Veteran Seeking Advice and Help Regarding ADD. Any Facts or Personal Exp. Appreciated!?

Question by hawk_marty15: Veteran seeking advice and help regarding ADD. Any facts or personal Exp. appreciated!?
I have been enlisted for almost 4 years (since I was 17) I recently returned from Iraq and have been attending ROTC and have always had problems concentrating, remembering names ect… and have been considering going to the VA and getting checked for ADD, I am worried though that this may affect my future with the ROTC or even being an enlisted soldier, I have always had a clean military record and have always kept a high pt score. Before I was 16 I had a very long and not so great history of child abuse from my mother and even after this was stopped and my parents divorced my father has and is an alcoholic with pill problems and shows extreme symptoms of ADD, the questions I was looking for an answer to were- where should I start to be diagnosed and helped, and how will this affect my career as a current enlisted soldier or a future officer?

Best answer:

Answer by Jody
If you saw combat in Iraq you are likely to experience symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) when you begin to feel safe, begin a relationship living with a girl, and/or begin treatment. You will likely have full-blown PTSD at some point after that.

Your history of child abuse and growing up in Alcoholism/addiction caused you to bypass ADD and develop other more serious disorders that creep into your personality over time, encompassing all the symptoms of ADD – and more, but they will not fully show themselves while you are actively training. A deer being chased by wolves has no time to to chew her cud. Just as your mind does not have the leisure to reflect or let loose your demons – which are in the very muscles and marrow of your bones.

You are used to living in “survival mode” from the way you grew up. Joining the military at 17 has kept you in that same mode and fed the fires of trauma, hypervigilance, fear, high anxiety, fight or flight response, all or nothing behavior, exaggerated startle response. You may find yourself uneasy when you’re alone, unable to contain your racing thoughts, and begin using alcohol to self-medicate.

Forget ADD and research PTSD and the long-term effects of Child-Abuse and Alcoholism (since Alcoholism is a family disease and all members need treatment – there is a saying in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Al-Anon that the only person that gets psysically, emotionally and spiritually sicker than the alcoholic is the spouse and children that have to live with him.

You will encounter treatment for both child abuse and living with alcoholism/addiction in Al-Anon meetings, it’s free and anonymous and every soul has been through what you’ve been through. They use the 12-Step program of recovery based on the 12-Steps of AA. It may not be scientific but the long term recovery rates are many times higher than those of treatment centers and you can find meetings across the US and abroad.

The military also has excellent PTSD treatment centers if you need one now or in the future. They provide psychiatrists for a diagnosis and medication, and psychologists for behavioral therapy, psychotherapy and general counseling. There are outpatient programs well worth looking into too. Combine that with Al-Anon and/or AA and you can and will recover.

You have a choice, let your symptoms drive you to treatment when they get bad enough, or do some research and get help now. It depends on you and how much you are struggling now, since you started classes instead of waking up in Iraq every morning. If you’re near your base go to sick call and tell them whats going on. If you’re not, go to the college nurse and have her schedule you to see the school psychologist. It’s free and confidential. It’s a place to start.

You cannot be discharged unless you are not cooperating with treatment or are “untreatable – unfit for duty,” you definitely are treatable, coherent and very intelligent.

Recovery is long and you’ll have to be ready to see the need to change and be committed to changing a lot of your thinking and behaviors that undermine you, old behavior left over from childhood that doesn’t work for you anymore – like the inability to trust anyone or feel safe or relax or play.

I went through it, graduated at 17, did 6 years in the USMC, 1 year overseas, drank to get to sleep at night when the nightmares started, went into alcoholism treatment near HQMC, Wash DC where I was stationed 6 months before I got out and moved back home, and then it started, when I took my staff-sergeant uniform off, and I got married and it got worse, got pregnant at 24 and it got worse, and soon I was in full-blown PTSD and nobody even talked about it back then. The closest VA hospital is 2 1/2 hours from where I live in the sticks in the foothills of the Appalachia so I was being treated locally by country doctors..

I was told it was from Marine Corps training and no debriefing, chemical imbalances because of the pregnancy, then it was post-partum depression, after that I was labeled bi-polar cyclothymia, dissociative with depersonalization and derealization, panic disorder, and borderline personality disorder (a lot of alcoholics have borderline pd). Finally I found an inpatient treatment center 2 hours away and they got it right, PTSD. I had the symptoms all along, subtle, growing and maturing since childhood.

Good luck to you and God Bless you. Thank you for your service.

Answer by drmark27
Watch the documentary called _The Secret_ (2006). Here’s a description:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_(2006_film)

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