I've had PTSD now for 40 years, but the symptoms are so reduced that I go for long periods without symptoms. I am a female veteran and was newly assigned to my first base after basic training and tech school. The base was in the Midwest and it was November. A very gloomy time after the leaves are gone and before snow falls, when day after day is rain and dark clouds. This bleak landscape triggered my first episode of hysteria in which I had high anxiety and cried without being able to stop. Thus began a very long journey to unravel what I came to think of as a ball of string full of knots related to my past. My memories were very fragmented, parts were missing, I doubted my own memories (were they real or pretend?), etc. Slowly, painstakingly, I spent years in therapy to try to understand why I was so crippled by clinical depression and severe anxiety. Only recently do I feel like I found the roots, and they were not at all what I expected. I now feel I know what happened and why, but I still have some occasions of triggering, in which I recall something that seems unconnected to trauma but affects me the same way. I spent four and a half years in a nursing home because I was too frightened to live anywhere else. That was twenty years ago. Today I live in a house. I'm 64 years old and never thought I could live in a detached residence due to extreme fears. I am able to do many things today that crippled me for years. I attribute my recovery to God and good therapy, a lot of studying about trauma, keeping a journal, and writing books and articles about my life to try to understand and form what psychologists call a "cohesive narrative." Finally my story hangs together and I feel content knowing what I know. That is new and really quite wonderful!
Manu
Manu
