The Ptsd Cup Explanation
The combat version of this cup has even less room... Since training & experience eats up about a third of the damn space ... But I don't keep that one handy ;) Same thing, just less space. Should help to explain the explosive temper & general snarkiness as stress starts to build up with no outlet. Fun fun.
Does it justify? Nope. Explain? Yep.
*. *. *
No need to answer any of these... Just things to think about: (fair warning, it's long, and highly biased, I'm in a talkative mood at present).
Is he shooting, still? It's one of the things that helps me the most with controlling my temper & anxiety... Instantly drops my heartrate & breathing down from coronary levels to ....Ooooh. That's nice. Finally. Freaking expensive putting a few thousand down range each week, means it's one of the first things I tend to stop doing. One of these days I'll learn to stop dropping it and just line item it in my budget. It's not a cure-all by any means. Hour later I can be just as pissy as before if I let myself, but it's a break from the constant pressure, and it's something I can actually feel useful & competent doing, even when my head is so f*cked sideways I can't find my damn pants for half an hour (right where I left them :rolleyes: ) So not only do I get some calm in my life every day (bliss) but the ego boost up from worthless/ useless/ growl/ kick/ smash tends to stop the growl/kick/smash from getting there in the first place.
PT? This one is
huge for lowering stress levels. I can't underscore enough how bleeding off the physical stress is important. It's crazy hard to maintain as a civilian; injuries, life gets in the way, motivation takes a damn nose dive for 1,000 different reasons. It's just harder than it "should" be. Which is infuriating.
Sex? Sex can tend to go sideways with combat-schtuff. From mad overdrive to can't even keep your concentration while masturbating. :banghead: FFS. If there's any time my mind
shouldn't be effing wandering. What the hell? Vexing. But when it is there, and working halfway right, fiery connection & release is -like PT- hugely stress relieving. But better. A, because it's sex, B because connection to other people is one of the things that gets all f*cked up with PTSD.
Touching base with vets & friends? There's a very grounding, calming, thing about being around people who get it. Speak the same language, laugh at the same
seriously wrong things, don't need explanations, etc.. It also helps fill the human connection need, that the complete absence of trust usually starts killing off the ability to have with people / make new friends as PTSD sinks it's claws in. Brotherhood is irreplaceable... And it's loss is a weight. Hell, I even start missing people I hated, just because I was free to hate the dumb SOB, openly, instead of mind my manners. The difference between dealing with other vets, and dealing with civvies is a lot like the level of self control one needs when dealing with bosses, priests, PTA presidents, etc. The weight that
lofts as you leave their presence? Is like the same weight that lofts when you're around people who get you. Dealing with civvies 24/7 is exhausting. Mind my language. Mind my manners. Grit my teeth. :cautious::shifty: Can I relax, yet? No? No? No??? f*ck. ((And then like a kid coming home from school who has used up all their self control in the classroom, I come home, relax... And totally lost my temper. Sigh. Stupid.))
Taking alone time? Time to rest & recharge between stressful events? Isolating is the extreme form of this. Can go days, weeks, months isolating when things are just way too f*cking overwhelming to cope. But alone time, recharging between pushes, avoiding mission creep? Huge.
......... These are hardly the be-all, end all. But they're signs of balance. The more unbalanced my life gets? The worse my symptoms get, the more bad days I'm having, and it all spirals out from there. One begets the next and the next and the next.
