Who Help's the Helper?

If you're from the Northeast, you know how humid and miserably hot our summers can get some years, I myself prefer dry heat, the humidity sucks the life right out of you. It was one of those mornings, allready ninety two degrees with ninety percent humidity in mid August, when my partner and I, both paramedics who work in a city south of Boston, were dispatched with the police to perform a well being check. This is fairly routine, when someone cannot get ahold of one of their friends or relatives, and fears they might be ill, they call us to go check on them.

This was just another one, to go check on a lady in her sixties who the caller reported to have had all sorts of medical conditions, and she hadn't heard from her in two weeks, despite repeated calls. When we arrived, we noticed the condition of the house from the exterior, paint peeling, grass two feet tall, etc. Then as soon as we exited the ambulance about twenty feet away, we both knew.

The smell of a decomposing body is unique unto itself. You think you might know because you've smelled rotten chicken or beef before, but I assure you, this is in it's own class. The officer arrived with us, and the debate began, who was going in first? I have found that quietly backing up is an effective sociological tool to implement, and usually works, this time, not so well. The officer had to force entry to the house, and once inside the smell was absolutely overpowering, one of the worst I've smelled in my thirteen years.

We found her reclined in her easy chair, and by the looks of her face and body, it must have been at least two weeks, but what was the most disturbing was her dog. It got hungry when she died, and hey, they are carnivorous, so you might imagine his buffet table, as she was probably three hundred pounds. He ate her entire abdominal cavity out, and then died himself. The maggots were everywhere, crawling out of everything in the home, and on the bodies. Needless to say, we exited quickly. Months later, recurrant nightmares on a nightly basis form, and over and over, it's the same house, and strange symptoms begin to surface in me that I had never had before.

I lived a good childhood, and enjoyed my youth. I grew up on Cape Cod, and spent every summer day at the beach with my mother when I was young. Back then, the Cape was tourists in summer only, we had it all to ourselves in the winter, but I digress. My point to make was that I can't blame my childhood for these bizarre symptoms, for although not perfect,, compared to others, my childhood was good.

They all started after that call. I can remember being at work, and I could only describe my feeling as if I had a incredibly heavy lead blanket from head to toe, standing up, and no matter what I did, I couldn't shake it off. I would have outbursts of anger that were blown out of perportion, and simply dreaded going in for another shift.
All the past would resurface nightly, and I would relive the same faces and screaming as I lived doing my job. I had seen twelve years of images like this allready, doing the same job, so I never put it all together.

I continued working, miserable daily, that damn lead blanket on my heart and soul, almost enough to make me nauseated. My heart for these twelve years had gone through many changes, as I can remember being nervous, and unconfident, but the emotions ran the gamet through the years, beginning with happyness, to occasional sadness, then just sadness, angry, mad, and then, just........nothing. The lead blanket was there, but I didn't feel anymore, about anything or anyone, but it wasn't as relieving as it sounds compared to the other emotions I had. It's almost like someone flipped a switch in my head, or perhaps broke into my brain and stole my ability to feel. It was gone. I can vividly remember a day at work and a situation that years back would have made me angry, but nothing happened. I recall an inner voice screaming at me to get mad. I simply just longed to feel anything, whatever it was.

My longing only had to last a short while, because I was about to recieve a partial reprieve, a return to feeling again, but sadly it was in the form of complete sadness. Deep within my soul, almost as if it was a physical discomfort. Unlike my period of being unemotional, which lasted maybe two or three months, the sadness had made itself home in my body, and wasn't planning on going anywhere anytime soon. I could not feel joy, of any kind, and nothing helped. I was oblivious as to what was happening to my body, and mind, and although others who knew me would make comments about my weight loss, or my attitude, no one came out directly and said anything of helpfullness, no one held out their hand to mine, offering to help. You cannot imagine how I wanted to hear those words, to have someone, anyone, reach out to me. My wife tried, but she had almost had it with my behaviour, and I believe I was too thick to get her suggestions, as I would just zone out when she spoke. I believe now, that in her own way, she had been trying to help, but I only saw it as her irritation at me, and I launched into my defense mode, my turtle shell.

I don't know why it took so long to realize I needed to find help myself, and during that time I remember hurting so badly that I truly considered leaving this world, not for a cry for attention, I just wanted to end my hurt. "But that would be selfish", I would yell at myself, as I thought of my wife and son alone. I was right, of course. To leave a wonderful wife who couldn't understand why her husband wasn't the same one that she had married only six years before, too a five year old little boy, who deserved a father, and neither one deserved the selfish heartache that would ensue.

There was an eight hundred number on the back of my health insurance card, and my hands shook as I held it, and dialed the numbers in. Within thirty minutes I had set up my first meeting with a psychiatric NP, seven days away.

It was now a month later, late winter, and a large blizzard was going on outside our house. It was almost midnight, and both my wife and son were asleep, as I took my daily dose of Zoloft, and that night when I swallowed that pill, I recalled not five weeks earlier, I was a completely different person. A I got into our warm bed, next to a woman I adored, I smiled, my heart was happy to have been relieved of those not so distant feelings, and to be blessed with such a family. I finally was able to escape that heavy lead blanket, and felt light, and for the first time in quite a real while, ecstatic about life.

I had always held a certain disdain for people who told me that they had PTSD, and when I asked what war they were in, they looked at me strangely, and replied, "no, no, it was from my childhood", etc. I was just too ignorant to realize that everyone is in their own way, susceptible to this mental illness.

It was hot in my therapists office that evening in winter. I actually just wanted to leave and go home, and felt jittery. I was staring out the window, thinking that my depression was "cured", so why am I still coming here? She had been silent for a bit, and then she spoke, but what she said wasn't what I had in mind.
"You have seen more tragedy and death, and physical atrocities and violence in one shift than most people see in their entire lives", she said. "yeah, I guess", I replied, not really thinking about what she was getting at.
She said, "it's pretty clear, you have severe post traumatic stress disorder". I sat back, like I had been slapped, and with my face feeling flushed from embarassment, I thought to myself what total sense it made. Thirteen years of seeing nothing but people at their worst, and for a good part of that, putting my heart into actually caring for each one as I would want myself to be cared for. Remembering how angry I was at the world for leaving me to rot, no one to hold out a hand, or sit quietly and try to pry any anwsers out of me.

Things progressed slowly, but promisingly well following that cold winter night. Later on, in the spring, my sister, whom had been fighting breast cancer for six years, passed away. I had been planning to go and be with her for a week, as the doctors gave her six months, but God had other plans for all of us, and wanted her home soon. I got the phonecall while at work. Numbness set in, and still it remains, three weeks later. The one thing I wanted to close this article with, is that no matter what the helper says to heal those who hurt, it feels blank. For all the times I had stated, "I'm so sorry for your loss", only to hear it said to me at her funeral, felt cheap, cheesy, false, fake, empty. "No!" I wanted to scream. "You're not sorry!" I knew though that although these folks meant well, and might have been truly sorry, the only one who felt cheated was me. I cheated her, myself, her family. I selfishly grieved, and then grieved for feeling selfish. Such a visious cycle. "Why?" This was repeated in my head for six years, and since her death almost every hour in my head, but no one could give me the anwser.

So who helps the helper when they hurt?