PTSD Described — “The Not So Easy Life with PTSD”
I was first diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) in 2015. Almost 10 years after leaving the battlefields of Ramadi, Iraq.
PTSD’s a complicated condition that I still struggle to explain after 7 years of living with this truth. Not only is it difficult to describe, it’s also difficult to recognize the symptoms in myself that is, until looking back at it’s impact on my life.
This is what makes the article below so impactful. It affirming to know I’m not alone on this roller coaster towards wellness. Neither are you.
The following is shared with permission from the author. Many thanks and blessings to Stardust Musings. (Link to original post below)
The Not So Easy Life with PTSD
PTSD is real, all-encompassing, and difficult to manage because it surfaces with great power seemingly out of nowhere. I’ll feel healthy, comfortable, and engaged for months; and then… Something triggers my PTSD and my ‘normal’ world crumbles. Again.
The trigger stimulus causes a chemical release; a replay in my body and mind that I can hardly bear.
The “oh fuck, not this again” feeling of doom hits hard. The nervous system responds. “Red alert! We have a threat!”
Is the threat real at this moment? The PTSD sufferer cannot tell. It feels as real as ever.
Besides being terrifying, haunting, and exhausting, PTSD makes me feel powerless, over and over again. It ruins many days of my life, well after the initial trauma.
In the terror of that fucked up reality, my nervous system gets hijacked and sends my mind into a state of pure panic. The fear that lives in my bones emerges. When will this end?
I have been to therapy. I have tried medications. I do yoga every day. I meditate. I practice controlled breathing. I have a couple of great friends whom I can talk to. I have tools in my toolbox for dealing with this. Still, I wish it would end. So I can be free and feel normal.
PTSD makes me feel fragmented; not whole. There is a scar on my psyche that won’t go away. There is a burning sensation under my skin caused by excess stress hormones. The muscles on my bones are always ready to tighten. Hypervigilance has become a way of life for me.
Moments that cannot be undone. Decisions that can’t be unmade. These moments in time that lurk in my body and mind hurt like hell and cannot seem to be erased.
Learning to live with PTSD is like learning to live on a mineshaft. For me, everything has to be quiet. Movement is soft and gentle. Comfort and familiarity are helpful not to set anything off. Because once it blows, it blows.
It is agonizingly difficult to reset after an episode. Plus the shame, fear, and uncertainty that follow give rise to a plethora of other mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety.
I have often heard in therapy communities that “you have to feel it to heal it.” In PTSD, we have felt the pain of the trauma a number of times, with no healing. I don’t know which way is out.
Time doesn’t heal. It has been years. The trauma still lives here, inside me. It gets buried under a thousand other things, but with the right switch, it resurfaces.
It’s bad enough to undergo a traumatic event the first time. But to have it etched into my psyche is maddening. It feels like being branded by a bad experience. I hate it.
All I can do is try to manage it the best I can. Sometimes this goes well, sometimes it does not go so well. Moving my body and breathing consciously is the best cure I have found thus far. A swift walk alone in the woods helps. Other times, I just have to hide in my room and cry it out.
I have so much compassion for other people. Yet I struggle with self-compassion.
The outer world affects the inner world; and vice versa. I would so like to live in some utopia where one can let their guard down, where people didn’t hurt each other, and where the gifts of life were cherished and treasured.
Everything affects everything. Pain affects everything. Healing affects everything, as well. Those of us suffering from PTSD have to keep going. We have to continue trying to heal the wounds that can’t be seen. Moment by moment, one day at a time. One day we will be free.
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