PTSD and the Part-Time Hero

I am learning a lot about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as I’m treated for it.  I am a veteran of the Air Force from “the Vietnam Era,” but I was not in Vietnam or in combat.   I originally believed that harsh parental discipline was the sole cause of my PTSD, but lo-and-behold, difficulties at birth and shortly after were the beginning, and discipline was heaped on my sensitized body and soul.

My family fits a known pattern of generations of childhood punishment that would now be considered abuse.  Just as I want to be clear about my no-combat military service, I also make no claim to have been the “most abused” boy in America.  Actually, I am reaching some conclusions of my own that suggest there are some cultural norms for treatment of male infants, toddlers and adolescents that damage us into some patterns that pass for “masculine.”

I recently watched a three year old boy step up onto some exposed roots of an urban tree, then slip and bounce onto his hip and shins and down onto the sidewalk.  He rested for a moment on all fours before moaning “Oweeeee,” and beginning to cry.  Mom was standing nearby with
an infant in a stroller.  She picked the smarting little fellow up, dusted him off and told him he was fine.  He continued a restrained moan as they walked on together.  I was waiting to be buzzed through the door for a therapy session, so I had an opening topic, little boys being expected to “Ignore it, walk it off, continue on through the pain, you don’t hurt, you’re OK, etc.”  Ignore those feelings, young man!

I learned only this year that I have PTSD.  I learned also that my job choices were examples of what a PTSD sufferer might choose.  I’d been a deputy sheriff and a night time taxi driver.  These high-adrenalin positions, including excessive amounts of coffee and sugar to assist in the hypervigilance, were dangerous enough to allow me to stay agitated for entire shifts, where I found myself comfortable.

Watching the James Gandolfini/HBO documentary “Wartorn, 1861-2010” I saw one distressed wife of a disturbed combat veteran speak the common belief, “You’d think he would try to forget his experiences,” instead of sitting at his computer obsessively looking at photographs of his military middle east activities.  The fact is, the traumatized person may slink away and hide, but he or she may also seek situations where agitation is common.  My body chose the latter.

As a deputy sheriff, I became a hostage negotiator, seeking a special niche as a rescuer in the most serious situation a cop might find himself in.  SWAT guys might use the same description to describe their take on their roles in major crises.  What better role could a traumatized guy or gal have, but to be the go-to-person among society’s go-to people.

I left law enforcement to become an actor (getting up in front of people, the only activity feared more than death), then I became a taxi driver (the most dangerous job in existence) to support myself.  I began coming home from the road with stories of getting involved in incidents on the street.  Many of my taxi-driving brothers and sisters have done it, put themselves at risk to save a citizen in peril, but I found myself-perhaps due to my police training and to my PTSD-to be able to spot a situation gone wrong while most others were staying focused on the business of earning a living.  I found that my daily call to 911 to avert trouble or to catch a wrong-doer was an important part of my job satisfaction along with solving people’s transportation problems with my cab.

When I was a new cab driver, I remember having dropped a passenger in the opera area of San Francisco, the Hayes Valley.  It was 9:00 or 10:00pm, and I was heading back toward the Castro district along a particularly dark street near Hayes when a well-dressed young woman burst from between parked cars in a panic, and stood in my headlights demanding that I stop.  Which I did.  She swiftly came around to my passenger side rear door (I unlocked it,) and she got in.  I asked if she was alright.  She said she was, but that she was afraid.  She found herself on that dark block, corner stores at each end, with scary looking people milling about.  I sat with her a moment, we breathed together, and I asked where she’d like to go.  She told me.  It wasn’t far, but she felt rescued by my chance arrival.  She thanked me again, tipped me nicely, and I felt a special pleasure from the rescue aspect.  It may have set the tone for my next ten years of driving and getting involved.