The Foreign Service Journal, January 2008

J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 35 n my latest nightmare, I get into an elevator with another woman about my age. I press the button for the fourth floor, about halfway up the building. The elevator begins climbing. Instead of stopping, the elevator speeds up and keeps ascending with us trapped inside. It shoots out the top of the building, high into the air. The other woman and I look at each other, knowing we are about to die. When the elevator crashes to the ground, it will smash us beyond recognition. We join hands and say a prayer, accepting our fate. The elevator speeds to the ground and the impact is sheer pain. But it doesn’t kill me. I am burned and mangled, but somehow drag myself from the smoking wreckage. I can barely breathe. Broken bones puncture my lungs. Ambulance sirens wail in the distance, and I try to hold on a bit longer. I want to turn around to see if the other woman made it, but I can barely move and have to use all my strength just to hold on for the ambulance. On top of the agony, I am aware I face months and years of operations and physical therapy if I am to recover. I tell this dream to my therapist, who is treating me for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. She asks me, in a way that has become familiar over the past year of treatment, to try and identify the most disturbing aspect of the nightmare and then imagine an alterna- tive, better ending for the dream. The thought that pops into my head disturbs me so much that tears come to my eyes. The worst part of the dream, I tell her, is the pain I feel after the crash. The alternative I immediately think of is to die, and avoid the agony and pain of recovery. The acceptance of the end of my life and saying the prayer with the other woman was a spiritual, peaceful moment. Feeling like I might die at any moment, after all, is a feeling I grew so accustomed to during my tour in Iraq that it doesn’t bother me anymore. Recovery Is Possible A lot has been written about PTSD — what causes it, how many State Department personnel have it, and what the consequences of not treating it can be. Since returning from Iraq over a year ago and being diag- nosed with the disorder, I’ve gotten a crash-course on the subject. So perhaps I can contribute to the dialog F O C U S O N P T SD & T H E F O R E I G N S E R V I C E R ECOVERY : W HEN S URVIVING I SN ’ T E NOUGH M Y PTSD CAME ABOUT DUE TO MY POSTING IN I RAQ , YET S TATE LEFT ME TO FEND FOR MYSELF WHEN IT CAME TO SEEKING TREATMENT . B Y R ACHEL S CHNELLER I Rachel Schneller joined the Foreign Service in 2001, serv- ing in Skopje, Conakry and Basrah, where she was a Provincial Action Officer from 2005 to 2006. She cur- rently works in the Office of Multilateral Trade Affairs in the Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs.