You Know You Have PTSD When...

[Emma13]

You sleep four hours because your mind won't shut off or your anxiety is starting up and you are not even tired in the morning.

 

[Leah123]

When I have to spend a two hour therapy session simply working on relaxing, hardly any topic, just simply trying to turn off the false alarm of my hyperactive internal emergency response system.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

A bad nightmare that lingers over the day. Yuck.

 

[Changing4Best]

I don't know where my mind kept trying to go this morning before church, but I kept catching myself putting stuff down in the wrong spots (so I would never find it later). I would see my hand lay it down in some weird spot where it didn't belong, my hand would let go of it and then my internal alarm would scream at me and I'd move it to where it was supposed to be! Thankful for that little alarm system, as I have often not had it going and then things would end up in the fridge like my purse! And hours later, after I'd searched the house, I'd give up, go to get something to eat, and there it would be! (Or my husband would find it in there, that was before I became a widow). I've had things go missing for months when I have had this happen in the past. UGH! Somehow, on its own, my mind has created this alarm system. Thank the Lord Jesus!

 

[CourageofSnow]

When your therapist spends half a session trying to bring you back to the present...

You wake up and you are anxious and scared because of the dreams you had and the feelings stay with you all day.

When you play musical chairs at a friends house until you are comfortable.

 

[Chincho]

When your husband says he's not up to cooking luch and we should all go out to a restaurant, and you run to the kitchen and find something to cook yourself (although you hate cooking), because leaving the house is not an option right now.

 

[Changing4Best]

When you keep coming out of a mindless daze over and over again, but cannot figure out where you went to during that emptiness. What you were thinking of is GONE!

 

[roaminggnome]

When you go to a movie, find out halfway through that there is a terrorist plot (I'm a terrorism survivor), want to run out of the theater but simply control your triggers, and stay until the end. That is progress.

 

[BlackbirdSinging]

When you get in the car after someone who's taller than you. And you start the car and put it in reverse. And then then you try to adjust the seat. And it's not until the car is rolling backwards down the driveway and gaining speed that you realize what you've done. And in a panic you have to stretch and reach and hit the breaks before you roll into your neighbors house :bag:.

 

[ninja]

When you refuse to take free tickets from a couple who decided to spend their time at the bar instead of going to the show – a show you have been dying to see (cirque du soleil) – because you are concerned the tickets are somehow fraudulent and you will get arrested if you try to use them.

For the record, my mother took them and coaxed me into going. Nothing happened and the show was magnificent. :)

 

[Barberian]

All you want to do is have good thoughts, but only bad thought are in your (my) head.

 

[Emma13]

...when you have to have the first lie and the back up lies, if the first one doesnt work, to why you are not eating when you go out with friends.