Growing Up with PTSD
If I haven't said it recently, I should say it now. I am keenly aware of people worse off than me. Like today, the Turkish man with one leg who hobbled down the road. He said "Merhaba" to me, and I responded in kind. That led to the question of I am Turkish (as we know, I am not), and that is how I know he is Turkish. I do not know how he lost his leg, but I have both of mine. So, I could be worse.
This conversation occurred shortly after I proofed a PTSD statement for my Dad. Here, I should say that I originally intended on posting this blog under my pen name--as if to keep it buried within the folds of my life--but I don't like mixing the Lupus talk in with my outright dirty talk over there. After spending an hour or so reworking his words, correcting verbs, and making the story flow I clearly felt like I needed a drink. I won't tell you the details of what I revised, or the details of what he has told me over the years, but I can tell you this.
My father, like many of my generation, was part of the Vietnam Era. He was an offshore medic for part of the Tet Offensive, and these facts I've always known. I've always known about seeing legs literally fall off from gangrene, his memories of the smell of gangrene, his disaffection for war movies as the injury scenes bring back memories, and that the war laden soldiers coming into triage and surgery marked him in ways that no one outside of those circumstances can truly understand. The official medical term for that is PTSD. Yea.
PTSD doesn't necessarily follow the pattern of popular culture. Instead, months and days will go by without apparent issues. A person can live an entire life without public knowledge of these issues. Or, some people cannot make it through a single day without the mind breaking and attempting to shield itself from what it has seen. For these reasons, and more, I do not let my students write papers on PTSD. Partly, the undergrad composition class version is never very sophisticated, and it rarely (if ever) narrows itself enough to discuss an issue. Instead, emotionally charged and judgmental papers sprout from computers and end up on my desk. Essays denouncing symptoms, or those claiming drugs cure all, more than piss me off. More so, I grew up with PTSD and I do not feel a need to relieve it through someones research paper.
Though, what all of this is doing in my mind is sticking like glue and making me ponder. In my pen name I have an agglomeration of informational articles on veterans, primarily the Veterans Administration. These don't pay much, but when cobbled together they might make rent and some other bills this month. Why do I specifically choose the articles on veterans? In this name, my real one with the fancy degree, I am working on my next academic book. This one is on the soldier vs. the veteran. In that regard I am looking at what that image is supposed to be, what it is, and how we conceptualize the solider and veteran. Hence, this whole PTSD thing has me contemplating ways of constructing my own arguments while I revise things my Dad needs. Not to forget that those pen name articles are turning into de-facto research.
Do not get me wrong. My childhood wasn't all bad, but there are certainly moments that I would like to take a large eraser too. I would like to obliterate some moments and whittle away the exterior lines of others. Sadly, I know this cannot be done.
So that brings me back to where I started this post. While I grew up with PTSD around me, and I got diagnosed with Lupus as a teenager, I know that there are those worse off than me. As much as I whine about health insurance, the state of my body, and the grossly anemic condition of my bank account I also know that others are missing limbs and life. There are those with life that are locked within their own dimensions, and there are those who grew up with PTSD far more exaggerated than what I knew.
This conversation occurred shortly after I proofed a PTSD statement for my Dad. Here, I should say that I originally intended on posting this blog under my pen name--as if to keep it buried within the folds of my life--but I don't like mixing the Lupus talk in with my outright dirty talk over there. After spending an hour or so reworking his words, correcting verbs, and making the story flow I clearly felt like I needed a drink. I won't tell you the details of what I revised, or the details of what he has told me over the years, but I can tell you this.
My father, like many of my generation, was part of the Vietnam Era. He was an offshore medic for part of the Tet Offensive, and these facts I've always known. I've always known about seeing legs literally fall off from gangrene, his memories of the smell of gangrene, his disaffection for war movies as the injury scenes bring back memories, and that the war laden soldiers coming into triage and surgery marked him in ways that no one outside of those circumstances can truly understand. The official medical term for that is PTSD. Yea.
PTSD doesn't necessarily follow the pattern of popular culture. Instead, months and days will go by without apparent issues. A person can live an entire life without public knowledge of these issues. Or, some people cannot make it through a single day without the mind breaking and attempting to shield itself from what it has seen. For these reasons, and more, I do not let my students write papers on PTSD. Partly, the undergrad composition class version is never very sophisticated, and it rarely (if ever) narrows itself enough to discuss an issue. Instead, emotionally charged and judgmental papers sprout from computers and end up on my desk. Essays denouncing symptoms, or those claiming drugs cure all, more than piss me off. More so, I grew up with PTSD and I do not feel a need to relieve it through someones research paper.
Though, what all of this is doing in my mind is sticking like glue and making me ponder. In my pen name I have an agglomeration of informational articles on veterans, primarily the Veterans Administration. These don't pay much, but when cobbled together they might make rent and some other bills this month. Why do I specifically choose the articles on veterans? In this name, my real one with the fancy degree, I am working on my next academic book. This one is on the soldier vs. the veteran. In that regard I am looking at what that image is supposed to be, what it is, and how we conceptualize the solider and veteran. Hence, this whole PTSD thing has me contemplating ways of constructing my own arguments while I revise things my Dad needs. Not to forget that those pen name articles are turning into de-facto research.
Do not get me wrong. My childhood wasn't all bad, but there are certainly moments that I would like to take a large eraser too. I would like to obliterate some moments and whittle away the exterior lines of others. Sadly, I know this cannot be done.
So that brings me back to where I started this post. While I grew up with PTSD around me, and I got diagnosed with Lupus as a teenager, I know that there are those worse off than me. As much as I whine about health insurance, the state of my body, and the grossly anemic condition of my bank account I also know that others are missing limbs and life. There are those with life that are locked within their own dimensions, and there are those who grew up with PTSD far more exaggerated than what I knew.
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