PTSD and sleep

The first symptom that I really noticed

was actually sleep deprivation.

I was having a lot of nightmares, but even

just falling asleep was tough.

The minute I would start dozing off, I would get

a surge of adrenalin or anxiety, and I would wake up.

And even when I did fall asleep, I would wake up with

night terrors or sweats, so I think that kind of filtered over

into my non-sleeping hours, during the day,

and caused me a lot of stress at work.

I think the stress of not knowing what was going on

within myself was what was the worst part of it all

and not necessarily the side effects.

I was having problems at night with sleeping.

I had to take Ambien even

on deployments 'cause I couldn't stop thinking

about the patients that were coming in.

I couldn't stop thinking about what that next case might be

and the Ambien helped rest my mind to where I could get sleep.

But I came back home, I ran out of Ambien,

I went to Disneyland with my family.

Fireworks were going off at Disneyland,

which should be a fun thing

but instead I remembered it as flares.

I remembered that night that we got attacked

and seeing the flares and bringing back those memories

and I knew something wasn't right.

I was trying to do the schoolwork.

I was doing online classes

and I couldn't even write two sentences that were connected

that made sense whereas two months prior I did not

a problem.

I wasn't struggling and now I was.

After going to Disneyland with my family, I returned back

to my base and I remember one night, I stayed up all night

and I wanted to kill myself.

I didn't know why.

I knew it wasn't a thought that I wanted to have.

I was with my family and I should be happy but I wasn't.

I remembered the guys and remembered that it wasn't right

that I should be there and going through this and having problems

and I felt like they were more deserving than me to live

so why would I want to live.

And I dealt a lot with the survivor's guilt and wanted

to commit suicide and I knew I didn't want to commit suicide

and so that's why I went the very next day and went

and saw my staff NCO and told him I had problems and went

through the process of getting diagnosed with PTSD.

I just came to the conclusion

that I couldn't go on doing what I was doing.

Not a lot of sleep, which was affecting my work.

Very irritable, eroding my relationships

with friends, co-workers, family.

And I just decided that -- well, I'll be real honest with you.

It started out with a buddy, and we would have a couple

of drinks a night, and we'd always say, "No more than three."

And that was OK, but when it got to the point

where we only had three apiece

and you were still emptying the whole bottle,

it got to be a problem.

And that combined with the eroding

relationships with friends, family.

And I won't say that it affected my work,

but it certainly made it hard to go to work sometimes,

and I just decided it was time to seek help.

I used to sweat a lot, I used to wave my arms.

I had to be very careful in bed

because I didn't want to hurt my wife.

And sometimes I would get the sheets so wet

my wife would wake up in the middle of the night and say,

"Al, you're soaking wet."

And so I used to sleep on the floor next to her.

I didn't know anything about my sickness

or anything like that, I just took it for granted it was,

you know, some of the things I went through in the war.

But I didn't understand what it was about.

When I go into the Vet Center I deal

with one counselor primarily.

And he and I sit, we talk, I tell him what's bothering me,

what I'm seeing, what I'm dreaming about

or why I'm not sleeping well or you know like that.

And then he gives me ideas as to ways that I can do

to help better it so that I will sleep better

and my dreams aren't as bad.

I also see a doctor that gives me some medication

to help calm me down, which does work and helps me sleep.

Then I saw another doctor, and he spoke with me,

and I explained to him the trauma, and he ensured me that

I will always have the trauma, but he could give me some meds

to help me to be able to sleep.

And he told me the side effects of it, as well.

I started taking the medicine, and I was able to sleep.

Because before, like I said, I would wake up sweating, cold,

shaking of the trauma that happened, and it would take me

at least anywhere from 30 minutes to 45 minutes

to be able to go back to sleep.

Once I started taking the meds, it helped me to sleep.

I do sleep better.

I now only have the occurring nightmare maybe two

and the worst time, three times a week.

And when I do have this nightmare, I'm able to go back

to sleep afterwards which is a big thing.

So now I'm getting a really good night's sleep almost

every night.

And like I said and when I wake up with these dreams,

it's always the same dream of course, but when I wake

up I'm able to realize, "You know what?

It's a dream.

It's not as bad as I thought."

And now I wake up, I don't even wake up my wife

so it's another good thing

so she's getting a whole night of sleep as well.

So having said that, we've done a lot of work

and we're going forward.

If you don't want to go, nobody can force you.

It's something that you have to do on your own.

But if you don't go, you're gonna be struggling like this

for rest of your life.

If you're struggling, ask for help.

It's there and it's free.

The resource is there.

If you're drowning, somebody throws a life ring to you,

it's a free life ring.

Take it. Simple as that.