CPT: Looking In The Mirror At The Shadow Of Myself

What a long week.  I keep on trying to find the time to write this post and others, but life intervenes.  What is frustrating is that I always feel better after I get out my thoughts in this blog, yet right now there doesn't seem to be enough time in the day.  *sigh*

Anyways, this past CPT session was pretty stressful.  One of the guys brought the kid of a friend to group.  The kid was in his early to mid 20's (wow - I just called someone in their 20's a kid.  Must be getting older...).  He was shot in the shoulder over in Iraq by a sniper.  He was ghost white from the pain and the pain meds.  His PTSD was deep and very severe.

And it felt like I was looking at a shadow of myself before I got help, when I first got home from overseas.  His life was in shambles and he was pushing everyone in his life that cared about him away but you could tell he was desperate for the loving touch of the ones who loved him.  He was a ball of jitters, anger, depression, catastrophic thinking, paranoia and guilt.  It was hard to look at, hard to watch.  I wanted to reach out to him and let him know that he was going to be OK.  The state he was in, he wouldn't have believed a word I said, even if I said the sky was blue.  He had insomnia, partially from the pain of his injury and partially from his wounded soul.

I didn't have the physical injury, but the rest...well, I don't like to think about the shriveled husk of a man that I was before I got help for my PTSD.

Here's the good part, the part that gives me hope:  Every guy in group, no matter how bad their situation was, reached out to that young man with compassion and knowing love and support.  We all told him he had a place with us if he needed it.  The common bond of traumatic experience brought us all closer in that one moment.  I think is was a benchmark moment for all of us in group.  I don't know why, but something about that moment changed the dynamic in group and changed it for the better.

A lot more happened in group in addition to this.  It was an eventful session.  But that is a tale for another post.  Off to hug my daughter now.