PTSD

Smear tests: an intersectional look at why we don’t attend, by @PhilippaWrites

February 20, 2018
Cross-posted from: Philippa Willitts for Global Comment
Originally published: 26.01.18

Seven years ago, I collected stories on Twitter about surprising things that people had had said to them during a smear test and published them. From one woman who was recognised from being on TV to others being complimented on their cervix, it is clear that inappropriate comments are far from unusual.

Others experienced colleagues of the doctor or nurse, including students, attending without permission or even entering the room during the course of the examination and, although many people in the discussion were keen to point out that smear tests are usually painless and quick, it was clear that they are not painless enough, or quick enough, for many.

Anyone who has suffered the indignity of a gynaecological examination knows the score. At best, it’s a bit awkward but essentially fine; at worst, it’s humiliating, painful, damaging and triggering. It can cause physical injury, it can lead to misgendering and it can cause psychological trauma. At least one person I know have even had her GP tell her to skip smear tests in the future because the potential benefit of detecting cervical cancer does not weigh up against the trauma to her mental health that she experiences whenever a speculum is involved in her care. …

 

First published at Global Comment. You can find the whole text here.

 

Incurable Hippie: Mad, disabled, feminist, radical, angry, lesbian, pacifist, warrior, geek, flower-power chick… About hippie blog? Somewhat neglected but still well loved. Bits and bobs from a British glasses-wearing, sweary, fat, disabled, atheist ex-Catholic, anti-capitalist, pacifist feminist lesbian with eclectic tastes. (@PhilippaWrites)

 

Photo: Pan American Health Organization/Creative Commons via Global Comment

Categories: Featured Blog, Women's Health
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DOMESTIC ABUSE’S TIES TO HOMELESSNESS IS A SERIOUS WOMEN’S ISSUE – @KATEHARVESTON #XISAFEMINISTISSUE

January 29, 2018
Cross-posted from: Feimineach
Originally published: 28.12.17

Imagine for a moment that the only option you have to escape daily violence is life on the streets.

That’s the reality millions of women across America face every day. In fact, 50% of all homeless women report that their homelessness stemmed from acts of domestic violence so severe their only options were to stay and die or leave and face homelessness.

Homelessness stemming from domestic violence is not discussed as frequently as it should be, but it’s one of the most pressing women’s issues of our time, as resources for fleeing women are scarce and access to medical care and food are constantly dwindling.
Read more DOMESTIC ABUSE’S TIES TO HOMELESSNESS IS A SERIOUS WOMEN’S ISSUE – @KATEHARVESTON #XISAFEMINISTISSUE

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On trigger warnings, PTSD, and Stephen Fry (TW-non-graphic refs to rape & SH)

March 10, 2017
Cross-posted from: bottomfacedotcom
Originally published: 14.04.16

I won’t go too deeply into my past traumas except to say that I have been at the receiving end of sexual abuse on more than one occasion. As a 13 year old I was molested by a friend of the family of people I stayed with whilst my parents cared for my hospitalised sister. As a pregnant 21 year old I was sexually assaulted by my sister’s friend. As a 26 year old I was raped by my friend. These are not the only times I have experienced sexual violence.

I don’t want to cause anyone harm by recounting the details of these experiences, and to be honest, I couldn’t if I wanted to. I keep these memories locked in a box, and I do my best to keep the lid on. Sometimes I don’t succeed, and at those times I’m knocked down in a violent onslaught. On one such occasion my husband came up to me and tried to gently place his arms around me to hug me. That lead to the lid bursting off. I don’t remember all that happened. It was as if I blacked out. All I really know is that, when it was over, I was sat on the floor, rocking and shaking, with my face swollen by tears and mucus in my hair. On the ground, all around me, were shards of smashed pottery. I had broken every plate. The kitchen looked as if a bomb had hit it. 
Read more On trigger warnings, PTSD, and Stephen Fry (TW-non-graphic refs to rape & SH)

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9 Signs you may be living with childhood trauma – and what you can do about it via @WomanAsSubject

October 25, 2016
Cross-posted from: Woman as Subject
Originally published: 04.09.16

After I left home at 18, it took me a while to figure out that I was damaged. I had assumed my upbringing was normal and had no idea that I had spent years being traumatised by the violence and abuse I suffered at the hands of my father (which you can read more about here). I first discovered the concept of therapy at University when a friend recommended I went along. Talking about your problems was not something that working class people did and I don’t think I had any idea what counselling was. 20 years later, and I’m a qualified counsellor and have been working with trauma for many years. In the process I’ve learnt much about both the immediate and long term effects of childhood trauma and have unwittingly discovered a lot about myself.

Experiencing a single traumatic event such as an accident or the death of a parent may lead to the development of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) which you can read more about here, but this article is more concerned with what happens when you are repeatedly exposed to traumatic events as a result of living in a violent or abusive home. This can cause you to live with the effects of complex developmental trauma which may become so embedded that you consider them a part of your personality. You may be experiencing the effects of complex trauma without realising. You may even have been told that you have a personality disorder (borderline or schizoid) which might add to the feeling that there is something wrong with you. 
Read more 9 Signs you may be living with childhood trauma – and what you can do about it via @WomanAsSubject

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My name is Helen – I have PTSD and am not demon posessed. by @helen_a13

May 12, 2015

cross-posted from Helen Blogs

orig. pub. 10.10.14

Its been a while since I’ve written, but today is World Mental Health Day – a day in which millions of people have been tweeting using the #worldmentalhealthday hashtag, and under many others too – and I felt compelled to put a few thoughts down.

There have been some amazing blogs written today and I am under no illusion that this is going to be one of them. It isn’t.

This morning, on a rare day off I spent a few hours on the sofa, listening to music and catching up on the online world – on Facebook, twitter, emails, blogs etc. I saw a few tweets and then got into a conversation with some friends/people I’ve been connected with for a long time. And we were talking about it being World Mental Health Day.

And I got thinking about my experience. My experiences. Of mental health issues, and specifically of having mental health issues and being in a church on and off over the years.

I tweeted under the hashtag myself. A tweet that celebrated the amazing CPN I had involved in my life for 18 months, who I learnt to trust and like, without whom I’d have been dead (literally – he broke into my flat when I didn’t turn up for an appt and found me unconscious having OD’d).

And a couple of tweets that acknowledged the pain of churches that have gotten it SO wrong over the years whilst acknowledging that there are some that do get it right.

Then I wrote and tweeted this –

‘My name is Helen. I have PTSD & struggle with depression. I am not a freak and I am not demon possessed. #WorldMentalHealthDay #EndTheStigma’

Why?

Because I am not a freak.

And because my experience over the years has been of being told if I just prayed more, had more faith, or trusted God then I would not struggle with depression, or the issues surrounding the PTSD.

I’ve been told many times that I have demons. I’ve been told I am demon possessed. I’ve been told if I honoured God more/was more in love with Him then He would ‘take away’ the blackness.

I’ve been told by a Pastor that if I was truly a Christian my story would be erased from my mind, and I would not suffer because of it, therefor depression should not be a part of my life.

I’ve been told by another one that I was too much for him, their church, and probably God because the ‘Devil’ really had hold of me.

I’ve been told many things.

And we wonder why people fear being open and honest about mental health issues they face.

We wonder why the last place a person would think about going when in mental health distress is a church.

And we wonder why people end up more hurt and damaged by the responses of people, who not only misunderstand but who are often wilfully ignorant of the wider issues.

 

Not long after I posted the ‘my name is Helen. I have …’ tweet I got a reply.

From a ‘well meaning’ Christian, who firstly started off by joking. It wasn’t massively funny, and I spent a couple of minutes before I replied trying to work out if they were being totally stupid or if behind their words were deeper meaning.

It didn’t take long to find out.

To find out that they believe I need ‘deliverance’.

It didn’t take long for them to tell me I am not experiencing freedom and victory (because they know me oh so well right? As if).

It took a matter of minutes for them to become another one of the very many people I’ve had in my life speaking dangerous untruths. Thankfully I am strong enough to respond/respond/answer back now. A few years ago I was not.

A few years ago, for me personally, someone coming at me with those views were damaging. Damaging to me, to my life, and to my relationship with God, and the church. It contributed to making it non existent.

After our little exchange, and after being told I don’t live in victory I got thinking about what ‘victory’ means. And what it looks like. And how it looks different and unique to every single person.

Victory to me is waking up every morning and being OK that I am alive.

Victory to me is putting one step in front of another and keeping on walking.

Victory to me is not self harming for 4.5 years, and not trying to kill myself.

Victory to me is being 7 years on from the day I was raped.

Victory to me is overcoming each and every battle as and when they come to confront me.

Victory to me is when someone (I know) touches me/gives me a hug and I don’t flinch, freeze, want to cry, or hit them.

Victory to me is in the overcoming of big things, but also in the very small, tiny day to day things too.

Victory to me is looking the world in the eyes, holding my head up high and knowing I have survived.

 

So how dare someone tell me I am not experiencing victory, because I do. I experience victory every single damn day.

And thankfully too, God is now in that victory too.

 

Mental Health Issues are so misunderstood and stigmatised in society generally, and that is no different within the church.

Whether its deliberate or just pure ignorance its not good enough.

And we cannot continue to brush the topic under the carpet.

People like me are everywhere. We are next to you on the bus, in the shops, in your work places. In your schools, your hospitals, your libraries, your Dr’s. Everywhere there are people, are people with mental health battles happening. And that includes in the church. My church. And your church.

If you are reading this I urge you to, if you haven’t already, begin to educate yourself. Begin to assess how you respond and support someone with mental health issues, especially within your faith community.

And I beg of you to consider spending time on working out how you effectively support someone.

Because believing we are demon possessed is wrong. And damaging, as I said above.

Learn to love. Learn to accept. Learn to walk along side us.

Learn what we need. And for each and every one of us it will be different. What I do guarantee though is that it won’t be being told we have demons.

We don’t.

My name IS Helen. I have PTSD & struggle with depression. I am NOT a freak. AND I AM NOT DEMON POSSESSED.

 

Helen Blogs: christian, feminist, rape survivor & survivors advocate, Jaffa cake lover. writer about #faith, #mentalhealth, #chroniclife & #violenceagainstwomen.  @helen_a15

Categories: Featured Blog, Violence Against Women
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It feels like my soul has died by @God_loves_women

February 28, 2015

(cross-posted from God Loves Women)

On Sunday I awoke from a dream and everything changed.  Since then I have barely been able to eat, talking wears me out, even typing these few words is a huge effort.  I have done very little work, the meetings I have had to attend require me to fake being myself which, although possible, is exhausting.  My usually super fast brain has slowed almost to a standstill and in the middle of sentences I will lose the thread of what I’m saying.

I am irritable and my ability to parent has become vastly depleted.  I have become impatient and snap at the littlest thing.  At times I become unable to move or speak and my husband has to physically move me and help me with basic tasks.  By early afternoon I am exhausted and have to sleep.

It feels like my soul has died.  All that’s left is a shell.  All that makes me who I am has been enveloped by deadness.

The dream wasn’t even that bad.  Nothing dramatically awful happened within it.  It involved me being almost physically transported back ten years and spending time with my ex-husband.  And now I am broken.

It turns out it probably wasn’t a dream, but rather a flashback.  A flashback isn’t a nightmare or a memory, it’s like whatever you are seeing is happening in the present.  And the brain and body cannot distinguish between the flashback and reality.  So for all intents and purposes, on Sunday I was transported back ten years to spend an hour with my ex-husband.  And it has messed up my entire life.

Over a year ago I had a similar incident when I was watching a programme and a violent assault suddenly took place on screen.  My brain stopped working on anything but a superficial level for about 6 weeks.  This is what I wrote back then.

I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  I can go for months, over a year without any problems and then, without warning, everything will change.  A friend of mine likened it to someone suffering epilepsy, “it’s like you’re walking across a stage and you know that at some point a trap door may open up underneath you, but you don’t know when.”  Which is basically what it’s like.  The challenge is that PTSD is not socially acceptable.  If it’s not a physical illness, it doesn’t really exist for many people.

Reporting of the recent cases of Oscar Pistorius and Ched Evans have often focussed on the perpetrators’ rights to continue with their lives.  That justice has been served and regardless of our opinions, we must respect the process.  Yet the problem is much greater than individual cases.

What does justice look like for me?  My ex-husband has received no court based consequences for what he did to me.  And even if he had, at most he would have served two and a half years in prison.  The majority of what he did wasn’t even technically illegal.  Still, ten years later and I am still coping with the consequences of his choices to hurt me.  As are my husband and children.

In many ways punishing him won’t change things for me, the trapdoor will still open underneath me, life will still stop when something unpredictable triggers my PTSD symptoms again.  But maybe it would make a difference for the next girl he hurts, maybe it would prevent him having the same access to girls and young women?  Maybe it would change the perception of the impact of abuse and rape on the individual?

Regardless, I am still broken.  There is this deep pain that simmers below all the symptoms and ways in which the trauma affects me; that I will always be broken.  That no matter how many years pass, who I am or what I do; I will still be broken.  And don’t feel you need to rush to reassure me that I’m not broken.  Because to do so denies the impact of abuse and rape.  It breaks people forever.  It smashes and breaks people in a way that cannot be repaired.

In the least awful parts of this week I have some confidence that things will improve.  That I will become myself again.  In the darkest minutes and hours, I wonder if this time the damage will be permanent, if this will be the time when I lose myself forever.  I am going to have a session of something called the Rewind Technique this afternoon, which will hopefully sort some of this out and repair the damage that has been done to my brain by the flashback.

I know I should write something to complete this piece, to bring it to a close, but my brain has shut down again.  So I’ll leave it here for now.

UPDATE TO THIS POST HERE

God loves women: A blog sharing my love of God, the love He has for women and my frustration that the Church often doesn’t realise this (@God_loves_women)

Categories: Featured Blog, Violence Against Women
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