Part 1: PTSD – A Detour into Darkness

Those of you who follow me know that I’ve been working on the third novel (titled Event Horizon) in the Will Diaz series. I was doing a final edit when I realized I was shortchanging you, my readers. It was a single paragraph that did it.

In the next novel, there’s a raid on a grow house (a super modified trailer house in which pot is being raised). In the course of the raid, one of my principal characters gets wounded. Now here’s where I was short-changing you.

Pam Harmon is one of the many characters we’ve met back in book one. When we first meet her, she’s a single mom working as the town marshal in Sanford, Colorado. We know she was married once, has a son from that marriage, considers herself “A good Mormon girl,” rides horses, plays guitar, and was an MP in the Marines.

And aside from a blooming relationship between her and Will’s buddy, RJ, we never really learn much about her.

This is the story where she steps out into the light a bit. It also brings Jewell, Will’s wife and doctorate candidate in Psychology front and center.

Jewell, among her many other talents, opens this book working on her doctorate thesis in Psychology. Married to an ex-soldier and current detective who commands a small SWAT team, she’s writing her paper on stresses experienced by people in combat. Like so many women in the San Luis Valley, she has a couple of jobs. She works part time for a law firm, plays in a country band, and is working part time as a counselor at the local VA center.

When Pam gets wounded, Jewell she finds ample material for her paper.

Now here’s where the story changed. I wasn’t saying much about what Pam is going through. Being someone who has PTSD I know all too well what she could be experiencing. But I didn’t acknowledge it. I guess I thought I’d said it all in my first book. In reality, it might have been a dodge on my part to avoid addressing at least some aspects of it again.

My problem was that I’ve been on the inside looking out. Now it’s the other way around. What do you do when you see a close friend or family member is the falling apart because of it? What does it look like and where can it go?

So, I began the research. You wouldn’t think that someone who’s got it would need to study it, but like I said, I’m on the inside looking out. Being on the outside looking in is a whole different thing. And everyone is just a little different in their responses to different situations. Some deal with it easily, others not so well. And worse, something can come back years later and start becoming an issue.

Over the course of the next few blogs, I’ll discuss PTSD in a little more depth and how it relates to the book. During it, I’ll be referencing a book that’s the cornerstone of my research called Headspace and Timing by Duane France, LPC (The title comes from a term usually associated with automatic weapons). France is former Army, been there, done that, and got the T-Shirt to prove it. His insights have been very valuable to my research.

There will be more than a little scripture and God sprinkled throughout the novel and for that Walking Point by Chuck Dean has been extremely helpful. Chuck is also former Army and was one of the first airborne troopers to go into ‘Nam.

The book, Policing Saigon by Loren Christensen was very helpful to help me get in someone’s head other than my own. Since he was an MP (different war of course – and he worked some mean streets that I have to admit would have scared me down to my socks), there was enough commonality that made the understanding easier.

Lastly, another useful site: http://www.ptsd.va.gov.

Oh, what’s the title of book three?

Waiting for Planes that Never Land. More where that came from later.

The cover is going to be a bear to shoot!

COMING NEXT: A History of PTSD.