Who are you driving away?

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
March 17, 2019

Today is St. Patrick's Day. Tradition says that he drove snakes out of Ireland. That got me thinking about driving other things away, like the people in your life.

So who are you driving away? Are you pushing people away so they do not see you as being vulnerable? Weaker than they thought you were?

What is it that keeps you from seeing that you would feel terrible if someone needed you, but pushed you away instead.

St. Patrick

St. Patrick, (flourished 5th century, Britain and Ireland; feast day March 17), patron saint and national apostle of Ireland, credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland and probably responsible in part for the Christianization of the Picts and Anglo-Saxons. He is known only from two short works, the Confessio, a spiritual autobiography, and his Letter to Coroticus, a denunciation of British mistreatment of Irish Christians.

Healing takes a triple play like the trinity. Mind-body and spirit. Leave one out and you will not heal as well as you would by taking care of all the things that make you...you.

Before the end of the 7th century, Patrick had become a legendary figure, and the legends have continued to grow. One of these would have it that he drove the snakes of Ireland into the sea to their destruction. Patrick himself wrote that he raised people from the dead, and a 12th-century hagiography places this number at 33 men, some of whom are said to have been deceased for many years. He also reportedly prayed for the provision of food for hungry sailors traveling by land through a desolate area, and a herd of swine miraculously appeared. Another legend, probably the most popular, is that of the shamrock, which has him explain the concept of the Holy Trinity, three persons in one God, to an unbeliever by showing him the three-leaved plant with one stalk. Traditionally, Irishmen have worn shamrocks, the national flower of Ireland, in their lapels on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17.

St. Patrick took care of poor sailors..what if they were too proud to accept his help?

Well, that happens all the time...especially when you were the one who made it your job to save other people. Bet you didn't stop to see that it was the same career choice everyone you serve with made too.

Would you help them if they needed you? Then what's stopping you from asking them for help to stay instead of pushing them away?

Don't give me the stigma crap. If you spent a fraction of the time you use to cover up the pain, on learning what is causing it, the stigma would be proven to be a grim fairy tale. It would not even exist.

You can take what you fear to talk about and defeat it by talking about it. The only thing you have to fear is what you think of yourself, so change it with gaining some knowledge. Begin with the fact that the only way to get PTSD is after surviving something that could have killed you.