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Trauma
What
a terrible year it has been since your patrol partner died.
You never go out, and you don't seem to enjoy things like
you used to. No more parties with the other officers and
their families. No more target practice. No more football
games. All you do is sit at home and scream at the kids.
At
least work has provided some relief. You haven't had as
many spells since you requested a desk job. You have trouble
concentrating sometimes, but at least you're not spacing
out in the patrol car or shaking too badly to turn the steering
wheel. Who can afford to have a partner like that on the
streets?
It's
bad enough what happened a year ago. You could hold a gun
steady back then, but it didn't do much good. The killer
shot first. You don't even remember what happened next.
You found out later that when you returned fire you hit
him square in the chest. At some point you called an ambulance.
You can still picture your partner's glazed eyes and pale
skin as they took him away. Sometimes those eyes wake you
up in the middle of the night. His mouth moves, like he's
trying to say something to you before he dies. Sometimes
you think if you could just figure out what he was saying,
these spells would go away.
This
chapter covers the following topics:
-
Trauma
- PTSD
Involves Persistent Symptoms of Arousal, Reexperiencing,
and Avoidance
-
Who Is at Risk for PTSD?
-
Repeated Childhood Abuse Can Cause More Varied Psychological
Reactions
- How
to Cope with Trauma and Abuse
This
excerpt may not be reproduced without written permission
from the publishers.
Fifty Signs of Mental Illness: A Guide to Understanding
Mental Health
Yale University Press / New Haven and London
Copyright © 2005 by James Whitney Hicks
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