Being vocal and speaking out about PTSD is the first step to getting help.
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Sam DeSilva has been blogging about PTSD since being caught in the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia. More of his writing can be found here.
It’s been over a week since my last couple of posts, where I admitted I was struggling after returning to Sri Lanka.
Since arriving, it’s been a little rough at times, but I felt everything was going relatively well and I was managing, or at least I thought I was until I had 3 or 4 bad days of severely broken sleep coupled with horrific nightmares, which eventually led to me breaking down. Obviously, there were other factors that contributed, you could probably “connect the dots” from the posts I’ve written since arriving, but things fell apart, or were all triggered and intensified, by the return to Sri Lanka.
Just like my own experience of being caught in the tsunami, that phone call is something I’ll never forget.
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Although I was caught in the tsunami in Thailand, the trauma and destruction of what the Asian Tsunami did to Sri Lanka hit me harder in certain respects than my own personal experience.
Knowing the country where my family are originally from was one of the worst hit countries by the 2004 Asian Tsunami was almost impossible to process properly and severely compounded my survivor’s guilt. Unlike the millions that were affected by the death and devastation in Sri Lanka which included some of my own family, they weren’t born in London like me and couldn’t easily afford to just hop on a plane to return home to the safety and stability of Great Britain.
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After that initial phone call home to London, once making it off the island, 36 hours after being caught in the Asian Tsunami, I first had a chance to speak my family who thought I had died on the island as they hadn’t heard from me for two days, the shock, guilt or trauma, or possibly all of the above has never really left me.
Just like my own experience of being caught in the tsunami, that phone call is something I’ll never forget. I hadn’t really slept in over 30 hours and could barely speak about what I had experienced, added to that I didn’t want my mum to worry any more than she already had by telling her how bad the island really was and what I saw others go through. At the time I still thought Emma, Pata, and Linny were dead, I couldn’t really open up, everything felt so alien.
I ended the post “Emotionally Numb” by saying that I was going to see a trauma specialist.
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It was during that call that I found out that the tsunami hadn’t just hit Thailand but it was an international disaster of an epic scale that had hit many other countries in Asia including Sri Lanka. I’ll never forget that moment, I was still in shock from what I had experienced, it was too much deal with so soon after leaving the island and as a result I never dealt with what happened, it was hard enough dealing with what happened in Thailand, Sri Lanka was something I had to process later. However, that never really happened, which why I’ve probably struggled.
I left Thailand two months ago and since arriving here, I’ve tried to face up to what happened but there’s a lot to deal with. My difficulties haven’t just been to do with what happened during the tsunami it’s more the associated secondary traumas which occurred post-tsunami that from time to time still mess me up today and led to me to that day where I really broke down and wrote “This is a low”. That was followed the day after when I wrote “Emotionally numb”, which I tried to express the polarity in how I felt from the day before.
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I ended the post “Emotionally Numb” by saying that I was going to see a trauma specialist. I was reluctant about admitting I needed some help again as well as going to see someone new, especially here in Sri Lanka. To be honest, I was already planning my escape back to Chiang Mai or returning home to London (after the Brussel attacks and writing “I see humans but no humanity”). I didn’t want to stay here being so emotional, with everything that it re-triggers from my past.
Once again his serendipitous timing has helped me feel better about where I am and feels like the perfect conclusion or message to take away from this post.
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Thankfully, I’m in a much better place emotionally, hence, that is why I’m writing this post. I am Reaching out to get some help despite my initial apprehension has been beneficial.
There’s a lot more I’d like to write about but it’s coming up to 3am, and I have another session with the PTSD specialist tomorrow morning, I need to get some sleep.
I want to end this post by thanking everyone for their support, it honestly means a lot, especially after the last couple of posts where I was in a bit of a bad place. Super grateful.
Professor Allen Frances of Duke University literally just tweeted (20 minutes ago) about my post “This is a low” and once again his serendipitous timing has helped me feel better about where I am and feels like the perfect conclusion or message to take away from this post.
“Crucial never to lose hope no matter how bad the #PTSD symptoms or awareness they do get better with time/treatment.”
This article was originally published on PTSD Jedi.