Steven Shorrock Profile picture
Aug 18, 2018 15 tweets 4 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
I didn’t know it at the time, and didn’t talk much about it [definitely not publicly], but recently realised I had PTSD from mid-late teens to mid 20s, related to various traumatic events. 1/ ted.com/talks/joelle_r…
Symptoms: Nightly nightmares (esp. family members dying). Anxiety. Depression. Extreme sweating. Rashes. Constantly on edge (fight/flight/freeze, literally freezing at a thought). Visions. Tics, mostly repressed [exhausting]. #PTSD 2/
Didn’t talk about it. Energy went into trying to look after remaining younger siblings and suppressing symptoms by any means. More nightmares. Doctor prescribed Anxiolytics & ADs at the time. Just remember feeling numb. Weren’t for me. Also industrial strength antiperspirant. 3/
Finally got some help at about 20yo from a clinical hypnotherapist and psychotherapist employed by the Uni. Free to access. The nightmares stopped. It was like magic. Other symptoms remained, but better. 4/
Didn’t talk about it to friends at that time. Hope it’s better now among men, but then it wasn’t. Taking was all that helped. And time. Second time I had PTSD was unrelated [hellish 20s], but talking to a trusted older female relative also helped a lot mid 20s. 5/
It is hard to access free talking therapy but it is so important just to talk. It doesn’t have to be a therapist. Just a trusted friend or relative who is a *good listener*. My relative was a brilliant listener. You could hear the compassion even in silence on the phone. #PTSD 6/
This was now quite a long time ago which makes it easier to talk about. Men keep this stuff inside. Fear of what might come out. Fear of being judged. Symptoms dissipated over time. But more talking to a trusted, listening person might have saved years of suffering. #PTSD 7/
Another thing that helped was music (generally minor key...). I found many years later that the lead singer and writer (@dannymcnamara) of the band (@embrace) that resonated most with me had PTSD. danny-mcnamara.tumblr.com/post/254303706… 8/
Actually I think this more like the third or fourth time I had PTSD. Whole late teens and early-mid 20s were more-or-less unbroken PTSD. Living hell on the inside. Fine on the outside. /5a
And, later in 20s, Quakerism and recovery (from my trail of mental, emotional and spiritual chaos and destruction). Both brought some sort of peace, community, forgiveness, and reconciliation. 9/
So, [especially men] how to know who to talk to? It’s someone who:
you know and trust
you feel calm when you’re with them
doesn’t talk about others disparagingly or disclose others’ stuff
listens without judgement, advice, ridicule
you’d recommend to your very best friend
10/
For professional help, I’ve seen different ‘schools’ of therapists, but person-centred counsellors & integrative psychotherapists felt most like they were listening. While ADs never suited me, 5-HTP really did seem to correlate strongly with relief from very darkest thoughts. 11/
Something to add to this... Apart from reliving aspects of the trauma [mental pain] and feeling on edge [FFF], another symptom of PTSD is that seems to drag on long after is avoiding memories *or feelings*. This has a consequence that others might not realise. 12/
That is, keeping busy, feeling detached, cut off and emotionally numb. Not knowing if one is really quite happy or desperately sad. And - sadly - finding it hard to express or accept real affection, except on own terms in right context. It’s not conscious. #PTSD 13/
Really not sure why I decided to disclose this except realising that someone who matters to me was suffering and hadn’t talked to anyone about it. It is just endemic. 14/

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More from @StevenShorrock

Aug 12, 2018
A few concepts for the curious in system safety:
Interaction
Local rationality
Trade-offs & compromises
Patterns
Work-as-imagined, -prescribed, -done, -disclosed
Adaptation & adjustment
Drift
First & second stories
Field expertise
Emergence
Equivalence
A tweet on each of the above follows with a link to something fairly accessible that might be of interest.
Interaction:
More interesting than humans, environments, equipment, procedures, regulations, etc is the interaction that occurs between them, at micro, mesa and macro levels, and how these create influence and flows of information and activity. skybrary.aero/index.php/Tool…
Read 14 tweets
Aug 11, 2018
A few concepts to be wary of in system safety:
Human error (as cause)
Causal chains
Root causes
Causes, generally
'Loss of situational awareness'
'Zero accidents'
Violations
Monolithic explanations (e.g. Culture)
Performance targets (all)
Safety incentives
'Hearts and minds'
A tweet on each of the above follows with a link to something fairly accessible that might be of interest.
Human error (as cause):
A poorly defined, vague bucket concept that tends to combine psychological (plan, expectation) and outcome (unwanted, by someone) variables. Widely misused and abused, especially to infer causation. humanisticsystems.com/tag/human-erro…
Read 13 tweets
Jul 18, 2018
A little story about prospective memory. Last week at #HSJPatientSafety I talked a bit about research on prospective memory, in the context of Kathryn Walton's account of her terrifying experience of being accidentally paralysed following a forgotten cannula. 1/
It appeared that there was an intention to remove the cannula, which had the substance in the dead space, but this was forgotten. Research I did in ATC years ago showed prospective memory forgetting to be the dominant kind. dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4953549/Pape… 2/
Anyway, awareness of suchlike avails me of little. It might give a small advantage, like using @Wunderlist to record my intentions, but it is far from 100% and most people use lists. It's not always possible though, in everydaylife, much less in the operating theatre. 3/
Read 18 tweets

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