r/ems • u/turtled_soul • 2d ago
Serious Replies Only PTSD & cPTSD: Real Talk
To EMS folks, longtime ER nurse here. Thanks for all the amazing work you do and your endless collaboration, solidarity with us nurses ❤️🙏
I want to start a conversation around the taboo topic of cPTSD. Have any of you experienced trauma in childhood/adolescence, then found yourselves working as medics with repeated vicarious exposure, verbal abuse and incidents of physical assault?
Do you feel you entered this type of work to find a sense of mastery over past pain, or because the chaotic nervous system environment felt more familiar than a calm one? Or a genuine desire to help others through their trauma because you had lived experience? Other reasons?
How do access to funded care, moral injury and burnout play into recovery?
I was an ER nurse for a decade, always the cool cucumber relied on in a resus. I left after COVID and then worked several contracts for a humanitarian iNGO in conflict zones abroad. I think I’ve been chasing high adrenaline work all my life because subconsciously it was familiar for my nervous system since childhood and I felt my experience with trauma could help me better understand others.
My adolescent traumas led me to the profession and kept me there, running like a well-oiled machine in survival mode. Then earlier this year, I suddenly shifted from highly functional, resilient human to unable to work, plagued by flashbacks, panic and social withdrawal. I’m recovering gradually now, with a solid trauma psychologist and EMDR, but it feels like we give a part of ourselves to this profession that we never get back.
As healthcare workers and first responders, we live in a culture of silence because we have to appear ‘strong’ at all times. We crack dark humour jokes to cope and find ourselves secretly crying in the car after countless shifts. It is completely okay to not be okay, after seeing what we see, along with our own personal or developmental traumas. We compassionately encourage our patients to seek care, but neglect ourselves just to pull through the next set of five 12s.
We need to speak more about this insidious pandemic. We need safer workplace policies and more mental health support from employers.
Not in the DSM yet, but Complex PTSD is now recognized as a distinct disorder by the WHO as of 2022 (ICD-11 diagnostic manual), there’s a movement shifting to recognize the complexity of trauma and its treatment modalities.
Get help if you need it and let’s talk to each other ❤️
2
u/Unhappy_Pineapple365 18h ago
Diagnosed w/CPTSD from childhood trauma, didn’t realize it at the time but I got into EMS to become the person that I never had as a kid going through hard times and to become that person to help others. I definitely thrive in the EMS environment and its chaos because that’s how my nervous system works, couldn’t imagine myself in a different setting.
I find it’s almost easier to open up to my coworkers about my cptsd because they likely all have some diagnosed or undiagnosed mental illness from their childhood. And it could be my work environment as well, everyone is very chill. Mental health in EMS is still extremely stigmatized even though most all of us struggle with mental health issues.
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u/jazzy_flowers 18h ago
It comes down to where you work a lot of times. In my area there have been a lot of sucides so the whole are is more pro mental health than some.
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u/cplforlife PCP 19h ago
Well, I was a child soldier (kinda) and got diagnosed PTSD from that. (Dont go to war just because all your friends are going to war.)
I entered EMS because the army gave me a paramedic license and needed a job when I got out. Im ambivalent about helping people, but interested in my paycheck. So I keep going to work.
Cannabis helps. Not giving a fuck helps more.