When PTSD Strikes the Parents of Addicts

Autumn didn’t realize she had PTSD when she found her daughter near death on the floor. She realized it when she tried to kill her daughter’s dealer. “I think back to what I did and it’s so irrational. It sickens me.” Autumn (requested first name only) knows the exact moment she developed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from her daughter’s drug addiction. It wasn’t heading upstairs to where her son and daughter shared a room, and seeing her daughter Sara* near death, lying on the carpet and making a rasping, gurgling noise. Autumn’s son had been lying in bed, trying to ignore his sister calling his name. He was inured to her random, erratic behaviors fueled by drugs, and wanted to sleep. It wasn’t until Sara, desperate and unable to speak, crawled out of her bed and began banging her head against the door that he leaped up and screamed for their mother. It wasn’t calling 911 while she tried to wake her unresponsive daughter that sent Autumn over the edge. And it wasn’t pulling Sara down the stairs and knocking a can of paint over from an unfinished project, so that when she lay her daughter on the hard ground, the paint pooled around her body. It was after Autumn had done all of this, and could do nothing more. “Just seeing her laying there on the floor, so lifeless, it made me just lose my mind,” Autumn says during a phone interview with The Fix. The ambulance arrived, and a paramedic told Autumn that 20 minutes longer and Sara wou...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Addiction Disorders Family Parenting PTSD Publishers Substance Abuse The Fix Trauma addicts Drug Addiction Drug Users Drugs Maggie Ethridge Parents parents of addicts Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Rage Suffering Source Type: blogs