PTSD Awareness Day: One Person’s Reality

June 27 is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Awareness Day, so of course I want to share some things about the mental health condition that has dominated my life for the past four years or so. There are so many topics I want to cover: PTSD imposter syndrome; workplace psychosocial trauma; PTSD and addiction; civilian PTSD that isn’t caused by abuse or accidents – and I’m sure I will write about all of these things.

But from the big bowl o’ PTSD topics, I suppose I should start with where it begins for me: with my own PTSD and co morbid Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD).

I agree with Dr Gabor Mate: trauma isn’t what happens to you, it’s the effect that happens inside you. I developed PTSD while working as First Secretary Political in the Australian Interim Mission to Afghanistan in 2021. But it probably didn’t look like a high-risk situation or traumatic event. I wasn’t even in Afghanistan, let alone in the warzone or at Kabul Airport during the chaos of the evacuations. I was in a cushy hotel and swanky office in a totally different country.

Still, I remember the first time I realised I was not ok. I was managing the Mission alone as my colleagues had gone to Kabul to help with the evacuations. I’d spent the day working to convince the desperate Afghans trying to leave the country to stay away from the airport – we’d had credible threats that attacks were planned.

One women really stuck in my mind. She was outside the airport with her children, trying to get through. I was trying to persuade her to leave, but she didn’t want to leave – she wanted to get through and on to a plane to safety.

After my ‘normal’ workday, I headed to the hotel bar and restaurant to get some dinner – with my work laptop, still reading. Which is when the first reports of a horrific suicide bombing came through. The bombing was at the airport. Where the people I’d been speaking and writing to all day were.

I got to work coordinating information, comments, public communications, cables, responses, blah blah blah. Usual stuff. I drew a line under the day, eventually, and went to bed even though I was feeling very keyed up (and worried about people – 169 Afghans and 13 Americans were killed in that attack).

Then I woke up at 2am, immediately picked up my phone and started reading the news to find out what had happened and if I needed to update anything and I thought oh no. I am not ok.

(Incidentally, the woman I referred to was ok – she messaged me later asking what she was supposed to do now that she’d left the airport).

I know there are lots of barriers that prevent people from seeking or accepting help, but I was having none of that. I got as much help as I could, but the damage was done – and a lot of things that happened after I returned to Australia exacerbated it.

It became clear that I had to leave my career of fifteen years, and I will probably never work in national security again I am more focused on roles where I help vulnerable people now, which is good but has set my career back a lot. I miss what I used to do and the people I used to work with. It’s a lot to lose.

By mid-2023 I was severely, profoundly, harmfully unwell and did a lot of damage to myself, my life, my relationships, my finances, my belongings, my self-respect, my health and my ability to function. I feel like anyone who wasn’t involved and didn’t witness just how destructive and erratic my behaviour was is inclined to misunderstand it and think it wasn’t that bad.

It was that bad.

I survived, despite my best efforts, and I’ve spent the past two years clawing my way back to stability and cleaning up the horrendous mess I made for myself and others, especially my child. It’s been messy and exhausting and ridiculous and enlightening and stupid and profoundly liberating.

I have also discovered, to my immense gratitude and surprise, the power of vulnerability and radical authenticity. I grew up in a household that actively punished ‘negative’ emotions and admissions of personal difficulty and suffering – and request for help and support, of course. I used to be so stoic and suppress those ‘bad’ emotions and end up with outbursts or, if you believe Dr Mate’s views on suppressed trauma, a nasty autoimmune disease that is not unrelated to the unacknowledged trauma of my upbringing.

Now, I tell everyone my business. I live with a mental health condition. I am an addict. Or, if you prefer, I am a crazy drunk. I tell the world on first meeting.

I am shameless.

Because PTSD has taught me one lesson I am deeply, endlessly grateful for: that shame can only harm us. Shame isolates us and causes us to turn away and hide ourselves from others. It damages our integrity and drives us underground. It disconnects us, not just from others but from who we really are. It is a form of denial of the self.

So I refuse to be ashamed of having PTSD or AUD. The blessing of that is the way it’s connected me to others, who hear me own my truth and say – sometimes for the first time to someone other than a family member or medical professional – The bonds and stories and connection I’ve shared with damaged, vulnerable, but resilient and wise people (people who are like me!) have been such a gift.

How am I now?

My recovery is well underway. It’s been hard graft, and for a long time I felt like I was getting nowhere – just like when you’re learning an instrument or to speak another language or trying to get fit, every session of work seemed to make no difference.

However, especially since the beginning of 2025, the pebbles of healing have turned into a real avalanche. I’m still working on it and still in treatment, but I can share that recovery is a real thing, and it can get better.

There is hope.

Today, on PTSD Day, I extend my greetings and best wishes to all of my brothers and sisters and NBSiblings who share PTSD or C-PTSD in common with me. I love all of you, because we get it, and when we find each other there is such joy in being understood, and in understanding others in a way they don’t often get to experience.

For everyone out there with PTSD, I wish you a day of peace and a night of unbroken, calm sleep. You deserve it, and it can be yours.