ASHTYN SALAZAR'S STORY

By Ashtyn Salazar

Have you ever heard of ACEs? It stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences, and refers to ten categories of trauma a child could experience growing up. I have experienced nearly all ten of them. I grew up experiencing these various types of trauma, unbeknownst to me at the time. In fact, I did not even realize ‘trauma’ was a word that could be used to describe my childhood until my therapist enlightened me. Several people in my life at the time took advantage of me, causing irreversible damage. I have spent much of my adult life trying to save those relationships and protect those people, even though they never bothered to protect me. Focusing on protecting myself and finding out the best way to do that is to cut ties with certain people, has been a hard realization to come to. You would assume it would be easy to cut off people who have traumatized me, but it’s actually proven to be quite difficult. It’s in my nature to want to nurture, protect, and people-please, but what good does that do for me? As many probably know, when you experience trauma as a child, that young child remains inside of you forever. That being said, I have been working on shifting my focus to protecting that little, traumatized girl living inside of me.

The hardest part of what I went through, is that my brain decided to suppress some of the memories, causing them to resurface as an adult. Meaning: I have had to relive those traumatic memories over again. Learning to accept what happened to me and how to heal from it has been a tough storm to weather ...

Extract taken from Ashtyn's story featured in the book PTSD.

A FEW SECONDS

By Jim Tritten

On November 21, 1979, I crashed a U.S. Navy twin-engine jet airplane. This precipitating event took only a few seconds. It never dawned on me to seek any counseling about this near-death traumatic experience. As time passed, it was clear that my flying skills no longer had a razor-sharp edge. After a series of follow-on embarrassing minor mishaps, I was gently eased into non-flying duties and an earlier-than-planned retirement from the Navy. A series of overlapping and ever-increasing symptoms went on for years. 

In the early 1990s, I sought some relief from my symptoms and was referred for biofeedback that included oversight by a psychologist. After a few months of interaction, he diagnosed me with PTSD, tied directly to the aircraft accident in 1979. I buried the report since I was still employed by the federal government and wanted to remain employed. After a while, I forgot about the diagnosis and his written report.

The symptoms only got worse as the root causes remained unaddressed. By early 2008, the problem became unbearable, and I was no longer able to control the symptoms. At my primary care physician's advice, I fully retired on disability.

Instead of going to work each day, I became a professional patient and sought out the cause for the debilitating symptoms. It took a while to get the diagnosis of PTSD, and when I did, it was met with both relief and fright. At least there was now a name for what was causing my symptoms. It was a mental illness ...

Extracts from Jim's story featured in the book PTSD.

MY PTSD JOURNEY

By Darren Warren

Back in 1999, I moved to Norwich, England, with a couple of mates. We lived on Prince of Wales Road, right in the thick of the nightlife. I loved it. We all worked in bars and clubs, glass collecting, bar work, promo work ... whatever was going on. It was a busy, messy, fun lifestyle, and at the time it felt completely normal.

On the night everything changed. I was doing what I had done loads of times before - out handing flyers for a local nightclub before starting my shift. I was stood on the corner of Tombland when a vaguely familiar face came over. I recognised him as someone I had gone to school with. We never really got on, but it had been years, so I did not think much of it. Straight away I could tell there was something off. He seemed edgy, aggressive. He tried to make small talk, but it felt forced. Before I really had time to react, he was suddenly in my face. I was fine with standing my ground verbally, but then I felt someone grab me from behind and pull me to the floor.

Suddenly I was surrounded. People were kicking me. I remember drifting in and out of consciousness. At one point I woke up and felt relieved, thinking it was over, but it was not. The kicks were still coming. Every time I tried to push myself up, I got knocked back down. There was a moment where I was just lying there on the ground and I honestly accepted that I might not get up again. I could not defend myself. I could not move. I genuinely thought I might die there ...

Extracts from Darren's story featured in the book PTSD.

A PHOTOJOURNALIST TACKLES PTSD

By Peter W. Morris

Sixty years have passed since I first held an ancient Nikon F to my eye, my initial assignment to document Russian fishing trawlers (aka spy ships) illegally transiting United States’ territorial waters off New York City. I stood atop the Coast Guard Cutter Agassiz, my camera capturing this major international transgression. The resulting images were transmitted to newspapers, magazines, and television stations internationally through the Associated Press. A heady experience for a budding photojournalist.

Six decades later, I’ve captured tens of thousands of news and feature images of people of all ages and nationalities, literally the planet's good, bad, and ugly residents.

Some of these images continue to warm the heart with the beauty of their moments, recapturing joy in reflection. Others are revisited as they fill the subconscious with technical memories to be utilized in creativity for future assignments. And then there are those snaps of the shutter that tear at your heartstrings long after publication.

Death ...

Photojournalists, like combat veterans, police officers, firefighters, and ambulance attendants, can’t always delete the sights their eyes have beheld. In scenes of indescribable horror, light-hearted conversations among professionals often fail to reflect the intense situations in which they find themselves ... the deceased in highway accidents, families grieving at murder, suicides, and scarred individuals from industrial fires ...

Extract taken from Peters' story featured in the book PTSD

ZACK BENZ'S STORY

I have a diagnosis of PTSD, but specifically it is C-PTSD, so there was more than one event that contributed to my trauma. When I was very young - around the ages of between four and ten - my father was verbally and emotionally abusive towards me. At school I struggled to make friends and got bullied due to having an ADHD diagnosis, and (undiagnosed at the time) autism. I was in 'special ed' for all of elementary school. At around that time, I also began to experience the first symptoms of depression and to having thoughts that perhaps my family would be better off without me.

I hit puberty once I turned 11 or 12. This is when things began to really go downhill, as I realized I was transgender. My parents did not take this well. I was told I was just copying other people, and that I would always be their 'daughter'. I was not allowed to choose my own clothes, cut my hair, wear a chest binder or wear any clothing that were not from the girl’s section. Nor was I allowed to use a different name or pronoun, or even look uncomfortable without being punished and yelled at when mis-gendered. At 12, I began self-harming and attempted suicide for the first time. After my mother found out about my self-harm, she began making me stand naked in front of her each night so she could inspect my body. Despite my expressed discomfort, I was told my privacy was a privilege I would have to “earn back.” ...

Extract taken from Zacks story featured in the book PTSD.