My Battle with Depression: Removing the Final Layer

My final layer of negative attitudes that I needed to overcome was diagnosed as PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Like all of the other times I put myself into counseling, I also came to realize my need for treatment for this condition.


I was in my room, working at my computer while watching a TV show, more as background noise.  The show was about some WWII POW’s who had been held prisoner by the Japanese for two years.  As part of the show, they talked about how these POW’s were going through PTSD and what the symptoms of the condition were.

What got me to the point of believing that I needed to talk with someone about this PTSD thing was how, all during the show, I would find myself saying, “Stop talking about me, I was never in combat.  I’m a peace time veteran.”

Eventually, the impact was just too much and I called my VA health care provider, got a consult into their mental health counseling, was diagnosed as having PTSD.  What was something of a surprise to my counselor was the fact that we could not find any one incident either during or before my time in the military where a single event would have started the PTSD.  That is what is most normal, but it didn’t apply to me.

I did eventually come to learn how and when my PTSD got started, and it did explain a lot of events in my life, but the process wasn’t easy and required a lot of self-determination.  Essentially, I had to play “detective” and investigate my own life.  I found myself almost obsessed with my goal of learning how, when, and under what circumstances my PTSD condition, or at least the foundation of events that led up to it, got started.

Before I show what I learned about how my PTSD got started, I need to relate a true story.
Before enlisting in the military, I, along with my wife and kids, lived next door to my brother-in-law.  We lived there long enough to watch my sister go through three pregnancies giving birth to three children.  What I saw during these three pregnancies that helped me later discover how my PTSD started was that for the first and third pregnancy, my sister was in a strong state of nervousness, with a lot of negative emotions.  During the 2nd or middle of these three, she was very calm and at peace.  Each of the three children she gave birth to, when born, almost from day one, had the same nervous or calm disposition that she displayed during each pregnancy.

Well, as I was working through the process of getting help for my PTSD condition, and learning to apply the basic skills needed to begin to master overcoming, or at least living with this condition so I could controlled it, rather than the condition controlling me, I also found myself talking with my oldest sister a lot.

In my family, I am the youngest of 6 children and she is 2nd to oldest, with an 18-year spread between me and the oldest.  I discovered this to be an advantage because she was a teenager by the time I was born, and as such, could remember and discuss things about our home life that I was too young to remember, and which my mother was no longer around to talk with about.
During one of these talks with my oldest sister, she shared with me that while my mother was pregnant with me, she was in what I understood to be a very elevated state of nervousness.  Upon learning about this, I almost immediately compared this understanding to what I had observed about my other sister’s three pregnancies and how each of the emotional part of those three children turned out.

It was as if a light suddenly when on in my head and my heart.  That was the answer.  That was the when, where, and how the seeds leading up to my PTSD condition started.  The effect on me of that 9-months long experience, plus growing up under my mother’s “fear first” attitude set the stage for my doing so many of the things that bullies and other people were causing me hurt about.  That doesn’t excuse the bullies, but it does provide some important personal insights.

Fortunately, my father’s dominant attitude was that of self-confidence.  To the extent the mother lived a life always surrendering to fear and negative self-criticism, my father life was a life based on self-confidence and determination.  During my teenage and early adult years, as a result of being able to spend more time around my father, I was able to learn the difference between the attitudes he lived by verses those of my mother.

I also saw my father continue to make many strong and powerful personal changes in some of his own attitudes, going from being a rough and abusive parent to one who was kind, gentle, and all that other good stuff.  I learned from and saw how he reprogrammed himself to become this newer and healthier person.

So as I was going through my own PTSD counseling, and especially after having learned when the root of all of my mental and emotional problems had started, I worked with my counselor to apply what I saw and learned from my own father so I could accomplish making the same kind of negative to positive self-image and attitudes that he had to do.

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In sharing this part of my life, I am not seeking to promote myself as being better than anyone else.  I am simply seeking to use a part of my life to make the point that I am not better than you, I simply exercise my right to not stay stupid.

You have the ability to make the same decision.  You have the ability to decide that you are going to do whatever it takes to learn how to overcome just one more negative self-defeating behavior, and then another one after that.  It’s your life, take charge of it and learn how to live it so that you do not become someone else’s bully or continue to live as if you are their victim.

David W. Kemper, Author
© Copyright 2014 by David William Kemper.  All right reserved
No part or portion of this publication may be modified in any manner without the express written permission of the author.  Quoting from this publication is allowed on condition that the name of the author and the name of the publication are included.