See this too: “This is a brain injury situation”
I shared the post that I did explaining how it struck me that what I am experiencing, in part, as a result of the psychiatric drug withdrawal, is PTSD — with the neuropsych doctor who has been my friend and supporter since the beginning of this journey. I’ve said before that his influence was a catalyst in my process, though he never suggested this path to me he always answered my questions to the best of his ability and honestly.
You’ll see he continues his frank honesty with me below which I greatly appreciate. I have his permission to share this.
Hi Gianna,
Thanks for sending me this notice and your thoughts. Another great post. I feel you are exactly right about what you’re saying and how you’re seeing it.I was just presenting some data on complex PTSD at the International Society for the Study of Traumatic Stress in Montreal. I’ve gotten connected with Ruth Lanius (who does brain imaging of complex PTSD), Julian Price (who looks at emotion regulation problems from complex PTSD), and Bessel van der Kolk (who coined the term “complex PTSD”). I think it is important that you’ve come to this understanding about what is happening (it allows for that calmer witness you describe). Though it isn’t helping right now, it is a critical component for getting better.
Here’s the part that may not feel so good to hear, though. I strongly suspect, as do you, that the medications you took for so long have damaged your brain. I think your brain will repair itself over time and, despite how it feels, is repairing as we speak. I think the psychological trauma you’ve experienced has really compounded the recovery. It was traumatic to realize what had been done and most definitely traumatic to have experienced what you’ve experienced through your withdrawal ordeal. The part that isn’t good to hear is that there really aren’t good treatments yet for the combination of problems. The Middle Eastern wars are giving us a chance to see lots of people with the combination of traumatic brain injury and PTSD, but they aren’t responding particularly well to the better PTSD treatments. This was the conclusion of the world’s experts who were at the meeting in Montreal.
I think that you are having a prolonged recovery due in part to the PTSD, but I think your prospects of overcoming the PTSD will require improved brain functioning. It won’t have to be all better, but I think it’ll have to be better than it is. Lots of the symptoms you are experiencing are not PTSD related but rather are from either impairment to your brain or even the recovery of your brain (initial recovery may not feel particularly good, think about walking on a broken ankle after the break has healed).
So, I think you’re really on to something, but I think PTSD treatment is premature right now as there’s still more brain recovery that has to occur before it can be useful for you. I do think the GABA receptors will reestablish and the interneuron inhibitory circuits will get stronger, but I don’t think this will be the end of it as the PTSD will still have to be addressed.
Hopefully, there’s some benefit in really knowing what is going on. Accurate identification is a big start on getting to where you want to be.
Again, thanks for sharing this with me. I hope my thoughts are not discouraging as that is not their intent. I have never pulled harder for anyone to feel better than I do for you.
All the best and give my best to (your husband),
Your doctor
I’ll let you all know that what he said was NOT discouraging. I’m living this and it’s obvious to me it’s going to be a long haul so it’s nice that it be recognized by someone. I also knew before sharing this information with him that treatment at the moment would be premature.
Most importantly I also have other means of interpreting what is happening to me and I’m getting help from people who share those interpretations. I see a large part of what is happening to me from a spiritual perspective and I trust that this is, ultimately, a healing journey. I will perhaps share with the readers of this blog some of those thoughts in the future.
My husband in turn shared these thoughts on what my doctor wrote:
His perspective is very useful and I doubt that you could communicate with anyone who is better informed on these issues. It confirms what I have long sensed: that time is the most important factor here. Which is to say, that the physical process of repair will take a certain amount of time yet we can only know what that amount of time is retrospectively. So a major part of the coping process requires embracing this fact that we don’t know how long it will take. Confidence that healing is possible is vital and I hope what he says gives you such confidence.
What happens with the PTSD component when your neurological healing has advanced far enough, is something I don’t have an opinion about — mostly because I suspect that the baselines for all your susceptibilities to a multitude of stressors are going to change significantly over time. (One thing I would say, though, since he brings up the experiences of war trauma, is that I would expect that you are in a somewhat privileged position compared to kids who are now bouncing between VA hospitals and trailer parks. Not only are they stuck in physically stressful environments, but as individuals, few of them can have the personal intellectual resources that you are able to draw upon, to make sense of their own experiences. And on top of that they have the burden of the idea that what they went through supposedly served their country.)….
In all of this — and echoing (your doctor) — I do think that you have been and continue to be your own guide. In other words, you have a greater capacity for self-reliance than you often believe — or would necessarily want.
I’ve shared other correspondence with this doctor here. Where he first likens this situation to a brain injury.