Risa Ruse

PTSD Toolbox Converting Sorrow To Joy Risa Ruse

I was a Social Worker off and on for over 10 years at various non-profit agencies. One of them, the first one (where I did my internship at the age of 41 with 4 children and a husband) was for the very agency that I had put myself into as a foster child at the age of 14. How is that for kismet? I mention this because most health care workers will say that the person who has gone through the same experiences as their clients are the most empathic to their needs. I always had a special space in my heart for the Veterans that I found homes for who had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). As a child growing up (until my mother's untimely death when I was 11 years old) we would live with various grandparents, or a dear Great Aunt until my mother would find work. We would have to sleep 3 to a bed, my mother, my sister, and myself. Then we even had that bed in an outside garage for some time before she could afford an apartment, or until our next often trip back to either New York or California to live with a different set of grandparents. The odd thing about having PTSD is most people really do not know they have it at the time because the negative emotions just sneak up on us, replacing the loving, healthy ones. Our lives just get dimmer and dimmer until we cannot quite remember when there was light, or a sense of self-love and happiness. This is why my own (twice) PTSD journey can be compared to an open door of healing opportunities, where that door had been nailed shut before filled only with bad memories, and grief. I must warn you that if you start on the path of self-realization it just may connect you to a love force so deep, and strong that you will never be the same person again! After going through all of the chapters you read in this book, you will come to the last one. That is the 'prize, ' the ultimate gift at the end of the road. I hope you can find it, too!