You don't have to be military or ex-military to suffer with life crushing PTSD. At age 53, I've been managing severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder since I was three years old, brought on by a very broken childhood.
Also, at The Phoenix Post, I work alongside one of the UK's most amazing national treasures who also manages severe PTSD, Dr Sara Payne MBE.
Once established, PTSD is a life-long medical condition that cannot be cured but certainly can, to varying degrees, be managed with proper medical and good emotional health services.
That said, PTSD can kill. It is first and foremost a medical condition, that can, if not properly treated with appropriate medical and emotional health services, become and or exacerbate serious mental health conditions.
Civilian PTSD is one of the most misdiagnosed and wrongly treated medical conditions within the medical community and, unfortunately for all those patients who are not ex-military, treatment and care relies on what many of us civilian PTSD patients describe as... the mental health FIST OF HELP.
Which is exactly as helpful as it sounds and comes with massive doses of social prejudice and an endless supply of zombificating medical coshes. In our view, not a good life worth living.
Prescribed drugs are often one part of the PTSD management answer, so long as they sit alongside good emotional health services - with NHS prescribed drug-free civilian PTSD management tools.
It not fair that crime victims are forced to get a deeply prejudicial 'mental health records' just to get help to recover from the trauma of someone else's crime.
Not just victims of crimes, their family, friends and sometimes whole communities, the police, child protectors, lawyers, the CPS, the courts staff, judges and jury, the A&E staff, the emergency services, the recovery services, journalists, news readers and too many more to list are al vulnerable to PTSD.
Most civilian PTSD professional patients will not seek out help because of being forced into mental health services, so suffer in silence, self-medicate and within the most hardcore ignored, literally self-destruct.
For what we ask them to do for us all 'every day', they deserve better than nothing and certainly more than the least we can do to help them survive the crimes of others.
We can't wait for the medical community to civilian PTSD catch up, so we have a plan to help things along.
Sara and I want to teach a brand new approach, a new PTSD thinking. We will be working with some of the very best in their professional fields, to help develop 'drug-free' civilian post traumatic stress disorder management tools and promote good Emotional Health Services.
We don't treat, we teach. From the moment we secure our funding goal, we will set up and teach from our cutting edge, virtual seminar Centre Of Excellence 'The Phoenix PTSD Garden'.
It will lead the way in the new PTSD approach and thinking, it will teach all PTSD care givers about drug-free management tools for all (that work, can be afforded and ultimately prescribed by the NHS) and work to promote good emotional health services. Wish us luck and any help is always warmly welcomed.