You Know You Have PTSD When...

[Ellabella44]

when you have to ask everyone else what last nights chat was about... and you were sober.....

 

[BlackbirdSinging]

When you wake up tired scared and triggered. And you spend the whole day feeling hypervigilant and anxious and trying to calm yourself down and ground yourself again.

When the sound of a specific person's footsteps makes you angry.

 

[Changing4Best]

... when you feel like something terrible is about to happen, but you have no idea why or what it would be.

 

[.Bubbles.]

When an abuse scene on TV makes you burst out crying and literally makes your heart hurt, so you practically run out of the room.

When there are certain emotion you're not sure you've ever felt. Or at least hardly ever.

When you flinch when you moved your own hand close to your face in a fast motion......duh.

 

[Ellabella44]

when you admit to your daughter that you really want a drink right now because youve been freaking out, and she rubs your hand to calm you , and it ends up making you cry because she is being so nice.

 

[Changing4Best]

When you cannot even own a TV because of all the violence and sex these days on all the shows. Also, the last time you remember watching TV (years ago) you saw a show on sexual abuse and were unable to speak or even admit that you had been a victim of it until about a few hours later and you cried during this time while you could not speak (to your husband). Oh, and you cried when you finally were able to tell him by writing him a note instead of speaking about it, because your abuser had forbidden you to speak about this to anyone. (You were too young at that age to be able to write, so he had not forbidden you to do that)!

 

[Anrish]

When you get used to no sleep at all and just don't care anymore - because it has always been this way.

 

[Ellabella44]

when you head to the tissue box aisle and swear you can see all of the tissue boxes running away because you have entered the aisle...

 

[BlackbirdSinging]

When you dissociate doing your homework your therapist gave you in your PTSD workbook about how to stay grounded and not dissociate.

 

[Deleted member 19804]

When you have more problems with short-term memory than your 84 year old grandmother.
(Granted, she's thankfully still very healthy, but still.. I'm only 22.)

When you can no longer differentiate between real and unreal threats; everything's a red flag.

 

[Changing4Best]

... when you can't figure out if you have a sore throat or just a dry one, so you panic and take cough drops, extra vitamins and Tylenol and hot tea with lemon, etc. You also take a long nap, hoping that will help.

 

[illusionist]

When you see a night job as the answer but realise everything in the elders home, in the dimmed lighting, freaks you out.