Panic attack

November 8, 2012 1 Comment

Buddy-child has come really far over the past two years.  She used to be horribly depressed and occasionally suicidal.  She had all kinds of abusive people in her life and was kind of stuck in a bad place.  She was unmotivated and didn’t want to put forth any effort into anything because she didn’t care.  She once said to me that if she could just smoke dope everyday and not ever actually do anything, she would be happy.

She graduated from therapy; she joined the cheer leading squad, she got her G-1 (learner’s permit), she graduated from school, she’s made plans to go to University.  She’s going to be a doctor so that she can help other teenagers who are struggling.  She’s as much of a normal kid as you can possibly get.

One day, early this fall, she was at a football game in her role as a cheerleader and a former friend texted her to let her know that someone who hurt her was there in the stands watching.

Buddy essentially collapsed.  She began crying, hyperventilating, shaking, and I brought the car around and took her home.  She crawled into bed with  a comforter.

Buddy had a panic attack.  She’s had to face this person before in the past but it was under some very controlled circumstances and she had time to prepare herself emotionally.  This was a surprise and it triggered a flashback.

Flashbacks are something that happen to many people but are often not very well understood.  What essentially happens is that something (often a sensory input like a smell or a taste or the touch of something, seeing something or hearing something) reminds your brain of whatever traumatic or scary or hurtful or emotionally charged event in your past and suddenly, your brain transports you back to that moment.  It happens instantaneously and you have no idea what is going on at first.  You feel the same feelings and have the same sense of panic and fear that you felt when the hurtful or traumatic event was just happening right then.  It’s pretty overwhelming.  This happens so fast that often, people don’t know what is going on until they are in a full-blown panic attack.  Some people have to spend time learning how to recognize and deal with triggers and learn how to ground themselves and regain a semblance of control of their brains so that they can carry on.

Buddy actually recovered fairly quickly considering the circumstances.  She did very well.  I told her that I would not be okay with her hiding in her room all night and she voluntarily ventured out and joined me before I had to come get her.  By the next day, she was back to normal.  She did learn one thing from this; that she needs time to prepare herself emotionally before facing the people who have hurt her so that this doesn’t happen again.

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Dirty little secret

January 26, 2012 2 Comments

A while ago I went on a conference about trauma and all things related (neurobiology and trauma actually – and yes, I am a geek).  There were times when it was interesting and I learned some great things and there were times when I felt like stabbing a fork in my eye.  (really chemist turned psychiatrist guy??  Do you think anyone other than other chemists turned psychiatrists can understand you right now?)  One of the things rolling around in my brain since I returned is the bits about trauma and PTSD related symptoms and domestic violence.  This was not new information for me but it did help put a few pieces together. 

I work a lot with domestic violence and recognize just how hard it is to get out.  I know of case after case where people have had to plan and struggle for a year before it was safe enough to leave.  Leaving is dangerous and people often believe that it is safer, especially for the kids, if they stay.  That way they can control the amount of contact between the abusive person and the children and try to minimize the damage.  Let’s face it, our courts and in some cases our child protection agencies, do a crappy job of protecting our kids when abusive parents use them as pawns to get back at their former partners.

That being said, the reality is that the most traumatized kids (this is a generalization but there are significant stats to support this) are the ones that come from domestic violent homes.  These kids are not necessarily hit.  In fact, being hit is not a prerequisite for being traumatized.  It’s living in that home environment – the stress, the uncertainty, the lack of safety, the fear, the anxiety, the constant need to be ‘on-guard’ and walking on eggshells, the need to be hyper-vigilant in order to protect yourself or other family members, the guilt that it’s your fault, the fact that you never know when it’s coming, the helplessness when your mom or dad is being hurt on some level – all of it.  It can cause damage that in some cases, is very difficult to undo.  Research has shown time and time again that living in this environment can actually alter a child’s brain development as compared to a child that has grown up in a safe and stable environment.  This is significant on many levels by the way but I’m not going to go into further detail right now.

The pieces that fell into place for me?  Step-daughter is struggling quite a bit.  After she moved back home, her mom pulled her out of school simply because she was already struggling and knew she wasn’t going to graduate and mom didn’t want to deal with those wonderful automated voice messages that I mentioned in another post everyday(run away!  pretend!  avoid!).  I’ve known for awhile now that mom’s partner is abusive, I just don’t know how much or on what level.  He’s prone to angry outbursts, and there have been times that step-daughter has run to my house to escape his wrath.  There were times when the clinicians were describing patients and they could have been describing step-daughter.  I have never doubted that a good chunk of her issues stem from her home environment but to hear it spelled out like that was eye opening.  Yet, no one ever talks about it.  We all just pretend that it’s okay when it’s not.  It’s like the family’s dirty little secret.  As a step-parent, I’m completely powerless to do anything other than keep talking to step-daughter about it.  Hopefully it will magically help someday.

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