How I Overcame PTSD After 20 Years

Tomorrow marks the 20th anniversary of my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I was a police officer, and I arrived first at a tower block where two teenage girls had jumped and died. I had to guard one of their bodies for hours, and I lost my mind in the process.

Every year, I suffer in the lead-up. I experience flashbacks, nightmares, and panic attacks. I become short-tempered and mess up everything I touch.

Until this year.

This year, if I could see a good psychiatrist, they might say I don’t have PTSD anymore. I haven’t had a flashback or panic attack in months. I don’t avoid reminders of the incident. I can discuss any traumatic things I’ve seen. I sleep like a baby.

It’s taken me 20 years to get here, but I made it despite doctors telling me I was 100% disabled for life. Here’s how I proved them all wrong.

1. Medication.

The “experts” did one thing for me. They gave me medication that helped with my depression and symptoms of Schizophrenia. I tried twelve different combinations, but everyone reacts differently.

It was an arduous process of side effects and letdowns. Every combination took up to 6 weeks to trial, and I had to start again when they failed.

The psychiatrists used a computer program to prescribe these combinations. If a combo failed, they would move down the list. I could have cut out the middleman if they had sold me the program.

I wouldn’t be here without medication, and I’ve accepted that I need it for life to deal with my Schizophrenia. There’s a lot of anti-medication propaganda for mental illness. Some people blame the sufferer by accusing them of being weak.

People don’t hesitate to seek treatment for a broken leg, and a fractured mind is no different.

2. Love from family.

Once the medication brought me to a stable level, I could start to feel loved again. When in the throes of PTSD, it feels like there’s a physical shield between you and everyone else. Nothing they do can penetrate.

When the shield broke, I was at rock bottom. I needed to be around people that loved me. It wasn’t the time for pride. In many ways, I’d become infantilized.

In 2008, I signed documents to give my mum complete control over my bank account and finances. I couldn’t even remember how to log in to an app. I forgot about this until yesterday when the bank asked if I still wanted the arrangement. I’m now a six-figure stock market investor. It served as a beautiful reminder of how far I’ve come.

My mom and girlfriend have supported me during tough times and fought for me to get help and have a better life. I’m lucky beyond measure.

3. I stopped keeping secrets.

PTSD grows in the shadows. It thrives in secrecy. Until this year, I felt unable to talk about the triggering event at all. I’d refer to it as “the incident,” “the tower block,” or “the anniversary.” I kept so many secrets about that night.

My family knew what happened from the news, but I shone a light on the shadows this year and revealed everything.

Most of the things I kept secret revolved around the injuries to the victims. I won’t write them here, but that’s to spare you, not me. They are all you’d expect from two people falling eleven stories.

I also felt guilty. When I arrived at the scene, paramedics told me one of the victims was dead and the other was dying. I relayed this to my sergeant as he arrived. The other victim died later in hospital.

The paramedic said it first, and the victim couldn’t hear. I felt the victim had given up on life after hearing me say she was dying. I spent two decades thinking I’d killed her.

Now, I’m an open book. Anyone can ask me anything about that case, and I’ll discuss it. I feel as if someone has lifted a cancer from my brain, making me hundreds of pounds lighter. I no longer carry the burden of that night alone. It was never mine to carry.

4. I said the victim’s names.

A vital part of the secrecy was not saying the names of the victims. Because I felt I’d killed one of them, I never felt worthy enough to say their names. They haunted me, and I believed that saying their names would result in punishment.

On every anniversary, I’ve expected punishment. In 2019, my dad died on the same day, and this further reinforced my fear.

I know there’s no such thing as ghosts and divine punishment; if there is, I haven’t earned it. I don’t believe in god, the afterlife, or anything supernatural. So why did I think two dead girls with a grudge were stalking me?

This year, I decided to banish these crazy notions altogether. I say their names every day. I’m not letting the trauma retreat into the darkness to torture me any longer.

Again, I won’t say them here because I don’t want to cause upset for anyone who might have known them. But this is all part of me taking back control of my life.

5. I wrote about it.

Writing is my medium for communicating with the world. I write to help others, but it also helps me.

Writing helps me sort out my thoughts and deal with shocking events. I bleed on the page in the hope that someone somewhere benefits from the lessons my pain has taught me.

The best way to pull PTSD out of the shadows is to write about it to thousands of people. People who read my work know what they’re getting and can choose to read or not.

For a while, I received bad advice from a “guru” on here who told me my writing was too raw and painful. According to them, the rawness would shock people. I believed them, so I wrote fluff for a bit.

But PTSD has no fluff, and PTSD is why I’m here. Writing has been one of my saviors.

6. I decided I wouldn’t tolerate it any longer.

It’s as simple and complicated as that. When I was 16, years of relentless bullying had pushed me to sit in the bathroom, crying and wishing for death. At that moment, I vowed never to let anyone bully me again.

Mental illness has been bullying me.

The dead have been bullying me.

I felt like a fraud. I was still getting pushed around after all these years. When I saw it like that, I could do only one thing.

I decided I wouldn’t put up with it for a moment longer. I decided to go where I wanted, talk about what I wanted, and never have another secret or shadow in my life again.

It sounds “easier said than done,” but it hasn’t been easy. I’ve had to go to the roots of my deepest pain and rip it out. I didn’t have the luxury of a therapist for two reasons. Firstly, they’re useless, and secondly, I’d be on a waiting list for 4–5 years unless I paid an excessive amount. So, like everything else with my illness, my family and I did it alone.

Final thoughts.

My approach may or may not work for you.

That’s ok.

The main takeaway from this article is that it’s never too late to recover. Twenty years is a long time, yet I still found a way back. And I didn’t do anything special. I found strength within and pushed myself because I knew the reward would be worth it.

Tomorrow, on the 20th anniversary, I won’t be crying. I won’t stay awake until 3:30 am to mark the occasion, and I won’t be begging “ghosts” for forgiveness. I won’t let fear scare me, and I won’t let the shadows hide me.

Instead, it will be a typical day. I’ll still think about the victims because what happened was a tragedy. But it wasn’t MY tragedy, and it wasn’t MY fault.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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