{"id":337,"date":"2014-11-02T10:58:43","date_gmt":"2014-11-02T15:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/?p=337"},"modified":"2014-11-08T09:35:25","modified_gmt":"2014-11-08T14:35:25","slug":"chapter-one-continuation-you-cant-just-snap-out-of-it-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/2014\/11\/02\/chapter-one-continuation-you-cant-just-snap-out-of-it-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter One, Continuation, You Can&#8217;t Just Snap Out Of It (Book)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Click <a href=\"https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/?p=280\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> for the first part of Chapter One and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/You-Cant-Just-Snap-Psychological\/dp\/0692297294\/ref=sr_1_sc_2?s=books&#038;ie=UTF8&#038;qid=1414945034&#038;sr=1-2-spell&#038;keywords=j+douglas+bremnerr\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> to see the paperback and kindle books on Amazon.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cGotta get them out, gotta get them out,\u201d the voice on the other end of the line said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cExcuse me, may I ask who is calling?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGotta get them out, gotta get them out,\u201d he repeated in a robotic fashion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWho are you, where are you calling from?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGotta get them out. Gotta get them out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn order for me to help you, you\u2019ve got to tell me who you are and what happened tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGotta get them out. Gotta get them out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This went on for twenty minutes. After a while, I talked him down and found out what was going on.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier that night, the veteran rushed into a burning house to rescue three little children. He saved their lives. <\/p>\n<p>He was a hero.<\/p>\n<p>But his mind paid a terrible price.<\/p>\n<p>In the Vietnam War, he&#8217;d served as a fireman. His job was to put out fires on helicopters hit by enemy fires, including removing people from the flaming aircraft. Sometimes this meant saving lives; other times, it involved just pulling charred bodies out of the wreckage.<\/p>\n<p>His actions as the hero who pulled the three children safely out of the house triggered a flashback to his memories of Vietnam. All he could see, like a movie playing out before him over and over, was a memory from Vietnam, rushing into a burning helicopter and pulling out the charred remains of a twenty-two-year-old marine.<\/p>\n<p>As a last resort, he called the psychiatrist on duty at the VA hospital. Even as he talked to me on the phone, he replayed over and over, like a skip on a vinyl record, or like a continuous computer loop, pulling that body out of the helicopter.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-3031306445884183\";\n\/* pill2 *\/\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"2778824552\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\n\/\/-->\n<\/script><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p>When he came back into the land of the living, and while he was telling me his story, I had an epiphany: I realized that this man strongly resembled someone in the throes of a seizure, similar to my patients with brain disorders such as epilepsy. Even though they might look as though they&#8217;re performing recognizable behaviors, epileptic patients in the midst of a seizure are in fact totally out of touch with the world around them.<\/p>\n<p>It was at that moment that I first considered the possibility that an emotional event such as a trauma could cause real physiological damage to the brain.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>(People use the word \u2018flashback\u2019 fairly loosely, but as it applies to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), it refers to a specific symptom, where you see a traumatic event from your past playing out like a movie in front of your eyes, and you have no control over it. When people have a flashback, they are temporarily out of touch with what is going on around them.)\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Changing Views on Trauma<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>While today that thought might not seem heretical, in the late 80\u2019s, such an idea would have been laughed at.<br \/>\nThe prevailing 80\u2019s notion with psychological trauma cases was that the victims were malingerers, even though the American Psychiatric Association (APA)\u2019s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the bible of psychiatry, described its diagnosis as Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. That diagnosis was virtually never used. It wasn\u2019t used because, frankly, I and almost all other professionals didn\u2019t believe in it.<\/p>\n<p>Doctors are not islands; they reflect the beliefs and attitudes of their culture, time and place. When society changes, so do they.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_342\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-342\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Figure-1.-hipp_PTSD_figure.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Figure-1.-hipp_PTSD_figure-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"HIPPOCAMPAL VOLUME IN PTSD Measured with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). There is a visible reduction in volume of the hippocampus (outlined in red) in a representative patient with PTSD relative to a normal individual (arrow).\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-342\" srcset=\"https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Figure-1.-hipp_PTSD_figure-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Figure-1.-hipp_PTSD_figure-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Figure-1.-hipp_PTSD_figure-750x563.jpg 750w, https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Figure-1.-hipp_PTSD_figure-80x60.jpg 80w, https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Figure-1.-hipp_PTSD_figure.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-342\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">HIPPOCAMPAL VOLUME IN PTSD<br \/>Measured with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). There is a visible reduction in volume of the hippocampus (outlined in red) in a representative patient with PTSD relative to a normal individual (arrow).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>At that time, \u201cJust snap out of it, just get over it\u201d was akin to a national theme song. We looked to the resilient super-survivors, the WWII veterans from the \u201cGreatest Generation,\u201d who were (supposedly) unscarred by their war-time experiences, and who showed great courage and sacrifice for the country. We saw them as the ideal model\u2014the ideal model being the person who could endure traumatic experiences and come out unscathed.<\/p>\n<p>The thought that trauma might actually affect an individual\u2014be that individual a soldier, a rape victim, or any other trauma survivor\u2014was anathema to us.<\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-3031306445884183\";\n\/* pill2 *\/\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"2778824552\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\n\/\/-->\n<\/script><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p>Even today, many mental health professionals are still singing the \u201cJust get over it\u201d theme song. It resonates with the pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps American outlook on life. For example, in a best-selling book Cope With It!, at page 147 of that book, the popular radio psychologist Dr. Laura Schlessinger writes,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Do you hold onto the past? Do you find yourself constantly reiterating old hurts? Might it be that remembering old pain serves a new purpose? Your old pain might be the way you manipulate your present partners or friends . . It also might be the way you get yourself off the hook for not being more giving, less selfish.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>By saying this, Dr. Laura suggests that people with traumatic pasts are not only malingerers who should \u201cjust get over it\u201d or \u201cjust snap out of it\u201d (as she has said so many times on the radio), but that they are also manipulators. <\/p>\n<p>She implies that people hang onto the trauma to use as a weapon against others.<\/p>\n<p>That was (and in some quarters still is) the attitude towards trauma and its victims, but with that one Vietnam veteran\u2019s case, I began to consider that perhaps we were wrong about psychological trauma. I wanted to discover the answers.<\/p>\n<p>Click <a href=\"https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/?p=280\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> for the first part of Chapter One and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/You-Cant-Just-Snap-Psychological\/dp\/0692297294\/ref=sr_1_sc_2?s=books&#038;ie=UTF8&#038;qid=1414945034&#038;sr=1-2-spell&#038;keywords=j+douglas+bremnerr\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> to see the paperback and kindle books on Amazon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Click here for the first part of Chapter One and here to see the paperback and kindle books on Amazon. \u201cGotta get them out, gotta get them out,\u201d the voice on the other end of the line said. \u201cExcuse me, may I ask who is calling?\u201d \u201cGotta get them out, gotta get them out,\u201d he repeated in a robotic fashion. \u201cWho are you, where are you calling from?\u201d \u201cGotta get them out. Gotta get them out.\u201d \u201cIn order for me [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[196,23,49],"tags":[127,183,198,197,200,199,172,54,171,179,182,173,181,53],"class_list":["post-337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-childhood-abuse-2","category-psychology","category-trauma","tag-childhood-abuse","tag-depression","tag-hippocampal-volume","tag-hippocampus","tag-magnetic-resonance-imaging","tag-mri","tag-posttraumatic-stress-disorder","tag-psychological-trauma","tag-ptsd","tag-recovery","tag-self-help","tag-stress","tag-substance-abuse","tag-trauma-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":348,"href":"https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions\/348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beforeyoutakethatpill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}