You Know You Have PTSD When...

[anni]

Hee- NH, I'm there too. It's WIERD. I'm actually pretty coordinated across the board but will fall over what must be condensed air laying on the floor, and will turn around and walk smack into the door I just opened. Can I be Vice President?

 

[Serene]

I just have to say that this thread has helped me so much. I have always been so embarrassed about my general state of confusion and my inability to remember what I did yesterday or 8 hours ago, what I've told a friend and what I haven't, what my children have said to me and what we've done together. I often hear, "Mom! How can you not remember that?!" I've thought of myself as ditsy and stupid. After reading all of your comments I feel...normal. I feel like a person whose brain is responding quite normally to the things I have been exposed to.

Thank you for sharing all that you share. What a gift you are to me.

 

[Serene]

You use the phrase, "Sorry. I haven't had my coffee yet today," to explain your morning mistakes and you don't even drink coffee.

 

[anni]

Serene, that's hysterical!! It's exactly like " I'm sorry, I don't have my contacts in today " because I tend to stare at written things without comprehending it-came up with that. I don't wear glasses and if I tried contacts would lose an eye.

 

[Sergio]

These are all so true for me! I never knew why!

Here're my 2 or 3 cents:

.....you have entire bookcases of books on a single topic, have spent much of your life, money and energy researching a field of study, and you are not a research scientist.

.....while driving, you know the position of every car around you without ever looking in the mirrors.

.....at a party, you've all had 6-7 drinks; everyone else is trashed, and you're just starting to feel normal.[/quote]

 

[The Albatross]

You know you have PTSD when you feel like an indigent alien.

 

[Sergio]

When the phone is ringing, the call display shows it is someone you really want to talk to, but you don't pick up, you just stand there looking at it, frozen

For me, phone calls are extremely startling. As a youth/teenager, my "father" would not allow us to receive phone calls at all. Invariably, my phone number would make the rounds somehow. When a girl would call my house and ask to speak to me, I swear I would rather die from a heart attack than to take the call. The same flood of emotions comes through now....

 

[Sergio]

You know you have PTSD when...

...you have to keep checking your driver's license to find out how old you are because all the missing years screws up your brain math.

OMG! This is so true! When I first met my wife, she would often ask me for my age. My response was, "I don't know. I will have to tell you later. Or, I overstated my age by a few years to compensate!"

 

[Reclusive]

You monitor your post number vs likes because you don't want to over-post and annoy people because obviously you're defective and you don't want to spread it around too much.

 

[Sergio]

• When you forget your current student address while filling out a form, which makes you feel like an idiot, then you feel guilty and apprehensive because you realize this makes you look suspicious, and later on you feel irritated with yourself for feeling guilty when you haven't done anything wrong.
• When you're walking home in a perfectly good mood, and you're idly thinking about whether or not you really could take off across the lawn and jump that fence.

To this very day, I cannot remember my address even though I have lived there for over a year. However, I can remember my home phone number from 30 years ago while living with the abuser...

 

[Deleted member 6617]

When you stand in the middle of a parking garage pushing the alarm button to find your car only to discover it is on a completely different level. The friend you are with finds nothing unusual about this because she has PTSD too and is just thankful to be in the right parking garage and amazed that you know where your keys are.

 

[Tosh]

When you leave for work early one morning, locking the door behind you and turning around, you freeze. A figure is standing in the middle of the yard. Immediatley you start screaming histarically and begin pounding on the door. Then you hear a woman's voice "It's OKAY! I'm just walking my dog!" Oh yeah just the neighbor lady.