To Your Rescue: The Original Work From The Tumblr Author

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Nine

Emilia

We followed the nurse, walking hand in hand. I squeezed his hand. He squeezed mine in return. Something so simple let me know that he was here with me fully. The nurse opened the door to an office, stepped to the side and motioned us to come in. A woman standing behind a modern gray desk stood up. Caucasian, long brown hair, brown eyes, thin lips, older for sure but aged gracefully. She smiled and came from behind the desk to shake our hands.

"Good morning, you must be Emilia and Aubrey. Doctor Patricia Wesleyan. Nice to meet you both."

"Nice to meet you," we said in unison.

"Please have a seat. Make yourselves comfortable," she nodded, traveling back to her chair.

The office was very cozy. Modern. Tones of grays, whites and black with pops of color here and there. Very open. The big glass windows overlooked what was going on in the busy streets of Los Angeles, California, letting in plenty of natural lighting.

"Once again, my name is Dr. Patricia Wesleyan. I am a clinical psychologist here at Cedars Sinai. I'm entering into my thirtieth year of practice, 20 of those done here at Cedars Sinai.  I received a call from your family doctor here and he informed me of your concerns in regard to PTSD. Before we go any further, I'm going to provide you with an overview of PTSD, or Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Feel free to stop me for any questions."

I nodded, nervously tapping my feet.

She cleared her throat, resting her elbows on the desk and intertwining her fingers, "PTSD is an interesting psychological phenomenon because it has a known etiology - a traumatic event. Over 60% of men and over half of all women experience at least one traumatic event. That means that most of the people you meet every day have probably experienced a trauma in their lifetime. It's adaptive to have strong reactions to trauma; we want to remember what's dangerous and stay away from it. So, thousands of years ago, if you were chased by a saber-toothed tiger, you would want to remember it, and react quickly the next time you saw one. But what we want to see is that these reactions decrease once the threat has been removed. For most people, these reactions will lessen within the first few days or weeks after the traumatic event. But for people with PTSD, these reactions don't go away. If there's no reduction in symptoms one year after the traumatic event, it's extremely unlikely that the symptoms will resolve without treatment.Of those who experience trauma, most do not develop PTSD. Only about 7% of all people develop PTSD in their lifetime. Any questions you have for me so far?"

"No ma'am. Continue please," I said.

"Okay. Now, let's take a moment and define what a trauma is. We all experience stressors every day. There are the daily hassles – things like the car breaking down or having to pay bills. Then there are larger, more stressful events; losing a job, getting a divorce or even good things like buying a home or getting married fall into this category. Traumatic stressors are different though. These are events in which someone feels that their life or the lives of others are being threatened. They can be witnessed or experienced directly. Or you can learn about a traumatic stressor happening to someone close to you. These include events such as warzone exposure, physical or sexual assault, serious accidents, child sexual or physical abuse, disasters and torture.For some people, stressful events such as having a spouse who cheats on you might be worse than some traumatic events. But the events don't result in PTSD. People with PTSD re-experience the trauma.You need one re-experiencing symptom for a diagnosis. Re- experiencing includes intrusive thoughts about the trauma, nightmares or flashbacks of the event where it feels like the event is happening again, or becoming emotionally or physically upset by reminders of the trauma. For example, because bridges are dangerous in Iraq, a veteran of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan might feel nervous and have a racing heart when driving under a bridge. A sexual assault survivor might become distressed when seeing someone who resembles the perpetrator."