PTSD – Memories frozen in the mind – My Own Story of PTSD

Unless you live with someone who has combat PTSD, you cannot imagine how it is to go to sleep one night with someone you love – and wake up the next day and wonder where that person is.

Fragments of horrific experiences are captured in the “brain’s eye”. A place is found in the brain to store those pictures - they are frozen in time. On any given day, those frozen memories can begin to thaw, sometimes in an instant. The pictures come to life again – the horror of what happened is once again very real, and it is happening all over again.

After the early morning hours of September 19, 2008, I understand how those frozen images can thaw in an instant.

I cannot hear a helicopter without seeing vivid images in my mind of the darkness of that night - images of law enforcement cars speeding to the scene….again, in my mind I hear gunfire………….

The dead silence that followed – and once again, I can feel the fear that death could be near me.

I see the flashing lights, an ambulance – a road blocked and flashing lights, I hear the flight for life helicopter coming in – people all around, chaos.

Again, I remember waiting for what seemed like a lifetime before knowing if my husband was alive, or dead.

In a matter of minutes those horrific images were frozen in my mind. And something as simple as a helicopter unleashes these memories in my mind.

Can you imagine what living in a combat situation 24 hours a day for days at a time could do to the mind?

I can’t.

Please, help me save my husband’s life. The only way this can happen is by making certain he has the best defense possible to achieve the best outcome possible. Help me get him the care he needs that the VA failed to give him.

Please - help save Patrick’s life.