
I've spent the past few months trying to better understand why my life has been spent enduring one tragic event after another and why I tend to protect and take on the suffering of others. I am left wondering why I am so willing to put myself in harms way, but when it comes to my own life, I look for ways to avoid these situations at all costs.
What I've never really talked about much are the days, months and years before, and after, I was diagnosed with PTSD and depression. There is so much to unpack and discuss in further detail, most of which will come out in the book I'm writing, but I just felt I needed to share a small part of this chapter of my life for the first time publicly.
I knew a few years before the end of my career that something was definitely wrong. I brushed my emotions off as burn out due to working in one of the busiest stations in the county and my need to work as much as possible. I was addicted to my work...and the more trauma calls I responded to, the more trauma I wanted...it was to be a recipe for disaster.
It wasn't until an injury forced me out of my daily routine, that I began to see I was struggling with my emotions. And so, it was during this time spent at home alone, recovering from the physical injuries, that the emotional injuries would soon begin to show up.
Prescription drugs weren't only good in relieving physical pain, but they also alleviated my emotional pain. I enjoyed the high. And so, I found myself abusing those pain medications and before I knew what was happening, I had become addicted to narcotics. I hoarded the very medications that were supposed to get me back to work and began using them instead to quiet the voices in my head and the pain I was feeling.
The day arrived when I would be forced to face the fact there would be no more prescriptions to fill, and that set off a panic to save the last few pills for days when I found I could no longer cope. I cut pills into halves and then into quarters, even saving the residual powder from the prescription bottle. I was in trouble...
Instead of seeking professional help, I gathered ice and wash clothes, closed all the blinds in my home, made my bed on the couch and stayed there for days until the narcotics were out of my system enough to begin to somewhat function again. The withdrawals added to my already stressed mental state.
When I could no longer rely on the high, I began to turn to physical abuse. Leaving cuts and bruises on my body as a means of punishment for the guilt I was carrying and as a way to also feel something, anything...
I look back on that time of my life and I now understand why I was acting out with that self destructive behavior. There are a number of reasons, but without question, one is that I was looking for peace, unfortunately, I was looking for it in all the wrong places. Those days are now a measuring device that serve as a reminder of where I was and how far I've come. I should have reached out for help much earlier than I did, but there was always the thought that I could handle this on my own. I was wrong...
Those were defining days of just how strong I was in my battle to fight through and regain my life. I just wish I would have been able to see it at the time. The combination of drugs, guilt, and the pain I was carrying, clouded that vision. I share this part of my journey, because even as dark and unpredictable as it was, that time taught me so much about myself and it reminds me that coming out of the storm has left me a much better person than when I entered it...
~Parker
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