PTSD: Road to a Paramedic’s Recovery
One year ago I was diagnosed with PTSD and massive depressive disorder following 8 years as a Paramedic. Today I’m in a much happier place, with almost no symptoms, and looking forward to the next chapter of my life.
I walk around every day with insurmountable anxiety and depression. I love my family and my life, yet, all I wanted was to die. No matter where I went I felt this heavy weight. No one had any idea because I was also this silly, happy guy, who did comedy on the side; no one but my wife, that is.
I was a 32 year old Paramedic about to have my second daughter (literally the day after my wife gave birth) when I had a traumatic ambulance call for a child who reminded me of my daughter. I did my job and took care of the child to the best of my abilities, but while I was riding in the back of that ambulance, I had a feeling my career was over. Only I had no idea the horrible road it was taking me down.
My mental health plummeted. While still trying to work, help my wife raise a new baby along with our 2 year old daughter, that call never went away. To make matters worse, I had just gotten over another incident involving a child a month previous and was very raw still.
I worked for two more months before everything came crashing down. I was spiralling into a horrible depression. Driving over a bridge I’d think, “losing a tire and going off the ledge might not be the worst thing to happen.” I couldn’t kill myself, but I could hope that an AVM (arteriovenous malformation) in my brain might explode, or a drunk driver would swerve into my lane
I had another bad call involving two young adults where I found myself drawing up a medication that I couldn’t see. My eyes had gone blurry, but I continued to do my job as well as I could, handing the mediation to someone else. I was a useless set of hands in a chaotic situation to terrified to tell anyone.
A few days later I couldn’t make the simplest decisions, freaking out i might make a wrong call. I didn’t trust my brain anymore and I couldn’t risk anyone’s safety, and thats when I decided to ask for help. I booked off work, called a Critical Incident Stress line, and explained that I was thinking about death more than I wasn’t and in desperate need of help.
I thought that phone call was the easy part. Where everything got better immediately. Every day after that felt like I had been trudging up a never ending mountain to its limitless peak. In my imaginary backpack was a sleeping bag that could be used at any time; but, I couldn’t use it. If I stopped climbing that mountain because I got cold, or tired — I was dead. If I stopped pushing forward to the next day, I would die. I was choosing to NOT use my sleeping bag because I owed it to my two kids and wife to keep going. But death always seemed so close and obtainable, and life seemed to get more stressful.
The anxiety of living was so unbearable. There were days when I would think “soon the kids will be in bed, and you can drink or smoke weed”. I began self-medicating heavily because it shut off my brain and made life manageable.
Through lots of counselling, medication, and giving up alcohol, I slowly took off my backpack of death. For a while my backpack stayed at home, but with a lot of hard work, I was able to get rid of it and start working on my life, marriage, and future.
The best thing I learned was how to get out of my own head, let the past go, and that it’s not quick, but its worth it.
If you feel like you’re stuck, or depressed, or thinking about death a lot, reach out to services around you, tell your family and friends. If you have PTSD, please know you can make it out of it and that it doesn’t need to define you. I’m glad everyday I have stayed on the path to my own wellness. When I have blips (and there have been many) I am able to recover and get out of a spiral before it gets bad.
Im forever grateful for my wife for sticking through all of this with me, and that my kids get to have a dad.
- Sam Elliott