Hi SOMG,
Welcome to the forum...
I would say this....(and I've thought about it for the last few hours)....PTSD is not mental or irrational, it is a physiological and neurobiological response which although a one time was in context is no longer. Its frightening and distressing, as you can't control it. It's like a faulty trigger on a gun and every time it goes off your body unrelentingly goes through a 'procedure' which is exhausting and often doesn't have time to recover before the next incident hits. The physical symptoms of too much adrenaline in the body are numerous, memory loss, concentration problems, mal-coordination, insomnia, twitching leading to repetitive movements, jaw clenching, teeth grinding, cubital/carpul tunnel syndrome, nausea, inability to focus hearing etc etc oh and your muscles literally get fried, the effort to push against this is huge and often counter productive but you don't have much choice. The subsequent behavioral or 'mood' changes that happen to try and accommodate/alleviate may help symptoms but often damage the progress made in a persons life, which is traumatic in itself and can cause more damage but often a sufferer becomes a slave to trying to mediate their symptoms. This can lead to depression, frustration, attempts at super human effort to overcome which can be damaging and ultimately if this goes on for a long while with no professional providing insight in to whats happening, a very distorted and self punishing view of oneself. Society doesn't help they're is a lot of stigma around it and depending on what caused it there may be even more stigma around that too.
Take it slow, and realize it is physically real which is what causes the behavioral stuff. If I had to try and describe it best it's like sitting in the cock pit of a crashing helicopter and all your instruments are going crazy and you have to keep it with it but people expect you to carry on as normal on top of that. You have to have the time, space (from responsibility) and understanding to re-pressurize yourself at the appropriate rate.
Anyway, trying to keep it short!:rolleyes:
Good luck!
