Editor's Note: The diagnosis of PTSD is dependent on many factors, and readers should not generalize these experiences to their own individual conditions.
There have been profound changes in my life since Mom was first hospitalized and then sent permanently to a nursing home. All of the lessons I learned from the four-day power outage have stayed with me. My diet has completely changed and is more healthy. Cheez-Its are a thing of the past. I don't read in bed and snack before sleeping anymore, because I'm reading enough at mealtimes. I get enough sleep most of the time. The house was neat and organized until recently, when three weeks of computer problems and the need for new equipment caused chaos.
The one thing I kept coming up against was that I could not visit Mom.
I began seeing the hospice social worker and my psychiatrist every two weeks. It didn't take long for them both to come up with the same answer. After all I went through with Mom and her Alzheimer's -- I have PTSD.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Now, the official diagnostic criteria for PTSD are very rigid. The first one is: "The person has experienced, witnessed or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others AND the person's response involved fear, helplessness or horror." It's a fair stretch to fit my experiences with my mother into those terms, but what I did experience and witness were:
- The slow death of my mother's mind
- Constant attacks on my mental integrity
- Feelings of fear, helplessness and rage
- Exhaustion, which was a loss of "physical integrity"
For example, it took a long time for me to stop hearing her calling me even after she was out of the house. It is taking even longer for me to stop being triggered into strong anger at our cat Cricket when she sits down beside me and puts a paw on my leg for attention. The telephone and the doorbell still cause me to jump.
Rage
Recently I had two experiences of absolute rage over emails. In both cases my competence was questioned; in one case the email was an outright nasty attack. I managed to restrain myself in my replies in the first situation, which was the less serious of the two, but the rage was there nonetheless. When I got the nasty email, I was utterly consumed with anger. I wrote a furious and completely unacceptable reply that, because this all took place on a listserv, I had to apologize for to an entire group of people, not just the person to whom it was directed (who has, by the way, never apologized to me -- I'm still irritated over the whole thing).
I tried to tie these things to Mom and failed. Then when I told Amy, the social worker, about this, she asked a simple question: when have you felt this way before? And of course, the answer was: Mom. Her never-ending calling for me at the top of her lungs did, in fact, make me feel like I was being attacked, over and over, day in, day out.
Dr. Meyer, my psychiatrist, had earlier given me a prescription for low-dose Klonopin to take as needed, but I'd forgotten that. I should have taken it on those two occasions when the emails infuriated me. And if something like that happens in the future, I know now to get up, walk away, take a pill, let the rage subside.
The rest of the time
Aside from those two incidents, I've been mostly feeling quite good. Being told (by both Amy and Dr. Meyer) that it is not just okay but good for me not to visit Mom took the last burden from my shoulders. Having the house to myself is wonderful. Mom's closet has been cleaned out and the clothes packed away, except for some good pieces that might fit me and some things like beautiful shawls and scarves.
My office, after help from my friend JoAnn, was looking so good that a friend of my brother's looked in and said, "Wow, this is really nice, I wish I had a place like this!" (Joy!) I stopped using the dishwasher because it was silly for one person and now do the dishes myself, putting lotion on my hands before donning rubber gloves -- my hands love this treatment! And I kept the kitchen tidy.
That all changed three weeks ago when I switched from cable broadband to DSL. Everything that could go wrong, did. My telephone refused to work properly with DSL, as did my router. Plus, I turned off my monitor, and it never turned on again. AND my printer quit printing black ink. It took more than three weeks, about 15 phone calls, and a visit from a technician to get everything with DSL squared away, and in the meantime, I had to move my whole computer setup around and basically just trash the office again to make room to work with the equipment.
And yet, I continue to be more productive both in my work and around the house than at any time in the last three years. My mood continues to be excellent. Computer problems usually cause me to scream and rant and cry. Not this time. I calmly ordered a new monitor and phone, went out and bought a new printer, dealt with all the phone calls. Yes, it was stressful and draining, and the return of diarrhea proved that ... but I didn't fall apart. Maybe for the first time ever.
Hypomania
Yesterday I told Dr. Meyer that I thought maybe I was in slight hypomania. It is hard for me to tell, because I have so little experience with "normal." I'd done some impulse buying -- not disastrous, but it's part of the whole picture that I spent $350 where I'd only meant to spend $85 at most. I went into the drugstore to pick up prescriptions and walked out with $75 worth of mostly office supplies. I'll use them, but some of my purchases were things I would not have bought two months ago.
After we talked, he agreed about the hypomania, and told me to drop the Ritalin completely lest it kick my mood up too far.
The most telling thing: the house is approaching chaos again, and I'm not depressed about it. I'll just deal with it.
