Personal Narrative: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

On June 27th, 2016, I severely fractured my tibia, fibula, and ankle after an approximate 20-foot climbing fall. It was the worst injury in my outdoor athletic career. The following four months since the accident consisted of surgery, immobilization, rehabilitation, and ultimately returning to sporting fitness. I was told the damage was so bad that I might have a permanent limp, which would effectively end climbing, skiing, and running. The toughest part is to admit you yourself that you made a mistake and it has the potential to affect an athletic and outdoor lifestyle. I didn’t have a lot of hope after the accident, but over the course of the recovery, I grew stronger, not only in body, but in mind as well. Injury and

On September 2nd 2016 my best friend, Ashley Minor, who is a single mom of two, was working her twelve house shift at the hospital. At the end of her shift her life stopped for a short time when she received a phone call that her 8 year old son Teagan, was hit by a car, and had multiple injuries.

Throughout our lives, every person encounters hardships that put a strain on other aspects of our lives. The biggest hardship that I have faced was taking care of my wife after she suffered a severe head injury while at work. The injury was the result of a salad fridge door falling and striking the back of her head, causing her to receive a severe concussion that lead to post-concussion syndrome. As a result, she became completely dependent on me. Some of the major hardships that we faced during these times are finances, helping her cope with her injury while she recovered, and maintaining my 4.0 GPA.

A new Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) student is dispatched to her first emotionally memorable call. The first dispatch comes thorough as an unresponsive, 30-year-old female, but escalates to a cardiac arrest caused by a heroin overdose. When the crew of two EMTs and one paramedic arrives on scene, the new EMT stands in the doorway, staring at the patient. Her body was stiff from the rigor mortis, her arms and fingers curled in as though she was trying to get warm. Her skin was blue like she had been swimming in ice water for hours. On the day before Thanksgiving in 2016, this woman was found on her bathroom, dead too long to be saved by anyone. This is still the worst call I have ever been on and I will always remember every

When I was a sophomore in high school, my mom developed severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. We had just moved to Portland so my family had no external support. As the oldest child, I found myself taking on the role of caregiver, secretary, and housekeeper in addition to AP student.

For my 28-day experiential exercise I was determined to renounce sweets and pastries. I have been trying to lose weight for some time, which I have been successful, however I gave up sweets id loose much more weight. I have been able to lose a substantial amount of weight but it has taken me some time. But, because I love sweets, it had become impossible for me to reach my goal. Before starting this experiment, I would say that I was addicted to sweets such as pastries, macarons, milk-shakes, ice creams, and cake.

A couple of years ago, one night, I was about to propose to my girlfriend before an nfl game tbh, when my roommate Joseph barged into the room out of nowhere, tripped and fell over, breaking a glass table with his face. Totally ruined the mood. Now, I didn't know Joseph THAT well, don't even remember where he was from, but let' just say I put my plans on hold to help him through his injuries.Joseph had gotten a big glass shard in his eye, making him completely blind in that eye. He was walking around with one of those cotton pads on his eye for a couple of months. Then suddenly, he disappeared, along with my girlfriend .Apparently they'd bonded during the time after his injuries, and eloped together , left me behind without as much as a note.

Sometimes, I feel like I am experiencing a double therapy. One that I am leading with my therapist, and another one, more passive, in class. School can inadvertently speed up a process for which you are not necessarily ready. It can stir your past and your emotions arise. In that case, there is an assignment that I am postponing and trying in every way possible to avoid or twist differently. The material evoked in class was hard to process and I did not expect it. Ironically, I now think about it all the time. I know that I need to go to the bottom of it one way or another, but homeostasis is compromised and I do not like it. I try to look at it like gym. It is not pleasant but it is good for your health. The problem with that paper is that

“Chantelle! Come over and see this,” my mom whispered as she glided past me towards her client’s chair. I unfolded my nine-year-old self from under the empty hair dryer and gingerly walked over. While peering skeptically at the child’s scalp before me, I began to note tiny bugs crawling by the roots and my eyes followed my mother’s comb tip as she pointed out several nits. This was definitely one of the worst cases of lice she had shown me, and I had seen quite a few by then! As the daughter of a hairstylist, my exposure to skin and hair started at an early age. Growing up in a salon allowed me to observe first hand how significant an impact looking healthy on the outside had on a client’s everyday confidence and self-esteem; a lesson that was later reinforced during my acne ridden teenage years at an all-girls high school. At the salon, I always enjoyed being called over by the estheticians and hairdressers to view interesting cases that ranged from alopecia and cystic acne, to severe foot fungus and poliosis. Since my mother and her employees always recommended physician follow-ups when they spotted something suspicious, I was always left wondering what happened on the medical end of the spectrum. In high school and college, I began to fulfill this curiosity by reading about the science behind skin, hair and nail disorders.

An interesting event occurred early Saturday morning near the town square in Pittman County. A tractor tire exploded and blew a man onto the top of a Standard Oil sign. The man’s name will be kept anonymous to protect his identity, and we are happy to report that the man is alive, although he attained some injuries, and it is possible that he will have permanent damage to his hearing.

When I was a child, I moved around quite a bit. It became hard to get attached to places because we were never assured that the sacred spots would be ours for much longer. As I got older, however, I have realized that special places do not have to be dictated by a length of time, and allowing myself to fall in love with a place gave me the roots I had been searching for. While I have not lived in Indiana for several years now, there is something about this certain cluster of trees in Indiana that remain special to me. When I was a child, I saw them as the gateway into Narnia, and during the winter snows I would bundle up in my cheap fur coat my mother bought at a consignment shop and run outside searching for Mr. Tumnus and calling myself Lucy. My imagination gave me the ability to bring the characters I loved so dearly to life. This experience has shown me that providing children with the ability to use their imagination not only provides entertainment, but also allows children to have a safe outlet to cope with traumatic situations, make

Introduction: I have chosen this subject in order to maybe understand it better, in a way that hopefully it becomes easier for me to deal with it, this condition to which I have become very familiar with, not because I study it but because I am one who suffers from such disorder; this is what I call the side of the coin that no one see. Although I don’t think is such a bad thing, some have given this disorder a serious bad image to which as usual the media have distortion its image to a point where we have become and sometimes feel as if we were in a glass box. By first hand I have experienced how for example a potential job interview changes its trajectory once is discovered that I might suffer from such disorder.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be a very serious and debilitating condition that occurs after a person has been exposed to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical danger happened or was threatened. The kinds of traumatic events triggering PTSD in people include violent personal assaults (rape, mugging), natural disasters (hurricanes, tornadoes), man-made disasters (bombings), accidents or military combat. People who suffer from PTSD often relive the experience through nightmares and flashbacks, have difficulty sleeping, and feel detached or estranged, and these symptoms can be severe enough and last long enough to significantly impair a person’s daily life. PTSD is a complicated

“Oh I got my heart right here. Oh I got my scars right here…” With the slow beat of The Weeknd, I took a right onto the highway. Where was I going? I didn’t know. I was just going to drive my thoughts away. Peering down into my windows, the moon shone on my interior, lighting up everything. It was just me, the moon, and my freedom. I turned the radio louder to blast out my thoughts and just think about the song. I do this therapeutically. Driving makes me feel better, especially when I have no certain destination or deadline. My only goal is to chase the moon in an eternal game of tag, but for some reason I’m always “it”.

An accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that played a key role in shaping who I am today was we when I no longer treatment for my mental illness – Major Depressive Disorder.