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[incongruent]

I am here.

Which actually, feels like a funny thing to say right now.
Today is a bad day... Yesterday was a good day.

I... I've been diagnosed with PTSD for four years now- a little over it actually. Yet until a few months ago, I never bothered looking into what PTSD was. Not since the day with the checklists and the doctor and the conversations I didn't really want to have.

I knew I had gone through a trauma. I knew I had anxiety issues due to it. I knew to avoid triggers when possible. That was all I 'needed' to know.

Until i needed to know more. I'm a senior in high school... and we read two books in a row with PTSD sufferers. We had seminars. I had to listen to my classmates repetivitly call these characters 'insane' 'crazy' .. listen to their questions...

It made me look back into it. Look back into what PTSD was. and it made me cry. Because I realized for the first time just how much PTSD is my life. That even some of the positive things I "like" about myself- are symptoms. and it...

it's been bad. For the past two months, I've woken up every day- disappointed that I have. and I couldn't shake the feeling that.. That the monsters of my past... that they had stolen more of me than I had originally realized.

and I know. I know there is no cure. But I'm here.

I'm here because I want to know what part of me is me again.

 

[The Albatross]

Welcome Incongruent (really like your nic). Wow, I wish I knew that about myself when I was your age. I hope you find what part of you is you again too.

 

[Zemi]

Hi Incongruent, welcome to the forum :) That must have been hard to listen to your school classmates use those names :( I hope you know it's from their lack of understanding rather than that you (or anyone with PTSD) is crazy or insane! Is therapy something you could try to help you with some of the questions you want to address?

 

[incongruent]

Zemi- It was. It was even harder for my teacher though. She actually stopped the class during the second time and was like, "Having PTSD does not make one crazy. Last time a classmate opened up and said that she suffered from the affliction. I can't speak for her- but I know i would appreciate it if you stopped being so crude. " But her husband also has it, though his is from the war. She's been... I was lucky to have her. She's helped these last few weeks- whether she realizes it or not.

I don't know what I'm ready to confront. I feel like I've been in therapy forever- but it's all very... basis by basis. Mostly dealing with the 'bi-polar' diagnosis I was dished- though I'm learning that I'm most likely not even that. That those symptoms fit into the PTSD diagnosis as well. We brought it up last time, but it... My chest feels like closing in when I talk about it.

Albatross- Thanks. I.. This is as a good as a place to find out- hopefully.

 

[Kintsugi]

It sounds like you have been blessed with a very good teacher, Incongruent. Throughout the past six years or so I have been repeatedly faced with similar situations in my lit classes, but thankfully PTSD is better understood now than it was many years ago and these are all college classes I'm talking about, so the students there were at least mildly familiar with the gravity of the disorder. The Yellow Wallpaper is a text that is often misinterpreted by freshmen at my college, though. I work as a writing tutor and have had some very tough situations trying to explain that PTSD is in a lot of texts (All Quiet on the Western Front, Slaughterhouse-5) and shouldn't be minimalized or called lunacy. I can get very emotional in class when these things come up, or even outside of class just watching war movies with friends who don't see how the protagonist is showing clear symptoms (that show Surface from several years ago about sea dragons? Yeah, PTSD big time!). >.<

Wow, a senior in high school. You are going through a lot. I'm not very far off from you, but I never went to high school and was never faced with peer challenges in this way throughout high school age.

I'm very glad you've found the forum. I've seen your postings but somehow missed your introduction. Keep it up. Welcome.