h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A very true poem Smudger. I have finally been officially diagnosed with PTSD, I see a psychologist but it is early days whether it will help or not.

I will just keep taking the cocktail of tablets to help calm me, or so they say!

All the best.

Nigel

Thanks for that Nigel, I have had it for years and never even knew?

I knew something was wrong, as I found myself backing away from people in general, and suffered from sudden mood changes.
Yet it was when I started to get the nightmares, that I realsied I had a problem.
Hope things go well for you

Smudger.

That's Smudger.

I suffer from similar symptoms as you described your having, the nightmares are still bad each night. When I was working I was finding that I was struggling to speak to customers and members of staff, when the phone rang I would panic and run away.

I went back part time after the second nervous breakdown (before I was diagnosed with a physical problem as well), I just found it virtually impossible to talk to customers. If members of staff e.g. managers shouted at me or told me off for something I just couldn't handle it.

If I was diagnosed earlier, then I probably wouldn't be as bad as I am now but I had never even heard of PTSD at the time. It was only when I seen this particular psychologist did he diagnose me with it within the first assessment.

You take care. All the best to yourself and your wife .

Nigel

I feel as if I am butting in here, but I wanted to say what a brilliant poem that is Smudger. In just a few lines you have summed up what so many people go through unnoticed for years.

You would think with so many soldiers suffering over so many troubled years that PTSD would be much more recognised, even if the person suffering doesn't show it except at times of great stress.

I think your poem will have done a great service to a lot of people here and in the wider world.

Take care to you and Mark II.

Websailor

Thanks very much your posts Nigel and Websailor, really boosted my confidence reading them, as that was the first poem I have written in years. I wrote it while I was on a PTSD self help site.
As I found that site really helpful, and we all support each other in there

These days I stammer and stutter if I talk to some one in public, a far from the days when I used to give lectures to classes of forty or so welding trainees.
Thanks again folks



Smudger.