Category: working with PTSD

A great warrior once told me that “Pearl Jam” has the depth of emotional range that really hits you”.  Now I am not going to spend the entire post speaking the values and benefits of Pearl Jam (which I believe to be one of the better bands out there) but I am going to talk about music.  And more particularly, the power that music can have for us and over us.

When I use to work in the treatment centre before I became a police officer, you could always tell the tone of the unit by the type of music that was being played by the kids.  Up beat, happy, dance type music and you were walking onto a unit that was good and settled.  Angry gangsta rap, metal, death metal or worse, the slow love ballad and you were guaranteed to be in for a no stop evening of issues and problem.  When you actually sit down and look at it, it wasn’t so much that music set the tone but more aptly told you the tone.  But what if I told you that it wasn’t that the music was telling the tone in so much as the music was expressing the tone of the individual kids for that day.

In the course of my treatment for PTSD, I have personally experienced the power of music in regards to the good and bad it can produce.  Music, regardless of genre, can lift your day, elevate your mood and put you on the right track.  Unfortunately, it can also do the exact opposite and push you further down the rabbit hole.  It tends to be the latter that PTSD tends to drag you towards as it always easier to slip then climb.  The trick is learning what power music has over you and how to try to use it for your personal growth vs destruction.

The challenge then becomes how can we use music to alter our mood and lift us out of the darkness vs keeping us down.  I wish I could give some detailed list of steps to use but it isn’t like that.  There is no trick to it but is very hard to grasp at times because we like to seek out our comfort at times of anxiety, pain and discomfort.  If we are made, we go to the hard-driving tunes to push us along because that is what the Itty Bitty Shitty Committee tells us to listen to.  Once the Committee takes hold and gains that control, you go with the flow and the deeper you go.

But, what would happen if in that moment, you shut down the Committee in your head and do a 180 degree change with the music your are listen to.  Push away from the hard-driving tune and find something upbeat.  And yes, I know shutting down the Committee is fucking hard and sometimes it feels comforting to just ride the wave.  It is known, it is what we perceive at the time as being a comfort to us as we convince ourselves that it is letting the anger and pain out.  Yet, the only thing the hard-driving song is doing is escalating our trip into the darkness.  And please don’t get me wrong, it isn’t necessarily hard-driving tunes that will do this.  It is as individual as PTSD is.  Some people are triggered by slow, descriptive songs about love, lost and pain.

That’s the power of music and PTSD.  It doesn’t care what genre you like, it will find the weakness and run with it.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say polka tunes will set someone off but that’s the point, you don’t know until it happens.  Heck, if I am going to be honest, I might be pushed to anger if I was subjected to polka.  It’s individual and specific to the person listening to the song.

Knowing this power of music, I have made sure that I have a variety of music on my phone which includes Buddhist meditative chanting.  When I notice that I might be slipping because of what I am listening to, I change it up and pick something that I know will have a more positive impact.  For me right now, it is Weezer’s Teal album which is all covers of songs that I use to listen to growing up, including my favourite, Africa.  That’s my go to as I know it will pick me up.  For others, including my Warrior brother, it is Pearl Jam.  But, as I am typing this, i am hearing Weezere’s version of Take On Me by Ahha.  The happy memories are flooding in and it’s hard to keep focus on writing.

That’s the power of music.  It can be a wonderful tool for our growth and benefit and yet if we are not careful, it can be our bane.  And yes, that is a singing beaver picture…….

Wait, I didn’t explain how the power of music pushed me….

Before I shut this on down, I guess I should explain how music helped me in my treatment.  I harboured a lot of anger that related to my involvement with the baby death.  When I say a lot, I mean a lot.  I kept it suppressed and refused to let it go.  It was a comfort in some ways.  I now know that it was actually what was holding me back from moving forward.  Through the use of music, that anger came out and it was cathartic.  Luckily, it happened in a very controlled and safe environment as it was one of the most powerful thing I have ever experienced.  I felt the anger build up inside of me and it ripping out of my body.  All from music.

Shortly after the release of anger, I then experienced the beauty of music and it was the most uplifting thing I have ever felt.  With the anger released, I was open to the experiences around me and I felt true, unconditional love, peace and calm.  Think of a mother’s compassion for a sick child.  Music was that powerful for me.

I know people are thinking that I am off my rocker but I also know that it has and had the same effects on others.  Music is powerful and that power can be harnessed to aid us in our growth instead of exacerbating our pain.

So yeah, another bigger topic and one that definitely needs to be discussed and highlighted – SANCTUARY TRAUMA. And, yes, it is something that I have personal experience with and know just how damaging it can be. But first, let me put this into context by explain what exactly it is and how it plays so nicely with PTSD.

From the Socialhealth.org blog, Steve Rose provides the following, which includes the definition of it by Dr. Steven Silver who coined the term:

Some Veterans experience traumas beyond the battlefield. One of these can be called, “sanctuary trauma”. A concept developed by Dr. Steven Silver, sanctuary trauma “occurs when an individual who suffered a severe stressor next encounters what was expected to be a supportive and protective environment’ and discovers only more trauma.” Some veterans who face mental or physical injuries from service are finding themselves in a second battle with the bureaucracy upon return.

And the best one liner found later in the article goes to:

Sanctuary trauma is unique because it is caused by institutions that are initially expected to provide care.

Now here is the tricky part. I am bound by the RCMP Act and policy to not publicly talk negatively about the RCMP in any way shape or form. So, I have to tip toe a bit as I talk about this knowing that I am in a real balancing act of explaining my personal situation while doing so in a non negative way that would paint the RCMP in an unfavourable manner. But the reality is that the examples I am going to share aren’t negative towards the RCMP but more towards individuals within the RCMP that used the organization’s policy etc to inflict the further trauma. Regardless, I’m up for the challenge and the only way that this stuff will get dealt with and changed is through education, so here we go.

After 18 years of policing in a variety of roles and locations, I seemed to have amassed my fair share of traumas. In fact, at one point during my stay with Project Trauma Support I realised I hit bottom and acknowledged just how “fucked up I am” as a result of these traumas. But I soon saw a pattern that was present with my more serious traumas (as if there is an actual ranking system of traumas) that fit the concept of Sanctuary Trauma. Instead of chronicling the entire library of events, I’m going to hit just a couple to show the damage done by an institution after the initial trauma. And no, there’re not going to be graphic examples but I must confess, this will be my fifth attempt at writing this post. I won’t lie, I have been struggling.

So at the 3 or 4 month service point, this newly minted Mountie found himself going after people who would buy bootlegged home-brew on a dry reserve. One ingenious individual decided to jump into the river, which was just breaking up from the winter freeze, with his thermos full of homebrew. As you can image, the cold water temperatures quickly started to get the best of him.

From the shore, I watched as the life was definitely draining from the individual and I made the decision to go in and get him. When I was about 6 feet from him, I was hit by a large chunk of ice and knocked over. Nothing like a full dunk into a freezing river. Long story short, I got the guy back to shore and he was taken to the nursing station. I was told to go home and change incase another call came in (supportive institutional response). After the dust settled, my trainer informed me that he was going to put my name forward for a commendation for my actions. Okay cool I thought.

Well, about a year later I reached out to the Sergeant to ask what was happening. In response, I got a lovely worded internal memo that said “by all accounts, Jason’s actions saved so and so” and this wonderful tidbit “that due to the transitioning of one detachment commander to another, the investigation required to support the award for merit was not done”. There you go, Sanctuary Trauma. A kick to the nuts so to speak. You did good but me and the other detachment commander didn’t get along so here’s you memo.

In 2003, my mom passed away after a short battle with cancer. On the day we buried her, my dad suffered a heart attack and was admitted to the hospital. I called my Detachment Commander to see if I could get some time to process everything. I was quickly informed that I was one of two members working evenings over the long weekend so I had to report for duty for my Friday night shift. So, being the good Mountie, I shelved my personal pain (Mountie Up) and headed to work. Within three hours of being at work, I was shot at, not once but twice, by the same guy as he tried to evade the police.

It was at the end of the shift that I was talking to the Corporal about my week. He looked at me and said “why are you here? ” I told him I was ordered back to duty to which he quickly responded that I should have called him as he would have worked my shift. So to recap, I just went through one of life’s worst moments by loosing a parent, had the other parent have a health crisis, get ordered back to work only to be shot at twice…… And, I’m then told that I shouldn’t be there and that the Corporal would have worked for me if he knew what happened. Just a bit of Sanctuary trauma wouldn’t you say?

And, my last example will be the execution of a search warrant at a bike gang’s business. I was the exhibit guy for the search so I was responsible for documenting all the exhibits. Someone brought me a box with a handgun and other items to go through. After rending the gun safe, I proceeded to the rest of the contents. The first thing I picked up was a pipe bomb. So there I was, holding one of the most unstable, homemade, explosive devices known. With my free hand, I was able to discover a second pipe bomb along with a bunch of TNT sticks remaining in the box.

I calmly stated that we have a bomb which prompted the evacuation of the site with my Sergeant being the first one out the door, literally leaving me in the building by myself, holding a bomb. I ended up putting the bomb down, conducted a sweep of the building to ensure no one was present and walked out. The only thing that was said to me was by the same Sergeant about 4 hours later when the bomb squad was having difficult accessing the building was “Next time, put the bomb outside of the building.” Do you feel the love and support.

Taken separately, each situation doesn’t seem so bad. But, when they begin to compound on top of each other, they quickly add up and deepen the damage. What I learned after only a few months in the career of my dreams was not good. Each time I did my job as required, I seemed to get slammed by people within the organization I wanted to work for since I was a young child. You start to learn that you better either Mountie up and keep your mouth shut or get a reputation as whiner and complainer. In the end, both have the same effect on a person’s psyche, it starts destroying it. You begin to second guess everything you do and say, wondering if you will be met with applaud or with criticism. Or, if you are lucky enough to have a special kind of boss, you might get both reactions.

I look back on all the situations I was in and the Sanctuary Trauma was truly the only consistent variable. It makes you wonder if the impact would have been different had the support been real, genuine and timely. The hardest part is realizing that you can’t dwell on thinking that way and instead, you need to “forgive and forget” in some ways so that you can move forward. That’s what I am in the process of doing and it is fucking hard to forgive people for treating you like shit when you were at the lowest point following a trauma. I helps to think about the few people around you during those times that offered support or were simply there with you.

What’s the solution? I’m not sure but it is slowly becoming something that I believe will guide me on the rest of my return to work journey. It is also something that I know I can begin to change in how I interact with my co-workers and those I supervise.

Yep, that’s right.  I went to work this week for the first time since May 4.  Ten months to the day not including all the pre-visits that I did leading up to the big day as part of my therapy to get ready for the big day.  Pre visits you ask?  Well, yeah, I did a series of practice runs to get to the office and no it is not because I forgot how to get there.  Prior to going off work and over the last while, any time I travelled int he general direction of the office, I was overcome with anxiety / panic attacks.  The pre visits were meant to help me deal with the anxiety and show myself that nothing would happen.

So, the day arrived and I walked into the office with a whole shit tonne of apprehension and irrational fear that I would be crumbled to nothing in front of my coworkers by some mysterious PTSD force.  Happy to report that didn’t happen but it was far from easy.  But it was not the worse thing that happened to me either.  In fact, when I think back on it, it was an interesting experience for many different reasons.

I went in determined to not let the environment or people get me down so I found myself going on an offensive of sorts right off the bat.  For me, that is usually using humour to break the ice and that is exactly what I did.  With both the Staff and the Officer in |Charge, I proudly declared that “Space Cadet  Jay is reporting for duty”.  It seemed to take a bit of the edge off for me and I began to navigate the rest of the office.  There were a few genuine reaction to be being back with a colleague’s big hug and exuberant “I’m so glad you are back” topping off the day, heck, the best couple of months for me.  It was an example of why I have seen this person as a support for me that I truly can rely on.

The rest of the time, which was slated for an hour (Gradual return to duty being the key) went by without any major blips.  What became obvious to me is that it is going to be difficult to figure out what my new normal will be at work.  With this restarting of sorts of my career, I need to learn how to work with my triggers and protect myself from allowing myself to take on more trauma.  After the hour, I was wiped.  It is hard to pretend that everything is okay and wear a smile so that others don’t worry about you.  All part of trying not to be the guy with mental health issues.

Thankfully, I am starting to understand this sooner than later.  The next shift I was scheduled for happened to land on a day that the area was dealing with an ice storm.  So, instead of saddling up and making my way in, I simply sent an email stating that risk/reward for me to travel in this weather to say I did an hour sift just wasn’t there.  And you know what, I didn’t feel bad about it.  It was the right thing to do for myself.

I finished off the week with the my involvement in the final step of a Moral Injury research project I got screened into.  Almost one hour of a MRI brain scan while reciting a moral injury situation and a neutral situation, along with questions and two pre and post scans for comparison.  It took a lot out of me but as I was leaving, I spoke with the Research C|oordinator and said that the findings won’t help me but maybe they will be used to help those that will start their PTSD journey.

And now, I have to go and pack.  Tomorrow I leave for a week so that I can take part in a PTSD / Moral Injury residential program.  I am scared of the unknown but excited that this might help put the pieces together.  It will also be the first time since my diagnosis that I will be away from home for a prolonged period of time.  Last time, my world came crashing down, maybe this time, I will be able to further rebuild that world.