Fight or Flight: PTSD
We’re hearing and reading so much about depression and PTSD and the state of mental health in our country today, it makes me wonder if this age of instant information, fake news and social media is all that good for us...for our health. After my brain surgery to remove a golf ball sized tumor, not so affectionately known as Mulligan, I am being treated for several neurologically based disorders that are side affects of the surgery. Even occasional exposure to politically charged and hate-filled media can send me into a dangerous downward spiral. Not to say that many don’t feel the same, but for me, it’s magnified.
There is a section of the brain that controls our “fight or flight” emotions when faced with danger, real danger, not a horror movie or spook house, giggly, scared danger. Our palms will sweat, our heart rate increases, our eyes dilate...everything changes when you are in real danger, including how you respond to quite literally everything. Our “window of tolerance” becomes hyper-aroused and causes a flood of emotional reactions, some appropriate, some not.
First responders, Cops, Firefighters, Veterans, people who have been victimized, anyone who has suffered severe trauma or danger, including head injury or brain surgery, can get stuck in a hyper-aroused state. We are always in danger, or so our brain tells us. How do you fix something like that, huh? We have to retrain the brain to calm down.
I’m only beginning with a new shrink so I’ve just started to learn some of the tools to slow my mental roll. I’ve always been a little hyper in the head but since the surgery, I knew something was off, more than depression, more than the visible scars, more than I could understand. I had thought PTSD was possible but no one mentioned it, instead, concentrating on the obvious, depression. I have to admit I’m a bit relieved to know what is likely making me so nuts, causing fits of rage, self loathing...out of control.
This whole damn thing has been an uphill battle, now it seems I’ve got another hill to take. Who’d a thunk it? A hippie meditating!
