SPRKS IN CSF: PTSD, another view

SPRKS IN CSF: PTSD, another view:  I read New York Times magazine article of 'the kidnapping I cant escape by Taffy Brodesser-Akner all in one sitting- yes its  very unus...

PTSD, another view

 I read New York Times magazine article of 'the kidnapping I cant escape by Taffy Brodesser-Akner all in one sitting- yes its  very unusual for me . However  if you ask me what the content really is , I may find myself somehow to  be at a loss. I also read 'Diddy and me '. I felt so glad that NY times have really brought out an issue that many face , an issue that one  rarely talks openly about- traumas  and related responses that we use .These responses take many a shape and are nonetheless very  distressing. Even those of us who go through it cannot put  it into words easily... They are just there, as shadows that follow you every day even as the clarity of our days are shrouded in a mist , a mist that sometimes disorients us , some times is suffocating us as it extracts every bit of impetus for life from us... Each time as the mind swirls in it or  the body itself breakdown and fights itself spewing inflammatory processes , you are left drained , confused, yet muzzled by invisible internal forces. You wish to break out, yet is left  frozen incapable to act, all you do is just exist...

At least I can give the essence of what I read in the above articles  at the present time .This would  have been impossible  just a few years ago .I may read and re-read  as words existed just as a group of letters ,but devoid of context or meaning. That seems like a time so far in the past that it seems unreal to me today.

The description of inability to focus may have been one of the last bits that I had shed... I digress, I think there are remnants of all kinds of things that linger in life for me  from my traumas , things that I think I have moved beyond which  on  occasion  will still show up un -invited . I do not check my doors and windows multiple times now , but I do consciously lock it , repeating to myself what I am doing lest I really missed the all important step of locking the door .

Yes I do like to sleep with no curtains blocking the light coming in through the windows in the mornings , to welcome the day , as I say. But I do know there are secret underpinnings even for that...its so I can be aware of the outside world even as I sleep, I no longer check them every hour at night as I used to do, scanning the outdoors from the side of the shades , with  a swelling  anxiety and  the racing  heart beats  drumming ever louder in my ears... I just look out once before sleep and can then be off to sleep. No more standing by the side of the curtains , peering out with lights turned off scanning for predators in the shadows and sounds.

I do not have nightmares that wake me every hour or  every half hour, which is a big plus indeed. I am even able to push back at the flashbacks when they appear. The best part  now is that these flash backs do not get attached to emotional under currents as in the past where I would  stay frozen and my day slips away from me without any use or recall  for the lost time . Now on the few occasions that these flash backs appear I have found ways to navigate away from them using some pictures or specific music pieces .I still periodically lapse into the regret mode  of wasted life paths, carrier moves and all other  lost possible gains that could have been. Now I am able to look at these and say 'here I am' and 'despite all things, its ok'..

I think the hardest part to shed (still struggling with it) is the feeling of guilt for all things under the sun, including the sun itself... I may feel guilty if ' the sun is shining and if  its not ' as if  all of this universe's moods are  my fault somehow .But if I can just get a strand of humor to hold on to, then I am able to swing away  from those feelings that plague  me like an oozing bubo of the real plague from humanities past.

I am still not able to discard things of distress, I have them  all in the basement , penciled in on the box  to indicate its contents ' irrelevant-things of upsets, misery etc'  and that box sits next to a box containing two things ' -old journal articles - to review when I have time' , and 'my rambling writings etc' and yet another   box of  ' children's drawings and writings' . My children want me to discard most of the  things , they say ' at least get rid of the things that bothers you ', or 'why do you have these old journals... you can look up online for these any time  , surely you know that...'

I do know that on a realistic cognitive level , yet I am not able to discard these journals. Some vestigial parts in my psyche holds on to them as there was a targeted  constant attack on my reading  in my past, a denial to my personhood  all part of the repetitive nature of the traumas  and I seem to hold on to these as if I will lose my abilities again  once I throw them out . I may finally be able to do it today...As i write this I am also thinking-' what is relevance of research from the 1980's to the field today '. The reality is there , clear before me, but something keeps those boxes un touched , may be because up until recently I felt the fear of loss of  'me ' as an entity. I am more me  now , but the difficulties are there spread out across the various aspects of my life  and hopefully they too will loosen and fall off  soon. I am hopeful as I become more of me , I will be able to discard old journals despite the fear of lost words and learning . I do not cry any more when I remember parts that were lost to me due to the psychological trauma I lived through. I do not cry when I remember playing as a child, or remember how the air smelled with a first rain in summer . I formulate coherent sentences and the words seem to flow with ease now . When I read now  ,words  dance on the page and become forms in my mind . I know the words and the joy of words  may have been suppressed by what I endured , but  I am sure what was within me and what is me is something no one could erase...

by Pc-3 (07/13/2024)

SPRKS IN CSF: PTSD, another view

SPRKS IN CSF: PTSD, another view:  I read New York Times magazine article of 'the kidnapping I cant escape by Taffy Brodesser-Akner all in one sitting- yes its  very unus...