The Face of The Monster

Haven't been able to post for awhile, but now I am back. I was recently diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and ended up in the hospital when the physical symptoms of my stress got the best of me.

In short I had been hit with the perfect storm of PTSD. Over the last year I have been running a sober living house in downtown Riverside. It was a very hostile, toxic work environment due to the owner's own issues. I held on as long as I could as I felt I was helping men whose lives had been taken over by drug and/or alcohol dependence. And I was making a difference. There was much recovery going on.

However once I was away from that situation, old memories of my childhood began to come back to haunt me. And then there was the class I was taking for my Alcohol & Drug Counseling. We were taking a close look at our life, where it had been and where it could go. I became totally non-functional.

All my life I have suffered from deep depression. After a six month long manic stage in 2007 I was diagnosed as having a Bipolar disorder. I was told that this was due to a chemical imbalance in my brain and that medication was the answer. While the medications helped somewhat, the pain, the depression and the inability to live a normal, happy life never came about.

Sometime ago I had been told that I may be suffering from PTSD. At the time, I could not or would not listen.
After getting out of the hospital, I Googled a PTSD Assessment and after taking it score a 71 our of 85 possible points. After taking this to a psychiatrist and being assessed further, it was determined that I indeed from suffering from PTSD. One would think that being diagnoses with PTSD would be a horrible thing. And it can be. Yet I found it strangely comforting.

You see, I now had a face on the monster that had made my life so miserable. I realized that there was an answer. Not an easy answer, but an answer. It would take a lot of work. At times it would be very painful. Yet through counseling, support groups and doing various written exercises I could finally process the horrible memories and learn to live a normal life. I might for the first time even have a social life.

This is going to be a tough journey I will be taking, yet if I do not go on this journey I will never be able to live the life that I deserve. I will never be an effective counselor to those addicts and alcoholics that I want so passionately to help.

So stay tuned as I share my journey. My hope & prayer is that someone will gain the knowledge and courage to deal with their own personal monster.

There is hope. There is an answer. Stay tuned and follow along as I discover and share those answers.

God Bless

James McPherson

Riverside-Recovery-Resources.org

And to those of you that may be suffering from PTSD, I urge you to get assessed by a doctor who specializes in PTSD.