THE BENEFITS NUTRITION AND EXERCISE ON VICTIMS EMOTIONS By Richard W. Cress DOVE Dignity of Victims Everywhere 121 East Gilman Avenue Suite 14 Arlington, Washington 98223-1043 (360)435-0171 It is hoped that those addressing this lecture have read my papers submitted to the 9th International Symposium On Victimology. They are available from the Victim Assistance Autoload list and are important to understand the content of this presentation. This will require two messages. Place the following commands, in each "Subject" area of your messages to download these papers, write a short note if you wish but it is not necessary for the automated program. SEND FILE DCRESS1 SEND FILE DCRESS2 The first file is "Stress Disorders: A New Classification" and the second is "Victims of Crime, Victims of Stress." Each victim/survivor of violent crime is impacted almost immediately with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. However, symptoms are rarely evident for five or more years. By this time most of the physical damage has already been done. It is during these times that victims and survivors develop sleep disorders, hypertension, heart disease, cancer, lukhemia and various other diseases and illnesses. I suspect that the major damage to the human immune system takes place during these early years. Of course it is during these years that we respond with our emotions, compensating for weaknesses that we are unaware of and understand even less. Typical reactions might be, but are not limited to, the abuse of prescription and or illegal drugs, alcohol, in my case food, and many others. Along with these manifestations, many of us become terrified to leave the safety of home. Families suffer greatly at these times as well. The wife may feel that the husband is not grieving enough or the husband thinks the wife is grieving too much. All too often family life becomes something intolerable and we need to get away; this behavior often leads to extra-marital affairs and it is not uncommon that these marriages are destroyed beyond repair. I have read statistics indicating that as much as eighty percent of the families devastated by violent crime end up in divorce. Regardless of our responses to the trauma of crime, seldom will these difficulties be the same or of the same intensity as other family members, or other victims. The technical term for this comes to us from our understanding of grief. This term is "PERSON SPECIFIC." It means that each of us will react differently to different stimuli and at different times. It is this differential that causes the greatest lack of understanding of victims and victimization. Although a colleague wrote me recently advising that it appears that we are making progress. I received a primary diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in 1989 following the devastating murder of my thirteen-year old son Patrick (April 1983). Understandably after the death of my wife (April 1993) following a three-year battle with breast cancer my stress levels grew exponentially until I became an emotional basket case. By the end of 1993, it had become an extremely painful process for me get around. Walking three hundred feet to check my mail box required that I keep a bottle of nitroglycerine tablets at the ready. I seldom got any exercise except checking my mail and my doctors appointments but my nutritional intake continued to add to my 230-pound waist line. To say that I was overweight is an understatement. At my December 12, 1994 Cardiology appointment more fuel was added to the emotional upheaval in my life and I got a shock that left me nearly breathless. During my October appointment, I had taken and miserably FAILED a Treadmill - Stress Test. It was at this appointment that I was to get the results of that test. I'll attempt neither to quote nor paraphrase the good doctor but he was not at all happy with my prognosis. He accused me of committing suicide by eating and smoking myself to death. He said that without radical changes in my lifestyle, unless I quit smoking, lost some weight, and started getting regular exercise, he doubted I could live more than three to six more months. He laid out a plan of action that was almost as bad as his terrible news. Unless he could see significant changes at our next appointment he would start planning gastric surgery to control my appetite. Then as I recovered he was going to put me on a strict hospital diet and of course the day I was admitted to the hospital would be my last day of smoking . . . a tough proposition when you smoke three packs a day. The drive home that day was understandably somber and I was reeling from this horrendous view of my future. However, as the lecture continues you too, will come to believe as I do, that it was more than a fortuitous day in my life. During that drive home I reflected back to 1977 when my late wife and I joined a well known international program to loose a weight. Katie wanted to be skinnier and I needed to loose some weight to climb in the beautiful Cascade Mountains of Washington State. By early December that year, after reaching our goal weights and sustaining them six weeks, Katie and I became Lifetime Members of this fine organization. During my long drive North from Seattle, I decided that I had been successful in loosing weight before and there was no reason I couldn't do it again. Smoking however, was not going to be easy though. From home later that afternoon, I called for meeting locations and times in my area. Thinking out loud as I planned, I knew that when smokers quit, they usually gain weight and I already had more than my share. Then it struck me . . . if I quit smoking and started dieting at the same time, maybe the two efforts would compliment and support each other. It took me two weeks to muster the courage to venture into familiar but nearly uncharted territory. A journey that took seventeen years and proved to be the beginning of a lifestyle make over. I sat at one of several empty tables and filled out the registration card and wrote the check for my first meeting. Fortunately, Lifetime Members never have to pay a fee to rejoin. but meeting fees are required when you're more than two pounds above your goal and I was 80 pounds over that 150-pound limit. I handed the receptionist the file card and my lifetime membership booklet. Then unceremoniously, I took the cigarettes from my shirt pocket, and dropped them in the wastebasket. These were giant steps for a person who had experienced significant emotional trauma. Devastating events that are outside the normal range of human experience. The strangest thing though, was that from that moment on, I have never had a craving for another cigarette or anything else to smoke. Because of severe angina, it took me three weeks of daily walks to get a half block. At the end of six weeks I was twice around the block and was walking more each day. Not only that but I began looking for excuses to walk even more and distances of fifteen to twenty miles a day were not uncommon. Then when the possibility to present my papers at the University of Amsterdam I started riding a bicycle because I could get more touring by bike and not spend extra money on transportation. It took me from January 24, to September 13, 1995 to lose a total of 97 pounds. From grabbing a bottle of nitroglycerine tablets and walking 300 feet to grabbing an apple and walking ten to fifteen miles a day or more. I have gone from an excessively high fat diet to a very low fat diet. Now rather than walking, I ride my bicycle around twenty miles a day or more and still look for excuses to ride more. Weather permitting of course. This summer I have set a goal to join the annual Seattle to Portland Cycling event. My cardiologist is flabbergasted with my successes and proud to have had a hand in the changes, as am I. However, there are even more surprising consequences that I wish to present in this lecture. It wasn't until doctors at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center linked my wife's breast cancer and stress that I drew the connection between PTSD and immune system damage a factor well documented in my papers. It was during the months of her treatment and subsequent bone marrow transplant that I developed my theories and thoughts regarding stresses and deadly diseases. Additionally, during the last four years as a fat person in skinny disguise my thoughts on the subject have expanded. Now I advise all our clients of the virtues of nutrition control and exercise. My lifestyle changed gradually as the pounds melted away. My tastes in food changed and my round the block walks grew to 30 mile bicycle rides and I still find myself looking for excuses to do more. Two years into my new lifestyle, while sitting at my weekly meeting, I came to a sudden thought. I realized that not only was my physical health much better but there was also a significant, parallel improvement in my emotional health as well. With this emotional reawakening I can enjoy more of life's pleasures, today perhaps more than any time during the last fifteen years. I am still apprehensive when venturing away from home without a plan. Anytime I'm away from home my stomach does flip flops. I'm never satisfied unless I know what's going on around me and keep my approach angles to 90 degrees or less. When I first returned to the weight control group, I sat in the rear of the room where I could see the entrance and everyone that came and went. If necessary I could always make a quick exit. These group meetings are now a major social event of my every week and my confidence in the group has developed a trust that allows me to sit comfortably in the first row. I strongly believe that PTSD is incurable. However, I think just as strongly, that like the integration of violent crime into our lives we also come to make PTSD an essential part of our lives, we learn to live with it, not fight it. From this integration too, we grow beyond our expectations . . . in time we even allow ourselves to be happy. I think this adds to the definition of the new person we have become and adds yet another dimension to our growth. My papers clearly state, and it is essential that the victim understand that suffering from PTSD is in no way a guarantee that one is going to die of cancer, lukhemia, heart disease, hypertension, or any other illness or disease. However, when our immune systems become compromised by excessive high levels of stress, we are predisposed to a nearly endless list of possible diseases. This damage to our immune system is a very real and frightening possibility; perhaps even a probability. While we cannot prevent the onset of these devastating illnesses or diseases, we are not required to feed them or help them in any way. In conclusion, by controlling our dietary intake we do not feed the devastating diseases that would destroy our bodies. By getting off the couch and into a regular, vigorous programs of exercise, we also cheat these illnesses. However, just as importantly we begin to focus our attention on issues of better health. The ultimate reward of this change in our lifestyles presents a remarkable emotional growth we thought never to see again. I now take every opportunity to recommend an emphasis on proper nutrition and exercise to our clients and cyberclients. Proper diet and exercise, play a vital roll in regaining the focus of our lives that violence stripped away. From this renewed focus we achieve a growth of the new persons we become. This of course, contributes to our ability to rise above devastating violence, and what inevitably follows. There are many types of programs that require one to develop a discipline and focus that can be beneficial. However, none will provide the incredible growth or promise like a program of dietary control, and regular exercise. Richard W. Cress DOVE [Dignity Of Victims Everywhere] Snohomish County, Washington