened the other day when my eight year old told me that a couple of 'big boys' told him that he didn't look like a boy, and that therefore he must be a girl. I have a fear so deep and dark that all this life is a complete and absolute 'f... up for some. I had a Dad who bombed Nuremburg over and over again, in his mind, and a Mother who died of starvation. How can this happen? How can we all be here and just pottering on? I've had enough at the present. I thought all might be better with us, and I'm now not too sure. I wanted 'him' to come home so badly, I was so sure I could 'fix' him, and now I'm not so sure that he wants to fix himself. He's seeing the counsellor, and when he was working (one month on, one month off schedule) he seemed interested in the website, books, etc, but since he's come home he was great the first week, and then after he saw the counsellor, and she said that maybe it wasn't PTSD but a number of other things that could all have the same syptoms, he now dosn't pick up a book, can't be bothered to listen to a problem, because I suppose this just seems like a 'normal' website and he is far more special than that. I've read every book, and looked at every site in the past few weeks, and now I don't know what to do. I feel emotionally stuck. He has a counsellor. I just have a man who can't drive the car, can't let us have any of my kid's friends home to play, and who I am 'forced' to lie for because otherwise he feels uncomfortable. What do you think? I feel unfcomfortable too! I'm not meaning to sound bitter and twisted. But that's what I feel right now. I feel he's taking the line of least resistance, he knows if he sees the councellor I will be calm, if no-body else knows that will be fine too, but I don't have any friends now, no support system, they left about a year or two ago when he got to his worst, and he'd cleverly cut me off before and now I am alone. Thing is, whilst I've been alone, I've had time to think more. I actually don't know what I love of him, or of the man who disappeared into the dens of iniquity that needed condoms and pornography in Africa, are they one and the same, or am I just bloody well fooling myself? I want to fool myself because my little boy is the most wonderful child in the entire world, and dosn't deserve parents like either of us. Somewhere, please God, someone hear this and know, I really need help. I don't know how to continue, but at the same time I don't know how to stop continuing. I won't ever give up because if I started to shreik for help nobody would come anyway, and I'm a nice middle-class professional wife and we don't do it that way do we? I'm stuck, I can't say more, if I did it would just sound horrid. Peter, thank you so much for replying to me. You sound like you have been to hell and back again, and it takes bloody guts to do that sort of thing. But in a way you had no choice either? You happen to see something wrong? You happen to be there? What the hell can you do? You can't exactly shout 'stop' can you? So many of us are forced into things we don't like and don't want, and we sort of condone it for a few moments, and then things all get out of hand before you know about it. Sometimes it's easier to go with the flow. That sounds dreadful dosen't it? But if anyone is reading this now and didn't feel uncomfortable about what went on in Bosnia and Rawanda didn't think about all the cries of intolerance we gave when at school discussing the Holcaust send your innocence statements to me. I've always felt very 'dodgy' with both, damn it, Bosnia, was practically up the road. Thank you this website, for letting me vent my discomfort. I sent my 'better half' to bed hours ago, and I can't go to bed, because I don't want to sleep with him, and if I go to the spare room it will cause my son distress. Three sets of kids parents have recently split in his class and he's very aware of it. I don't want to leave my husband, I love the man that he was, but I detest the man that he has become, but that isn't the man he will be again. The thing is, I can appreciate this problem far more when I am pontiificating on it when he is away. When he comes home, I just pray that he will fall foul to a number 11 bus, so I wouldn't feel a hypocrite for mourning him, but given the rural transport in France, I don't suppose i'll have the bloody chance?
Millie (stupid I know, but I get a bit precious with typos, and I know I've made a couple, for forgive me anyway?

Hi Millie,

Wow that was a lot of off-loading. I hope you feel better for it as I do when I have write ups.

You said your husband has seen a counsellor and she says he probably has not got PTSD. Has his counsellor actualy experienced the complexities of PTSD? Would your husband consider getting another counsellor? He might get a different diagnoses?


I love my partner very much but I too have hated if not detested my partner at times!

Children can say the cruelest things at their young ages in fact maybe we all said things when children that we regreted later on.

If things came to the worst, would you leave your husband to start afresh or do you feel commited to stand by him? Are you aware that partners (like yourself) end up with the same symptoms as your partner due to the feelings of neglect or rejection?

I think that once your husband gets better you may do so too. Question is, how do you get him to open up?

DId you get to see that film "Passengers" if not please do.y If you have VIrgin Media you can pay for it (pay to view films).

Heres a saying I once found written on a mural "There are no strangers amongst us, just friends who have never met". So please don't think your alone and no one cares, because people like me, and I am not alone, do care!

Hope to hear from you soon.

Peter

Yes, a big unload, and you know what I felt a 100 per cent better for it. I finally went to bed, and found my other half had taken himself off to the spare room, and we both got a good night's rest, and in the morning we both sat down and talked - like grown ups (which has been somewhat rare in the last while) and Tim said that he could recognise that he had been back pedalling, and that he recognised that 'dark' thoughts were coming back. I think that all may be well with the counsellor, Tim likes her and says he can't stop himself telling her all sorts of things. Which is incredible for this oyster like man. I think what she feels is that over the last thirty years or so, in a work related way he has had so many stressful things happen...upteen people on a regular basis dying on him, eight years in a war zone, an air engine explosion etc, unfortunately very many etceteras. If you looked at his past history you would think he'd made it up, or was completely stupid for continuing doing it. All of these are evidently going to have shifted his perception of normality. However, where she thinks all the problem has come is in the last two years he was stabbed and robbed in an airport, and then not long after our little boy fell in the river and Tim fished him out blue and not breathing. It was really these two events that seem to have been the straw on the camels back. Now WE are both on the case, and discussing these things I think we both feel more in control. He saw his counsellor yesterday and told her that we'd had something of a really horrid couple of days and now I think we both realise that whilst we might have set backs and negative times, both individually and together we are both on the right path and maybe might just stumble on the way from time to time, but that that's not the reason to just chuck the towel in. His counsellor has suggested that she works with him for a few weeks and then refers him to a colleague who she knows is experienced in this field.

I have in the last couple of years at times loathed my husband, with a complete passion. At times he has acted and been an utter armpit. But underlying that was the knowledge that he always was and has been a kind and decent human being, and that I'm not without my flaws, though I'll flatten the first person who wants to point them out to me! It's just been these two years that have been bad. He lost control, and couldn't explain it. Once we pinned down and worked out what was going on and that he explained that he was 'mad' not 'bad', it all made sense and was copeable with again. I love him with a passion that's born of complete understanding. I know, normally, what makes him tick and he is going to beat this problem. We are both going to beat this problem. He was never Mary Poppins, prior to all this mess, so I don't think that I'm going find him transmoggified into a male version of the singing nun. However, I am sure that if we just remember every single day to try our bloody best to get on top of this, I will end up with the same screwed up and deeply flawed individual that I met seventeen years ago, and that will suit me just fine. We will crack this problem, because now we can see what we are dealing with and we are trying to explore the parameters of the situation and find solutions. Stupid things probably but like now we don't go shopping at peak times, I drive the car whenever the traffic is heavy, he has a check list for personal grooming (have I cleaned my teeth and used deodorant today?) and these might not seem like the stuff of moving mountains, but are certainly making differences.

I am so greatful to anyone out there that read my 'rant' of the other evening. It really got things off my chest, and avoided the temptation of applying a lump of two by four to the back of his head which seemed the other option.

Should you feel like having a 'rant' like me. Feel free to have a vent, I am here and waiting. Relatively calm, sane and mistress of my universe - for today at any rate!

All the very best - love Millie