You Know You Have PTSD When...

[Jak]

A day without a headache is like a....well, I wouldn't know.

Agreed!

 

[BloomInWinter]

I frequently start stories to realise my vocabulary has taken a holiday...

OMG I have had such 'nounal aphasia'...it's getting better now that the dissociation is better. I was worried my brain was too broken to fix this.

My T. kept saying 'you can't be in two places at once' - and it is so true. When my defenses are triggered, I can't access the names of people, places, things that are associated with that time or trauma in my life.

 

[Jak]

*a friend pulls a playful prank on you and you decide that having friends is completely overrated
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:laugh: Yes. It's worse when it's your partner who likes to joke around. I am surprised that he persists when my random abnormal responses, anything from a smirk, sarcasm, anger or tears, always disappoint him and leave him confused. Then of course I feel guilty for not reacting in the expected manner, get stressed out and decide it's easier to just stop talking to him for a few days until I have moved on. :laugh: (not really funny, but kind of is when you reread your own absurd behaviour)

 

[Bubba]

Make sense?

Absolutely! I think that's why it's so hard to REALLY live in the here and now....we're too busy thinking about what "COULD" happen. The future is a scary unknown and we've already had "bad things" happen and know they could happen again. So it's a perpetual cycle and you totally miss out on the experience and potential joy of what is happening in the moment.

 

[Ivories]

Wow, I am so glad to have found this forum. There are other people who get it! Thank you all for being here. I've read through this entire thread, and sometimes I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry, so I did both at once. :) :( :confused: Here is my contribution.

You know you have PTSD when...
#1) ...your brother gently touches you on the shoulder, but you didn't know he was behind you, so you go berserk on him in the middle of the church service.
#2) ...your coworker comes by your office to ask about something and finds you crying in a corner 'hiding' under a jacket.
#3) ...you hear a truck go by outside, and peer through the slats of the blinds, and freak out because there's a car in the driveway...and it's yours. You forgot you parked it there instead of in the garage.
#4) ...you have to unclench your fists to take communion, revealing the fingernail marks in your palms, because PEOPLE HAVE BEEN STANDING BEHIND YOU in the aisle waiting to go up.
#5) ...you are (outwardly) calmly sitting at the dining room table working on a jigsaw puzzle, and then let out a sudden feral snarl that's loud enough to scare the cats in the next room.
#6) ...you sometimes procrastinate using the restroom, because doing so means lowering your pants and underwear.
#7) ...you wake up from nightmares so vivid that as soon as you're coherent enough to find the phone on the nightstand, you call and make sure the person you dreamed about is really okay.
#8) ...you look outside to make sure your neighbors' car isn't in the driveway before you go to the mailbox, just so you don't take the chance of having to talk to them--and these are the neighbors you actually LIKE. (However, you take absolutely no notice of the fact that it's raining.)

 

[Red Feather]

When the noises your refridgerator makes repeatingly frightens you. :eek:

 

[freeanimal]

When a situation comes up that could be bad or good, but all you can think about is coming up with every possible outcome (good and bad) and then coming to terms with possible outcome so you don't "freak out" when one of those does happen.

-when you once had the ability to theorize possible outcomes, but you have pretty much given up on the hope for coherent action and now blindly enter all situations without prior thought because you know you will freeze/flee/disassociate/do something nonsensical ptsdish/ regardless of situation . :p

working to get back to a view of I am a capable and functioning human being that can use action (or nonaction) to live effectively. >.>

 

[freeanimal]

when your family takes advantage of you because they think you have lost your mind. If only they knew how intact it really was.

This is so true! It is one of the more exasperating social aspects to have everyone around you directing & belittling but without any energy or esteem to respond assertively. Because I am not emotionally here doesn't mean I'm not here. :(

 

[Bubba]

When your best friends and closest confidants are your dogs - mainly because they love you unconditionally and don't cause secondary wounds...

 

[Jak]

...when you carry a book with you, so if you find yourself sitting in a public place you can look like your reading so you don't have to interact with anyone, but then get stressed about how often you should turn the pages to make it look like your really reading in case someone is watching you for an extended peiod. So you decide you'll have to really read the pages or someone might suspect your looking at a book without reading, which would just be weird, so you read the pages to find you forgot to listen to the words, so you have to read it again, but then you've been on the page too long, so you need to turn it mid way reading it the second time....

 

[Jak]

You know you have ptsd when you buy the same vegetable everytime you go near a shop, and only realise you already have some when you go to put it away

I ended up with 5 jars of honey in the cupboard. All the same brand but different sizes and some squeeze. The craziest thing is I don't even like honey. :laugh:

I bought the first one because I read a recipe and remebered at the shop I was going to need it. Then I didn't make the recipe and remembered I didn't like honey, but over the next four weeks of shopping got another honey from the same thought and went through the same process, with great surprise each week to find honey in the cupboard when I went to put away the new honey. (The memory file obviously got stuck on repeat in my brain and refused to be deleted from my memory file or have the remaining part of the story attached to the memory so I could file it as a completed task).

 

[krikkit]

You know you have PTSD when ...

- You're more comfortable removing a snake from your bathroom than ordering pizza over the phone.
- Speaking of which, when you get the urge to hurl the phone at the wall -- and it's only rang twice that day.
- Four hours of continuous sleep is a massive accomplishment.
- You've taken more xanax than a junkie, but never to get high.
- You could break someone's toe if you dropped your pill case on their foot.
- The internet is the only way you talk to your friends anymore
- You could identify a mental hospital by their menu