April 3, 2013

• PTSD

  I think it is time to get real about PTSD. 

  I’ll admit that I have it, and I’ll admit that I’ve spent the last 6 1/2 years pretending that I don’t.  And I think there are a lot of people who do the same thing.

  My PTSD is most evident at night, and it most affects my sleeping.  There are a few adjustments I make in general – for example I always have some sort of lights playing on my computer screen overnight (often attached to music or a movie playing) so that it is never 100% dark or silent.  There are certain types of movies I won’t watch and books I won’t read at all, some I won’t watch/read at night, and some that I won’t watch/read when I’m alone.

  I also sleep with a stuffed animal.

    

  There, I said it.  By “sleep with” I mean that it is directly in my arms all night long, even if I toss and turn.  I slept with a stuffed animal when I was younger, as many children do, but when I got PTSD at age 19, it became a non-negotiable.  It is a comfort thing, a security thing, something I can’t fully explain.  When nightmares or terrors hit during the night, it calms me down.  And if I don’t have a stuffed animal with me, I panic and have a harder time falling asleep and staying asleep. 

  I even brought one on our honeymoon.  And my husband was (and still is!) okay with it.  My nightmares have greatly lessened since I got married and have him there with me all night, but they haven’t left completely by any means.  He cuddles me, I cuddle the bear, and we’re all happy.

  But it often draws funny looks or embarrassing comments (like at work conferences, or family vacations – any time I might be sharing a room with someone who doesn’t know or understand).  This blog post might right now be causing comments and looks from the other side of the computer screen.  I’ve been convinced that I must be the only married adult who sleeps with a stuffed animal, and I’ve been ashamed of it.  But I wasn’t going to stop.

  But then the other day, I was reading through a book of children’s poems (Shout! Little Poems that Roar) and came across this poem by Brod Bagert:

   

  Turn all those “he”s into “she”s and change the last stanza to something like:

  Just one more thing, now please stay calm,
  I wrote this poem about my Mom

  and you have something my child might one day say about me.  And this was in a published book of poems – with a picture of a (let’s assume) married couple!  That made me wonder – is it more common that I thought?

  So I did a little bit of research.  Turns out that 79.9% of adults with PTSD will admit to sleeping with a stuffed toy for comfort.  Studies are also being conducted about memories during sleep.  If someone has witnessed or experienced a traumatic event, sleep will exacerbate those negative memores – thus why many people who suffer from PTSD experience sleep problems.  But sleep will also increase the recall of pleasant memories associated with a stuffed toy or animal.  Therefore, by sleeping with a stuffed animal, it is possible that the positive memories associated with it will balance out the negative memories that come from trauma.  Science hasn’t proven anything yet, but it sounds good to me.

  PTSD is tricky.  We can’t spot others who have it when we’re walking down the street.  We all have different triggers and different reactions.  PTSD has a reputation for being something taboo, something we don’t talk about, something that isolates and embarrasses – but it doesn’t have to be.  The more open we are about it, the less power it has.  Because of that poem, I found out that there are other adults like me who sleep with stuffed animals.  It helped me be open about it and now that fear and embarrassment doesn’t have a hold on me anymore.  Maybe this post will be for someone else what that poem was for me.  Because, let’s face it, there are a lot of us that struggle with how to cope with PTSD, and at least 80% of us have a teddy bear or two to make it a little easier. 

  And that’s okay.

   

  • 3:50 pm
  • 3 Comments