PTSD - If You Could Draw It Or Describe It - What Would It Look Like

[NarcSis]

Interesting concept..

My version of PTSD would be a completely square canvas, painted completely black, in the very center is a small orange/reddish "light" about the size of the tip of my pinky finger, surrounding it are wiggly lines, they are chaotic in orientation, they are white and various shades of grey - all very random, they practically overtake the 'light'.

This is PTSD; the 'light' is me. It is chaotic, there is no pattern for symptoms, like walking in a field of landmines, they can overtake me at any point and they are always hanging around, threatening me.

 

[sigh]

I'm an artist like some of you too. I think my feelings are reflected in all my work.

But how I feel is thusly: I wake up at night dreaming I'm drowning. I see myself underwater in the ocean looking up at the light. I have no gear on and thought I was practicing diving. The light is beautiful but dangerous. Its not letting me towards it and I just have to sit and look at it for what it is.

I know this may not be a popular opinion. But I think there is a beauty that comes from trauma. I feel that I was granted a special give to see more, feel more than most of everyone. Sometimes, I don't get it. I try.

 

[becvan]

I have been thinking about this question since it was originally posed. I'm not artist though.

It would like like a black hole, with a massive hurricane in the middle, then with the most beautiful Northern lights at the center of it all.

It's destructive, terrifying and usually incomprehensible but there is so much pure beauty buried at the very hidden core.

bec

 

[Maze7]

I would draw a party with no guests except an egyptian mummy. I would be trying to climb out of there on a pillar of thorns.

 

[JillyB]

Mine is like a thick dark cloud that envelopes me. It's suffocating and I want to run, but I can't see where I'm going.

 

[Manic11]

Everyone have gotten a gift from someone that they didn't really like. You don't really say anything about it though. You don't like this and want to give it back but overtime it teaches you so much. You learn more than many know from it. You still want to give it back but at the same time you're thankful for everything you have learned.

Manic

 

[Xenu]

Like this.

http://www.pjs.net/thewall/pics/Pink_Floyd_The_Wall_Scream.jpg

 

[licht]

I feel like a giant squid has wrapped it's tentacles around me. It's the fear of being squeezed to death and at the same time eaten alive. I draw and paint squid often, trying to get them onto paper so that I remember that they're not really in the sky around me ready to eat me. I also draw and paint angels, sometimes slashing squid tentacles with fiery swords.

 

[This Ends Now]

How I Would Draw Or Describe It

Thank you for starting such an excellent idea.

For me I see a dessert, cluttered with different shards of a broken mirror. Inside the mirror's reflections I see different ages and times and places. All are broken, ugly, violent, sad.

I see a flower shop in reverse. Humans chilled in the coolers, and giant walking dandy lions selecting and twisting the human bodies. The flowers cut and glue the humans, wrong parts and wrong places, arranged to their liking. The humans are alive, but barely, with eyes that can neither open nor shut. The humans cannot move or speak, they are grouped together but cannot communicate or move.

In the movie "What Dreams May Come" Robbin Williams decides to go down into hell to fetch the soul of his wife who committed suicide. He finds her in a broken down version of their house and tries to connect with her, but she is trapped by her own mind, guilt, fear, pain. She cannot recognize her husband although he is there by her side, she thinks he is a stranger that is trying to hurt her.

In the book "The Last Battle" (From the Chronicles of Narnia series by CS Lewis) there is an excellent description. In the final chapter of the book, after the world has come to an end, some dwarfs are sitting in a barn or stable. I forget how they got into the stable, but it was before Azland's return. Azland tries to help them, but they cannot see. The dwarfs see the barn, even though it has vanished to everybody but them. They are hungry, and Azland gives them food, but all they see is rotting garbage.

 

[cat]

For me it would be a black hole. A year ago I was at the bottom with no way out but now I'm gradually climbing out. It's a slow climb in very small steps but I'm determined to get to the top & feel free & safe again.

 

[frangipani]

One way I describe my condition(s) is like putting your finger in a leak only to have another leak spring somewhere else.

Example: I finally start getting to sleep at a reasonable hour, only to be plagued by nightmares.

I can't seem to control one symptom without another one popping up.

***

But how would I describe my PTSD?

It's the opposite of light...in a quite literal sense. Light originates from the sun and takes years to reach us here on on Earth. PTSD for me is like darkness that originated from years ago and has finally caught up with me and left me a shadow of my former self.

 

[On the Outside Looking In]

PTSD is like a tornado to me -
A turbulent, swirling, violent funnel that is destructive and all consuming.

When tornados or PTSD occur, you have to get really far away from it in order to not feel its turbulence, thus other people run and hide from tornados and PTSD.

PTSD is terribly unpredictable just like a tornado appearing anywhere a certain set of circumstances occur. Just like the triggers of PTSD, storm clouds gather and form into a tornado when just the right set of atmospheric conditions converge.

After a tornado hits a neighborhood, nothing is ever the same.
Even if you rebuild...just like PTSD.

A tornado can destroy homes, families, businesses, communities... just like PTSD.

A tornado can leave some things intact, and no one can chose which things remain intact. Visualize the bathroom remaining untouched while the rest of the house is demolished around it. PTSD is similar. A few things are okay inside of me seemingly untouched by the PTSD, while destruction abounds everywhere else. Just like the untouched bathroom in the wreckage, everyone scratches their head about it. How can she be so okay doing this or that one minute, and then so completely unraveled the next minute?

Just like in PTSD, its difficult to pick up the pieces after a tornado lands. Hardly anything is ever the same again.

In the worst throes of the tornado, things are sucked up and are thrown all around. So much turmoil. So much destruction, just like PTSD.

Once you are sucked up into the throes of the tornado, you don't know how, when, or where you will land... just like PTSD.

Tornados are a part of the reality of weather. Tornados will continue to occur...
just like PTSD.

Who can accurately predict when PTSD or a tornado will hit? There are only warnings.

You don't know exactly where a tornado will occur, but you can come close with predictions; and therefore, take precautions. PTDS is much the same.

Tornados are being studied so we can understand more about them and better predict and protect ourselves. PTSD is also being studied.

Just like tornados - no answers yet.