Bleeding Out

March 27, 2018 5:07 PM

Former NHL goaltender Clint Malarchuk opens up in the Players' Tribune [warning: graphic descriptions of injury] about PTSD and mental illness.
posted by adamcarson (13 comments total)

Thanks for posting this tough and candid read, adamcarson. It goes hand in hand with Kevin Love's account of his panic attack, Everyone Is Going Through Something, and DeMar DeRozan's tweet about his depression.

Orthogonal to the essay, but Bessell van der Kolk's book, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, is an excellent look at trauma and its effects. This short interview with him gives a sense of the work. One aspect of his experience in treating men with trauma is the way in which myths of masculinity ("If you get hurt, don’t lay there on the ice like a weakling. Get up and go. Get yourself off that ice. Show that you’re tough.") so often get in the way of their ability to ask for help. I'm not a hockey fan, but I am glad to know that Clint Malarchuk is still here.
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:43 PM on March 27, 2018 [10 favorites]

This should probably have a trigger warning. In my experience as someone with pre-existing PTSD who was retraumatized by a life-threatening medical experience it's quite accurate, but potentially triggering.
posted by camyram at 6:00 PM on March 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

The Body Keeps the Score

Ever since I read it (might have been here in the blue somewhere) I keep thinking about how old healed wounds re-opened in the members of one those stranded arctic expeditions once they started starving.
posted by srboisvert at 6:35 PM on March 27, 2018

Mod note: Added a content warning.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 7:04 PM on March 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

I work in an urban community health center. I’d say about 90% of suffering I see — mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness, incarceration, domestic violence, child abuse — has its roots in unaddressed trauma. I’m glad he’s speaking out. I’m glad and appreciate the bravery of all who speak out because I wonder what the world would look like if people got the help they needed before years of further damage, before spending a decade in prison, before they’ve destroyed their bodies with substance abuse, before they’ve inflicted their anger on everyone else in their life and propagating the cycle. This shit is destroying us all and when people get discharged from the hospital after being beaten to a pulp or scraped off the street or pried from a wreck or raped we don’t do shit for them. Even if you have a person around you who cares and sees the signs, even here in my progressive city, there are precious few places that can give any kind of partly adequate help.

And there are *still* republican fuckwads in the legislature I deal with who insist that this is wasted money spent on silly old “feelings” and people just need to toughen up like they did.

It’s literally the reason why prisons are full and there are thousands of tents pitched under the freeways here.

If you are suffering, you shouldn’t have to fight for your care, but this is where we are. It’s true that most of the world doesn’t care about what you are going through, but it’s because they don’t understand. We need to demand that they understand.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:35 PM on March 27, 2018 [12 favorites]

Woof. This is timely. Just got my OCD diagnosis yesterday. Also downstream from PTSD and with co-morbid depression / anxiety. I'm so glad he finally got the professional medical help he needs. Stigma, internalized and external, can be fatal.
posted by lazaruslong at 7:40 PM on March 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

He did a Mental Illness Happy Hour episode a while back.
posted by scruffy-looking nerfherder at 9:30 PM on March 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

Ever since I read it (might have been here in the blue somewhere) I keep thinking about how old healed wounds re-opened in the members of one those stranded arctic expeditions once they started starving.

Actually not the starvation that does that- it’s one of the main symptoms of advancing scurvy. Eat your oranges people!
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 1:17 AM on March 28, 2018

His story was always both a cautionary tale, and the story of a miracle. To hear that he subsequently lived through a suicide attempt is amazing. I'm tempted to lapse into Chuck Norris-style hyperbole, but this is probably a better time to simply wish him well.

Throat protectors are still not very good. The padded cloth ones are great for stopping pucks that come at your neck right above your chest protector, but they don't come up high enough to protect your neck from a skate. And the hard plastic throat protectors are essentially ridiculous; they are trying to cover an area that is constantly moving and changing shape, and they sit where the chin of your helmet should often be, so they inevitably either restrict your movement or vision, or they just dangle and distract the crap out of you. I couldn't bear to use the plastic type when I was in goal, and I never met or saw anybody who plays with one. I wonder if someone could invent a cloth neck protector, or maybe a cowl you would wear under your helmet, with kevlar pieces sewn into the neck or something. Maybe I sound like a weirdo--and hey, I am a goalie so there you go--but the truth is that pucks and blades are magically drawn towards any gap in your gear...
posted by heatvision at 4:02 AM on March 28, 2018 [4 favorites]

Would a chain mail neck protector work? It would be flexible but still should prevent a blade from cutting you.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:46 AM on March 28, 2018

Kevlar neck protectors are already a thing, or are you talking about something else? I've mostly heard about goalies wearing them, as they spend a lot more time low down where they can get kicked, but the Zednik incident shows that skaters aren't safe either.
posted by tavella at 11:58 AM on March 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

Months later, Joanie reminded me of something I said to her right after I pulled the trigger. I guess I had blocked it out of my mind back then.
“See what you made me do!” ....
And when challenging times do crop up, Joanie is there — by my side … still, after all that has happened.

I often wonder how many men would not survive were it not for the patience of women
posted by FirstMateKate at 1:47 PM on March 28, 2018 [6 favorites]

Tears just start to flow. I only read the first little bit. I've recently been drinking, something I have more avoided in my life, than not. It HELPS PTSD, I feel, so long as you're alone. Soon as other people are around, it's more likely to cause trouble.

I suffer from complex PTSD, and amnesia. Mostly, I can only speculate as to what happened. It's different things at different times. I learned early to "forget".

The latest fun: I fall onto my shoulder. Only, it's been injured before. I have no memory of this. But it would seem someone tied my hands behind my back and pulled them up to much. Don't think too closely about that, or I freak out.

This PTSD thing is real. I'm 60 years old. Mine hit me out of the blue when I lost a lot of weight, on purpose, getting fit. It's also terribly fascinating. I have psych in my background, and some talent in the field. I've had 2 therapists now urging me to get involved in research. (if you are one, write me here). I'm no academician, but I've got time.
posted by Goofyy at 4:20 AM on March 29, 2018 [1 favorite]