PTSD+

PTSD+

Now … more about me and my insanity …

My therapist, Chari, says it may be more effective to talk about my feelings rather than my reporting on everything with my stories … my stories try to convey the bigger picture, the whole story, as to why my family & I are so bat shit crazy … I feel like the stories help describe why we struggle & have struggled … as well as the fact that we talk ourselves well … somehow by telling my stories, I gain greater insight into what happened and what is happening so I can make greater sense of things …so I will keep telling the stories … but I like the idea of sharing my feelings as well … Chari thinks people can identify with the feelings more … she’s the professional and that’s why I pay her the big bucks!

Started this story/post 2-9-20

I knew about this concept of my PTSD+, below in yellow, 3 years ago, right after I had done the brain scan with The AMEN Clinic that diagnosed me with the PTSD+ … Yes, PTSD+ … not just regular PTSD, but PLUS … EXTRA … which is not surprising … this is from growing up with my mother (whom I am convinced had PTSD & mental illness too, so she passed it down to my brothers & I) … PLUS all the additional tragedies and traumas that I have experienced over my lifetime … there have been MANY … I have been traumatized in so many ways, by so many things throughout my life … and due to the nature of PTSD, it happens over and over and over again in my mind … I am very jumpy … I am highly sensitive to my PTSD on a daily basis … I am constantly wired for shock … sometimes I can actually physically feel the electric shocks going through my body …

I wrote the below words in yellow in February of 2020 and somehow, I had forgotten this very principal until today when I thought these very thoughts again … I looked to see if I had started any words on PTSD and sure enough … there was the below in my files already …

I have had it (PTSD) my whole life, so how did I know that all these people are affecting me, triggering me, I’m a walking trigger bomb … how can anyone stand me?! (Because I am beautiful and fun! Ha!)

Everyone triggers me at some point … I am trying to tell them my truth so I can be around them and be comfortable, but most people get defensive …

I stopped there in the writing 3 years ago … maybe it was a starting point … maybe it was a profound discovery I had to digest … maybe I did not know how to develop these thoughts further … maybe it was self-preservation of too much information of a lifetime of pain, that I unknowingly shut it out until I had the bandwidth to deal with it … however it got lost, I am looking at it all again now with a greater understanding from 3 more years of getting my ass kicked by mental illness and life …

This is the long & the short of it … I am pissed off by people, so therefore, I return the favor and I piss them off … I have gotten better about NOT doing this over the last few years, but it can apply at any given moment, to any given situation … this is my knee jerk default position.

This is torturous … can you imagine going through your day and having EVERYONE you encounter be a possible trigger? Especially when they are trying to explain to me how to do things … have you thought of? … that phrase drives me Crazier than I already am … YES… I have thought of that … I cannot STOP thinking and I am super smart, so YES, I have thought of that … Fuckers …

It is depressing to always be triggered … exhausting, really … I have been depressed a lot … not feeling understood … very discouraging … very disheartening … I feel misunderstood most of the time …

I think I had forgotten about the whole idea highlighted in yellow above because it is so painful … it is hard to fathom that my whole life is, and has been, affected by this and that even after all these years of working on myself, this is another aspect to work on that will take YEARS to overcome …

I have found in the past that when something really painful comes up, it can get buried real quick in to the recesses of my mind until I am ready to deal with it … this is not a conscious decision, it is more of a holy-shit-I-am-dealing-with-so-much-other-shit-that-I-will-explode-if-I-add-one-more-painful-life-changing-thing-to-the-pile kind of decision, a self-preservation, subconscious decision type of survival technique …

As well as the fact that one month later the world came to a halt with the pandemic, so there were so many other things to think about, this got lost in the shuffle of all the other neurosis that surfaced  during that worldwide Panic-demic …

How ever it got “conveniently” overlooked … it is time to look at it again more seriously now because it has gotten to a level of discomfort in my life that is must be addressed … it keeps coming to light from the depths of my soul, where it has been hidden FROM ME, in the dark, to avoid the pain of it all …

I ALWAYS like to end with hope and the healing aspect of it all …

How did I handle it today? I went to Pinkbox Doughnuts and got my 3 favorites – Unicorn (fitting for fantasy/denial), Love My PB&J & Cherry Bomb … not the best way to handle gut wrenching emotions, but it is a way … one of my “favorite” ways, but it hurts me, it doesn’t help me … I will deal with that, AGAIN, one of these days … first things first … let’s get to the hard stuff …

I WILL continue to walk through this, no matter how long it takes, even if it NEVER takes!  I will keep trying to overcome and heal this malady … I HAVE come a long way already … even though I have not diligently looked at THIS aspect of the PTSD+, I have been working on the parts of it I was more aware of, for a long time with my trained therapist who has been at this for 45+ years, my life coaches, my friends in recovery & literature also … so those are some good resources …

I know with dedicated persistence, applying my recovery principles, taking it one day at a time, doing my best, I will get through it … I have already lived this long with it, at times in full force! So going forward with not the full impact of my PTSD+ being applied but with full awareness, can only get better from here … not that I will have full awareness every time, but now that I know it is currently causing BIG trouble in my life and I want to heal it, the healing will come, and it WILL get better with time … I know this because of other negative characteristics I have lessened in my life through persistence trial and application of spiritual principles …

Now I will be on high alert about being on high alert … Ha! (great ….)

I slept on it … I did not even have a good night sleep because I ate the last doughnut too close to bedtime, so it came back to haunt me in the middle of the night, and yet,  I woke up with hope for the new day … things look different in the morning … especially with a good cup of coffee and a GOOD GOD who can bend space & time to heal or do whatever HE wants to and I believe He wants to heal me … Thank you Jesus!