Thin Blue Mind / Smokey Heroes
Police Psychology | PTSD Part 1: What You Hear is What You Get
Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D. ABPP
I have seven PTSD cases in my office right now at different stages. Being hit by a car while working highway, a car accident with the leg shattered, a car accident during a chase, a guy stabbed in the eye by an Person with Mental Illness (PMI), a female punched squarely in the face losing teeth by an PMI, a guy who went through 
open heart surgery, a guy who went through a shooting and explosion, I am a lucky guy to see so much of one kind of case at one time, I guess. All have been depressed, questioning the meaning of life, think life is unfair, all have anxiety, and all have balance problems. You might literally say my patients are bouncing off the walls, as sometimes they are walking like they are on a ship in a rolling sea down my narrow hallways.
The depression and anxiety are all expected, but the amount of balance and vestibular problems is a little bit devastating. I have a thing in my office where I do a brief neurologic test when someone comes in with PTSD. I make them stand on one foot and count to ten which most can do. Then I have them close their eyes and stand on one foot. Everyone loses their balance a little, but most people can recover. When a person has PTSD, they can try and try and there is no recovery. It’s scary, and by the way I was the person who had open-heart surgery mentioned above and it has taken me a year to correct my balance from my mild case of PTSD. So, let’s spend this article taking a closer look at vestibular effect of PTSD. (more…)
female clients know when they are dating a loser by the third date. But it had to sell. So we came up with the idea that since we were police psychologists, we were teaching profiling of relationship criminals to women. When phrased that way, people got real interested as 22 of 25 agents on first mailing wanted to be the one to represent it. Usually you send it out to hundreds of agents and get tons of rejection letters before you find one that might take it. (Steven King even wallpapered a room in his house with rejections from his first book, 
meatballs. I didn’t want to make beef meatballs with spaghetti in tomato sauce one of her favorites; I didn’t want to make Swedish meatballs with gravy, but I had this urge to make a meatball, lighter with a different taste. Maybe in a white wine sauce. I was driving so I had the luxury of being able to think, something that I don’t get to do often (parents will understand that). I got thinking “out of the box” of spaghetti and meatballs and there was a lot of room out there. Veal would make it lighter, and replace most of the parsley flakes with sage, I was on the road to making something totally unique. I ended up with radiatori pasta with veal meatballs made with sage and fresh Parmesan in a white wine, Gorgonzola and walnut cream roux. It was delicious. (recipe below)
right, you have to do it yourself,” more originality. Maybe they just offer “constructive criticism” or offer to help you change to make yourself happier, by mentioning something over and over again. “You shouldn’t have dessert my dear, you look like you’ve put on a little weight,” they tell you so innocently. “Next time we’ll do it your way, this time let’s do it right,” all mantras of their type. Then there’s the “worst case scenario,” a fear mongers way of controlling your every word. Yep, you can hear them by their language, see them by their actions, and sense them by their demeanor. They are the CONTROL FREAKS!!
