ptsd is like 'a chronic injury that you take care of for the rest of your life'
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"when you have ptsd, you are basically rendered helpless," says ptsd survivor ute lawrence. getty
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with lives that revolve around routines and schedules, most of us wake up in the morning with a pretty good sense of how our day will unfold. what we can’t possibly imagine, or prepare for, is that our day will end in life-changing tragedy and trauma. and as a result of that trauma, that we will be scarred for life with a condition called post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd).
ute lawrence survived such an experience. one clear, sunny morning in september 1999, she and her husband stan were driving along highway 401 from their home in london, ontario, to a business meeting in detroit. out of the blue, they encountered a massive band of fog stretching across the highway, obscuring everything in front of it like a wall. stan slammed on the brakes, narrowly missing a large truck in front of them.
before they could exhale a sigh of relief that they had avoided a major disaster, ute and stan watched in horror as a huge 18-wheeler sailed through the fog and over the trunk of their car. then cars, trucks and vans began slamming into their car and each other, 87 of them in all. lawrence says the screeching of tires and crashing of metal on metal seemed to go on forever.
with cars piled up around and on top of them, they quickly realized they were trapped. lawrence looked out and saw an arm crushed against her side window. it belonged to a 14-year-old girl who was pounding on the roof of their car with her other arm, screaming that she was on fire. they had no way to help. suddenly a truck driver was standing on the hood of their car. he had heard the girl’s cries, and had a fire extinguisher, which he used to put out the fire. because of her screams, stan and ute were found and survived. the girl was not so lucky. she died that morning, along with seven others, including her father and brother.
lawrence says she and stan should have been happy to have emerged from that catastrophe with only a few cuts and scratches. but they were not. the sights and sounds they experienced that day, a day as unexpected as fog on a clear day, she says, haunted them.
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“after the accident, i had no idea what was wrong with me,” says lawrence, describing feelings of helplessness, fear and anxiety, which ultimately led to a diagnosis of ptsd. “at the time, i thought ptsd affected veterans, not civilians. so i went on a huge discovery journey to find out what it was that was wrong with me because i really couldn’t function very well. i was in the magazine business, which is high stress to start with, and i just couldn’t cope.”
eye movement desensitization and cbt can treat ptsd
dr. ruth lanius, neuroscientist and professor of psychiatry, and harris-woodman chair in mind-body medicine at the university of western ontario in london, where she is the director of the clinical research program for ptsd, began treating lawrence with a variety of therapies, including eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (emdr) therapy, as well as cognitive behavioural therapy (cbt), both of which lawrence says helped her reframe her thinking.
once she was able to manage her symptoms, she looked for a trauma support association that she could volunteer for and help others, but there was nothing — so little was understood about ptsd in 1999. so, in 2006, she started the ptsd association of canada, the first of its kind in north america.
the site offers resources and information on ptsd, a clinical board of global experts, as well as coping strategies, self-assessments, and shared stories from other people living with the disorder.
“anyone can get ptsd if they are subjected to a horrible event,” says lawrence. “you can get it from child abuse, domestic violence, rape, violent crime, auto accidents, cancer, unexpected loss of a loved one, natural disasters. when you have ptsd you are basically rendered helpless, you don’t know what’s going on.”
dr. ruth lanius, a neuroscientist and a professor of psychiatry at the university of western ontario in london, treated ute lawrence with emdr therapy, as well as cognitive behavioural therapy. supplied
other symptoms include abnormal fear, panic attacks, flashbacks, anxiety, anger, depression, sleeplessness, and feeling overwhelmed. according to statistics canada, about eight per cent of adults meet the criteria for ptsd, with women being affected about twice as often as men.
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ptsd symptoms include abnormal fear and sleeplessness
to further help her know what was going on, and to help others going through the same journey, in 2009 lawrence wrote a book, the power of trauma: conquering post traumatic stress disorder, but it wasn’t an easy undertaking.
“it took me two years to write it because it kept me in the past and continuously aroused, writing about the experience,” she says. “my husband couldn’t even read the book for a couple of years after it came out because it upset him.”
as part of her therapy and knowledge journey, lawrence discovered university of arizona professor of neurosurgery dr. allan hamilton, who had developed equine therapy programs based on his books zen mind, zen horse: the science and spirituality of working with horses and lead with your heart: lessons from a life with horses, and signed up for one of his programs.
“i was petrified at first, but it basically changed my whole life,” she says. “when i think of the treatment i still get goosebumps, it was the most powerful thing i’ve ever experienced. which is why we’re doing what we’re doing.”
what she and stan are doing is running their own equine-assisted therapy for first responders out of their belvoir estate farm in delaware, ontario, which incorporates hamilton’s neuro-equine model that he uses to teach clinicians, counsellors and social workers treating those with mental and emotional issues such as ptsd.
“we had dr. hamilton come to the farm for a day to work with first responders and the results were amazing,” says lawrence of the unique calming qualities inherent in horses.
when clinical therapy includes horses
lanius says the type of therapy used to treat ptsd depends on the individual, since different people respond to different treatments.
“treatments have to be very personalized. we have to teach people to regulate their nervous systems through feedback,” she says. “some people find it helpful to reprocess their trauma, especially on a visceral level, taking it very slowly. and other people prefer forming a narrative, actually talking about it.”
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she incorporates pharmaceuticals, cbt, emdr, talk therapy, and believes there is a place for such psychedelic drugs as mdma and psilocybin, or magic, mushrooms.
“we have to be careful with that, however,” she says. “often when people use psychedelics, a lot of things will come to the forefront that may be distressing. so it’s critical to use those medications in a context of therapy so you can support the person going through the processing of this new material.”
ute lawrence and her husband stan run an equine-assisted therapy for first responders out of their belvoir estate farm in delaware, ontario. supplied
as for the controversial “memory erasure therapy”, the jury’s still out on that one.
“it’s going to be really difficult to erase certain memories because memories really form who you are,” says lanius. “it’s more about bringing brain networks online so the memories no longer haunt. people can understand that, even though it’s a bad memory, it’s over. that’s the key part of trauma treatment.”
tracking emotions in the brain
one area of research she’s testing is brain imaging as a way to track emotions occurring in the brain after treatment. “those areas that help us to know it’s the present and give context to a memory seem to come online after treatment. that helps us to know the memory is over, you’re no longer living it, it’s in the past. so you’re really moving from reliving the memory to remembering the memory.”
she’s also finding promising outcomes with a new therapy called deep brain reorienting, which processes shock and the visceral components of trauma.
“[it’s about] getting the individual to bring up the memory or trigger and noticing the tension in their head and neck as they orient to that trigger,” she says. “then working through shock responses in the body, and working with the visceral sensations of being torn up inside in very gentle, thoughtful manner. it really helps soothe those visceral sensations and changes significantly how they view themselves and the world.”
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as for a prognosis, lanius says recovery depends on the person.
“some people are completely cured and others continue to struggle,” she says. “a lot of people can significantly improve; sometimes it can become more of a chronic injury that you take care of for the rest of your life, and to be aware of triggers.”
lawrence compares trauma recovery to a gash on your face.
“at first, you would get stitches, and after that, it’s up to you to heal,” she says. “it is possible to reduce that scar. ptsd is a normal response to an abnormal event, and you can live a better life as a result by becoming more compassionate towards others.”
robin roberts is a vancouver-based writer.
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