Growing up with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Part 1

How do you feel your diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) affected your relationships growing up?

I was a perfectionist. I was always a high achieving student up until that point, but then afterwards it got to the point that if things weren’t exactly perfect I would get really upset and mostly shut down. I was also really shy and introverted, so I wasn’t lashing out in the sense of screaming. In high school, I started getting really angry (in my relationships) and I remember people would tell me I did things that I wouldn’t remember because I would black it out or disassociate which became really detrimental to my personal relationships because I didn’t know how to control my anger. I would blank it out which was so scary to not be in control of yourself and know how you were literally hurting people when I would get in that place.

You mentioned that you sometimes disassociate. What exactly is disassociating? How would you describe it?

It is so hard to describe (disassociating) because it is such a difficult concept if you’ve never experienced it personally. For me it's like you're watching a Tv program that everyone is watching and then you switch the channel during a commercial or something...you lose the remote, but everyone else is still watching (that other program) and you have no recollection of it. Then eventually one day, you find the remote and you come back... but you can't remember that time you missed, but other people can remember it for you.

What other symptoms do you find yourself struggling with?

My memory. There are just so many gaps in my childhood, my teenage years, and my first year of college that I will never remember, and I can’t remember ever. It’s not just like “oh you were a kid you just don’t remember that” it is like chunks of my life are missing. I can’t remember shit… it makes it really hard because people will tell me something that is important to them, and it is not that it isn’t important to me I just can’t remember it. That is why I have to write everything down... it makes me feel like an awful friend, spouse, or person sometimes. I definitely still struggle with my anger, but I am not hitting or beating things up anymore which I am proud of and working on. A lot of it stems from control, I need to have control over pretty much everything so if I feel out of control, I start losing my grip and footing.

Also, nightmares, night terrors (if I sleep in a strange place), hyperawareness, and hypersensitivity. I don’t like loud noises, shouting, or fighting all of which can be very triggering and easily cause me to start panicking. Being touched in general can be really hard for me.

After the abuse, I got to the point where I just really numbed myself. I thought that crying equated weakness and I thought vulnerability equated weakness. I wanted to seem like I was the most aloof person who was just so detached from feelings and numb to emotion which was so damaging to myself and the people around me.

Was there ever a moment where you didn't think you would still be here today? When did you begin your journey towards healing?

I hit a really low point in my life... It was really hard being a spiritual person and wanting to die so badly but fearing that if you kill yourself what the spiritual repercussions would be. I realized I wasn’t living. I was just living in a constant state of fear... from that point I realized that so much of the shit in my life was in my control.

What was the biggest help for me was gaining my Chatam friends. I had never been around such a supportive, emphatic, and inclusive group of women before and I know it sounds cheesy, but women can really heal other women. If I could’ve told myself then (when I was a child) that life would be so much more beautiful than I ever thought, it could be and that it was worth it to keep pushing on I think that would have made things a lot easier. I wish someone would’ve told me when I was young it is okay to fucking cry. I wish I would’ve known that because I really held in so much which wasn’t healthy. That life is beautiful…. and it is also really fucking hard, but sometimes the hardest things in life bring the most beautiful moments…and there’s just so much to live for.