VegasOrBust
New Here
Hi! I guess I should start by saying that the only reason for my username is that I'm currently planning a trip to Vegas, and I needed something that's not similar to names I use elsewhere. Not that I hide my PTSD, I've been pretty open about it for the last several years, but with some anonymity comes a bit more freedom to let out the deep truths as they need to come out.
I'm 40, and I've been dealing with it since I was a teenager. I'll just give the short version here: My grandparents practically raised me, and my parents were not cut out for the job, to put it mildly. My father was unstable and my mother's life had taught her to survive by maintaining the status quo at all costs, and manipulating people when needed.
So then one day a few months after my grandparents died (less than three months apart) my father decided to murder / suicide us, which, thankfully, didn't get all the way to actually firing the gun, but the damage was done. So that was my "source" trauma, and I spent the next several years in constant fear that he would eventually get the job done, along with other stuff and revelations and bad things.
I had so completely normalized it all that, in my early 20s, I was a few months into treatment for BD2 when I went, "Oh, you know, this stuff happened..." and I was diagnosed with PTSD. A whole lot of stuff made a heck of a lot more sense after that. That road is a whole story on its own. (Found out years later that my BD2 wasn't what it appeared to be.)
I've come a long way. The only meds I take now is the occasional hydroxyzine. I keep a backup benzo in the medicine cabinet just in case the stuff hits the fan in a big way, but I haven't taken one in years. But... but. There's always a but, ain't there? I was forced to make a drastic lifestyle change to stabilize long-term without the meds I used to take (that didn't agree with me). I work from home, and rarely leave the neighborhood. I can, I'm not stuck here. I travel a few times a year, and I go run errands if I absolutely must. But I'm actually quite content. I've always been a natural introvert anyway, always preferred solo pursuits much of the time. I have a fantastic roommate (for 16 years now, we're co-ed spinsters) so I've no shortage of human contact, and I often dogsit for the neighbors which I LOVE.
Despite all the progress I made in years of therapy, I can get triggered so easily, still, and my list of triggers contains some pretty ridiculously mundane stuff. It's not as debilitating as it used to be, but it can be pretty bad. I have emotional echoes overlaid on the current situation. I no longer dissociate. I'm still very much in the present, I just feel the terror from the past instead of a more appropriate response to what's actually happening. I understand it now, and I can do the "aftercare" for myself in a productive way, but it's probably always going to be with me. And I can live with that. Where I'm at is a billion times better than where I've been.
So yeah, that's my story. Sorry it got a bit long. (I don't do "short versions" right, do I?)
I'm 40, and I've been dealing with it since I was a teenager. I'll just give the short version here: My grandparents practically raised me, and my parents were not cut out for the job, to put it mildly. My father was unstable and my mother's life had taught her to survive by maintaining the status quo at all costs, and manipulating people when needed.
So then one day a few months after my grandparents died (less than three months apart) my father decided to murder / suicide us, which, thankfully, didn't get all the way to actually firing the gun, but the damage was done. So that was my "source" trauma, and I spent the next several years in constant fear that he would eventually get the job done, along with other stuff and revelations and bad things.
I had so completely normalized it all that, in my early 20s, I was a few months into treatment for BD2 when I went, "Oh, you know, this stuff happened..." and I was diagnosed with PTSD. A whole lot of stuff made a heck of a lot more sense after that. That road is a whole story on its own. (Found out years later that my BD2 wasn't what it appeared to be.)
I've come a long way. The only meds I take now is the occasional hydroxyzine. I keep a backup benzo in the medicine cabinet just in case the stuff hits the fan in a big way, but I haven't taken one in years. But... but. There's always a but, ain't there? I was forced to make a drastic lifestyle change to stabilize long-term without the meds I used to take (that didn't agree with me). I work from home, and rarely leave the neighborhood. I can, I'm not stuck here. I travel a few times a year, and I go run errands if I absolutely must. But I'm actually quite content. I've always been a natural introvert anyway, always preferred solo pursuits much of the time. I have a fantastic roommate (for 16 years now, we're co-ed spinsters) so I've no shortage of human contact, and I often dogsit for the neighbors which I LOVE.
Despite all the progress I made in years of therapy, I can get triggered so easily, still, and my list of triggers contains some pretty ridiculously mundane stuff. It's not as debilitating as it used to be, but it can be pretty bad. I have emotional echoes overlaid on the current situation. I no longer dissociate. I'm still very much in the present, I just feel the terror from the past instead of a more appropriate response to what's actually happening. I understand it now, and I can do the "aftercare" for myself in a productive way, but it's probably always going to be with me. And I can live with that. Where I'm at is a billion times better than where I've been.
So yeah, that's my story. Sorry it got a bit long. (I don't do "short versions" right, do I?)
