Hi Stephanie,
My name is Erick, I worked at Ground Zero with my search dog Porkchop. Please
remember that what YOU do now is the most important thing that can happen in
YOUR life. Do not waste one second trying to educate anybody about what you
have been through. Gain all the strenght you can through any network of ptsd
groups you care to become part of.
In the past few months I have escaped from the prison cell of ptsd to find that
my life and mental health is more important than any other persons belief or
disbelief of what we have been through or what we experience from the work we
have done. They are with you or against you. They can be part of the team or
they can join another. Focus on YOU and don't wast another second on a non
supporter of what you know and feel is real and the truth.
Best wishes,
Erick

Stephanie <amstar1212@...> wrote:
I am a volunteer paramedic who lives in the capital region of NY. I
have been an ems volunteer for 12 years. August 22, 2005 I arrived
in New Orleans to join attend a national EMS conference at the
Morial Convention Center there. The last day of the conference was
Saturday August 27 when I first found out that there was an
impending hurricane getting ready to hit New Orleans. My flight was
scheduled to depart New Orleans Monday morning and I had no rental
car. The hurricane hit Monday morning. I went to the Superdome on
Sunday after the mayor announced a mandatory evacuation. I could
have stayed at my hotel, but I wanted to find out if they needed
help at the superdome, since it had been widely publicized that the
superdome was the place for all the people with medical challenges
to go that could not evacuate. Well, living in NY State and seeing
the massive response to 9/11 I figured there would be the same kind
of overwhelming response. Especially since there was a national EMS
conference going on with an attendance of around 5000 people. Guess
what? Only me and 3 people from Cincinnati showed up at the
superdome (from the conference) to help with the medical needs of
the thousands of people. In fact, there was not a deluge of help and
they needed us badly. I do not have the energy at the moment to get
into everything that I experienced before, during and after the
hurricane at the superdome, but suffice it to say it was an
experience that left me with what may now be considered PTSD. From
what I understand, the symptoms need to last for at least a month to
be considered PTSD instead of Acute Anxiety Disorder. Well it has
been over a month now, and I am still having the symptoms, there is
no doubt about that. I have never experienced anything like this. At
first, I had no idea what was happeneing, because I totally did not
expect it. I had nothing to reference it by since I had no prior
experience with it. Eventually through talking to people on a CISM
team I started to figure out what was going on. I have not been able
to go back to work.... at my paying job. I am getting treatment, but
I just recently had a really bad conversation with a man I have
known for over 3 1/2 years. He basically has no clue what I am going
through and keeps telling me to snap out of it...get over it...he
does not want to hear about it...what's wrong with me...there are
other people who lost everything, why should I have a problem? He
believes that what I am going through could not possibly be realted
to the four days I spent in the superdome...seeing and experiencing
everything you can imagine and MORE! Not even to mention going
through the hurricane myself and not knowing when or if I would get
out of there (alive), having my own life threatened more than once,
sanitation, violence, death, shootings, suicides, rape, impending
loss of generated electricity, leading to more safety and sanitation
issues, etc. etc. etc. What should I say to this guy? What would you
say to him? and what advice can you give to me in dealing with this?







SPONSORED LINKS
Anxiety disorder treatment Anxiety disorder Social anxiety disorder General
anxiety disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder Social anxiety disorder
treatment

---------------------------------
YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS


Visit your group "emsfirepoliceptsd" on the web.

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
emsfirepoliceptsd-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.


---------------------------------





---------------------------------
Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]