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Do you hide your ptsd weirdness or embrace it?

  • Thread starter Deleted member 47099
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Deleted member 47099

I dunno quite how to explain this (my brain is not working and writing a post without a brain is a challenge)...

All my life, I've tried to "hide" my PTSD weirdness.

During trauma, hiding is a natural reaction. And once trauma is over and the PTSD phase starts, hiding symptoms etc seems like a normal reaction too.

When I started getting trauma therapy, I remember being really embarrassed about it and not wanting ppl to know, given the social stigma etc.

I think I've just gotten into a habit of hiding all of my PTSD symptoms as well as I possibly can. (For example, with most of my panic attacks, people aren't even aware I'm having one. Trauma has trained me to be super good at keeping a poker face while dying on the inside...)

Also, my brain has this totally set goal that "being normal" is what I should aim for. There's this deep (and understandable) conviction that trauma and PTSD suck so aiming for "normal" is the obvious and right thing to do.

BUT... even tho I've progressed a long way on my trauma journey, there's still PTSD weirdness that is a) currently part of my life and b) may never fully go away.

At 40, I'd like to start embracing this.

I'd like to get out of the habit of being ashamed of it and pushing it away and trying to be "as normal as possible".

The thing is, I don't just do this when I'm in a public setting. I think this is so fixed in my mind, that even at home, I'm always "aiming for normal" and then kinda disappointed, when I fall short.

At 40, I think it's time to ***embrace*** being weird :inlove::laugh:

For all of you who are younger, I swear you get to an age where you just couldn't care less what others think anymore... Over time, you figure out that EVERYONE is nuts in their own way, everyone is making it up as they go along, behind their social masks everyone is confused and anxious, and you get to the point of "OMG life is too SHORT to worry about other ppl's opinions..." and you realise that NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO there's always gonna be ppl who don't like it and criticise you so you may as well do what you LIKE and have 'em grumble about that... :p:cool:

Anyway, I'm not sure what I'm trying to say...

I guess that me always striving to be "normal" means I'm always striving to be "something I'm not" and that doesn't feel entirely healthy.

I think I need to start loving and accepting myself with PTSD and with all the weirdness that brings with it. :wideeyed::nailbiting::eek::confused::ninja::alien::cautious::roflmao:

Maybe I'll get a t-shirt that says "I'm a PTSD nutcase and proud!" :roflmao:
 
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Hide like you wouldn't believe. Nobody wants to see my stuff. Nobody wants to be around me when I'm being 'unpleasant.' I don't need to wear a t-shirt, nobody that's around me for any time at all has to wonder if or not everything is ok. They don't know what it is but it's probably not good. It has an attraction for a certain type. I was like that too. The ones with problems. I was always attracted to them. I still see them, I know the type. It shows.
 
Well, I'm about to go and see a new accountant who is doing my tax return.
She's gonna see I get disability payments as part of my income, so I reckon I'll just smile and say "Yeah, it's for PTSD - it's such a crappy thing to have!" and not bat an eyelid. :cool:
*embracing my ptsd weirdness*
 
Hide.

I am already miffy with myself enough about some overlaps of TBI and ADHD with the other stuffs that I cannot hide so usual or have to focus super hard on, to let yet PTSD jump in. But there are a few who knew me on and off in many different years of my life and I am still not anywhere close faking functional as I was then.
 
I think I’m completely incapable of showing all my ptsd symptoms. I’m like you, I can be incredibly symptomatic and no one has a clue. I’m like this because my mom would emotionally punish me when I was ill because she thought I was doing it for attention. I realized that pretending I was fine and having my mom behave normally around me was better than letting on that I was sick and facing her wrath/judgement/scorn. After years of faking being fine, I don’t even know how to be real anymore. I’m to the point where I believe I’m faking if I look sick! I’m in my 40’s too. I think I’m just going to accept that I can’t be real in the moment about the ptsd effects.
 
I admire you for being open about it.

I hide my PTSD & addictions as much as I can. The only people who know about my PTSD are you guys, my Dad & my girlfriend.

I do that for two main reasons. 1) I am ashamed of it. 2) There is still a stigma around mental health, certainly in my area.
 
Oh I totally get everyone who's voting for "hide".

I've been a hide-hide-hide girl all my life!

And I don't **actually** intend to buy a t-shirt that says PTSD and proud :laugh::roflmao:

At 40, I'm not nutty enough for that yet! Ask me again at 70, when I have my hair died bright pink and couldn't care less what anyone thinks how bat-sh*t crazy I am :laugh::roflmao:

For now, I don't mean going round and being "public" about it or "telling everyone" or showing everyone all my emotional scars...

Rather, I just don't want to make so much of an effort anymore to hide it... I don't want to be such a control-freak about hiding it anymore...

I'll keep most of it to myself, just cos I'm quite a private person by nature - but the stuff that you know... that just "shows" sometimes... the anxiety/ the panic attacks/ the weird habits (like avoidance)... I'm just sick of hiding them like they're some Grade A scandal, or some toxic nuclear waste, or some Secret Servic classified information...

Like y'all I've been hyper-aware of the social stigma and felt way too antsy and vigilant to allow anyone to potentially "use that against me"...

But at 40, I'm getting so sick of making that huge effort to hide it...

I don't need to go and tell everyone I've got PTSD... but I want to stop trying to think of bizarre excuses/ cover-ups for PTSD stuff in my life...

Kinda "let the chips fall where they may"...

I feel like I'm ready for that part of my journey... :inlove:
 
A bit of both, actually.
I'm lucky I have amazing friends who are quite happy to accept my HV, like the need to park in a particular place or sit at a particular table. It's a bit of a standing joke, which I like.
If someone notices my hands shaking, I generally just say I have a medical condition and don't specify further.
I've also got some pretty graphic self harm scarring... which I don't hide all that often, almost as a political statement. Also, aus summers are hot AF.
I feel like if people can't deal with my scars, they aren't worth my time anyway so good riddance...
My hearing is super badass too, to the extent I get quite bothered by noise. I just say I have "hyperacusis", which is technically true but not the whole truth.
If I say I have PTSD, it's basically just a one-phrase explanation that's not up for discussion....
I don't mind people knowing about my PTSD, but I do mind them knowing the cause, which is weird. People generally make their own assumptions about what the cause is, and I've never had anyone be right yet.
 
I hide. But I have hidden to the point where it's obvious. My poker face is so poker-faced that it people mostly notice my PTSDness from my lack of reaction because most of the time I work so hard to hide it. So in other normal stress situations it becomes obvious because my face shuts down. Like I have a really expressive face or a really blank one. No in between.
 
Absolutely would not disclose such to anyone I didn't implicitly trust. Even if I did, details are hard, even generalities. Just being capable of doing so, even, let alone the weight or feeling of it's (my own) lack of importance.

I'm sure many misunderstand what I'm thinking or feeling or why, or my actions or reactions.

I avoid. I would never, for example, get a med test like a colonoscopy that requires partial sedation, for fear of what I'd do or say, or who would be around me, no one I could trust. (Horrors :eek: :nailbiting: :arghh; :bawling: :()

But, I think we view the world from our understanding. For example, a person I got along with really well with Alzheimer's disease, and a great family, I overheard their family member say repeatedly, "Don't buy cheese, I'll bring lots of cheese". They hung up and said, "I'll buy cheese, (x) might forget". Because they forget.

So I 'get' some things (intimately) about anxiety; terror; fearfulness; depression; heart-in-throat; mistrust; insomnia; having no future; secrets; secrecy; 'abuse'; physical effects; hopelessness; exhaustion; and so on. And so I relate to others on those levels, and it determines much of what I say or do, what I think, like a thread woven through me. So I'll talk openly to someone about hard or taboo subjects, and support them, and share though they usually don't know it if I'm hoping it will help. Or, for example, like in the smallest way, to make a food look attractive +/or 'fun' (for them), because maybe there's no appetite or self worth to eat (that might not apply at all- but for me it does, so that's what I do for 'all' others). And for distraction (for them). So I guess I hide in plain sight. I know I'm very different.But the difference is much deeper than is obvious at all.

I do however embrace my 'speed' and requirement to not be bored to tears, or spirituality, my 'nature'. I don't care if anyone gets that or not, really. That's just me, and I can't be someone I'm not.

ETA, I know some things/ ways of being others don't like in others, that I personally do- prefer, actually. So be yourself @Sophy . Life is too short to think it's 'wrong' being you, as it is not. :hug:
 
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