We learn to avoid touching hot stoves, to find our way home from school, and to remember which people have helped us in the past and which people have been unkind. Learning allows us to create effective lives by being able to respond to changes. Learning is perhaps the most important human capacity. Skinner at the Harvard Psychology Department, circa 1950 – CC BY 3.0 John Broadus Watson at Johns Hopkins c. In fact, learning is a broad topic that is used to explain not only how we acquire new knowledge and behavior but also a wide variety of other psychological processes including the development of both appropriate and inappropriate social behaviors, and even how a person may acquire a debilitating psychological disorder such as PTSD. Although you might think of learning in terms of what you need to do before an upcoming exam, the knowledge that you take away from your classes, or new skills that you acquire through practice, these changes represent only one component of learning. The topic of this chapter is learning- the relatively permanent change in knowledge or behavior that is the result of experience. The most important thing to know is that it’s never too late to seek help. I’m no longer at the mercy of my disorder, and I would not be here today had I not had the proper diagnosis and treatment. But there are things I can do to ensure that I never have to suffer as I did before being diagnosed with PTSD. It amazes me to think back to what my life was like only a year ago, and just how far I’ve come.įor me there is no cure, no final healing. The world is new to me and not limited by the restrictive vision of anxiety. I’m rebuilding a satisfying career as an artist, and I am enjoying my life. Taking medication and undergoing behavioral therapy marked the turning point in my regaining control of my life. I felt safe for the first time in 32 years. I cannot express to you the enormous relief I felt when I discovered my condition was real and treatable. For a time, I managed to keep it together on the outside, but then I became unable to leave my house again.Īround this time I was diagnosed with PTSD. I felt as if I had completely lost my mind. I would panic on the freeway and became unable to drive, again ending a career. I often felt disoriented, forgetting where, or who, I was. Normally social, I stopped trying to make friends or get involved in my community. I lost all ability to concentrate or even complete simple tasks. I saw violent images every time I closed my eyes. It was as if the past had evaporated, and I was back in the place of my attack, only now I had uncontrollable thoughts of someone entering my house and harming my daughter. Then another traumatic event retriggered the PTSD. Years passed when I had few or no symptoms at all, and I led what I thought was a fairly normal life, just thinking I had a “panic problem.” Soon I became unable to leave my apartment for weeks at a time, ending my modeling career abruptly. By age 17, I’d suffered my first panic attack. I obsessively checked windows, doors, and locks. For four years after the attack I was unable to sleep alone in my house. I suffered horrific flashbacks and nightmares. This would be the most damaging decision of my life.įor months after the attack, I couldn’t close my eyes without envisioning the face of my attacker. Rape counselors came to see me while I was in the hospital, but I declined their help, convinced that I didn’t need it. For me there was no safe place in the world, not even my home. I would never be the same after that attack. My PTSD was triggered by several traumas, most importantly a sexual attack at knifepoint that left me thinking I would die. Having been properly diagnosed with PTSD at age 35, I know that there is not one aspect of my life that has gone untouched by this mental illness. I was young, beautiful, and talented, but unbeknownst to them, I was terrorized by an undiagnosed debilitating mental illness. I can look back now and gently laugh at all the people who thought I had the perfect life. It is a continuous challenge living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and I’ve suffered from it for most of my life.
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