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Analogy: My Ptsd Feels Like...

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A monster from the id. Uncontrollable, monster that takes over. Nothing on earth can stop that monster. It is too powerful. I see the damage it has done and I don't want to believe it is me. But it is. That monster is in my brain. Sitting there waiting to emerge when I loosen my guard.
 
Like...
I am the subject of a covert police investigation that I'm not supposed to know about, but I do, and so I know that they are watching me, following me, noting everything I do and say, waiting, ever waiting, for the right time to hit, to come storming in when I least expect it to destroy and overwhelm my life and to turn everything that used to make sense into nonsense.

I know this sounds weird, maybe I really am going crazy suddenly, but I can't explain how vividly I have that feeling right now, like a dulled, surreal panic, because you know the ending before you've watched the rest of the story, and you know you can't change it, that it's going to destroy everything, and that you're going to feel everything terrible a zillion times and it will still never be gone.

And it's the paranoia, the terror, the violation, the stark crude visibility to the world...

God, sorry...

MD
 
Right now my experience with PTSD is like the end of a mystery movie. The part where all the pieces slowly come together and then you find yourself thinking "crap I didn't see that coming." Then you spend the rest of the night scratching your head trying to analyze it.

My hyper vigilance leaves me feeling like a ninja without a sword. I know everything about my environment and any possible threats but I can't do anything about it. (sad thing is there is never any real threat)
 
Like I don't know who I really am. I watch myself and know it is wrong. In my panicked crazy moments, I don't know who I am. Part of me is watching me knowing it is stupid but I can't stop. And when I am calm, I feel sorry for myself, feel sorry that I have been such a pathetic wretch. But I just can't get my act together to stop that panicking.
 
My PTSD feels like someone took a slab of glass and smashed in on the ground... Undeterred, I keep on trying to gather all the pieces together. Each time pricking myself. Each time gaining cuts and scrapes all over every time I try to approach it. And each time I gather enough pieces to make something substantial, someone comes around with a hammer and smashes all of my hope back to fragments of glass. And what do I do? I try again... and again... and again until those pieces of glasses are just powder -- like ashes of a tree that has no hope of ever standing tall again.
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My PTSD feels like someone shredded a piece of paper and told me to pick it all up again. As I pick up the pieces, I'm almost there... almost there. I keep crying seeing how shredded my life has become. My tears are what hold together those pieces of paper -- like a makeshift glue that does nothing but soak and distort. Then a gust of wind comes and blows all the pieces away into a more disheveled array. I keep on trying but this time my tears don't help and I feel like I'm struggling to make possible the impossible.
--
My PTSD feels frustrating, self-defeating, and smothering. It makes me feel scared and lonely. It also makes me feel lost in a world I can no longer recognize while it drags me to a terrifying past world which I regrettably will always recognize.
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My PTSD robbed me of my right to feel "normal." But more importantly, it robbed me of the ability/means to tell those around me that I'm not "normal." That's the most debilitating consequence of all of this: PTSD left made me intimidated and disturbed.
(Note: It never left me... and that's the true problem here.)
 
... like I'm walking in what seems like an endless desert. Mostly, I'm alone, sometimes I meet people and we travel together for a while. Every once in while, there's an oasis, a short break. Sometimes there's a town where I can get supplies, but I don't belong there, so I have to keep moving. I am constantly hopeful that the place where I belong, the place where this journey ends is not far away now, but every day I wake up knowing that the desert is my life...
 
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