Living with PTSD: the reality

It’s been a pretty tough week for me, so much so I am not really feeling like being on video blog right now. The PTSD is not in a good place, the anxiety levels are high and my brain feels like this: 🤯.

I have some pretty amazing people around me. Non judgemental, supportive people that are being amazing.. even if they don’t know it. When you have PTSD you feel like you are constantly fighting an invisible enemy that neither you, nor anyone else can see. Often others forget that enemy is even there, but you remember, you always remember. It never lets you forget.

The thing is, your invisible enemy keep changing, morphing into different things, without you being aware of it. So just when you think you have wrapped your mind around it, BAM! It instantly becomes something else and you have to start over again.

Triggers change, they have a theme, but they constantly change. Sometimes, right out of the blue, you find yourself in a sea of hell, but no one in the real world can tell what’s happening inside your head.

Some of this is what has been happening to me this week. Once the roller coaster is going, there is nothing you can do to stop it.

A major Trauma trigger for me happened on 14 April. This has had a knock on effect that is far reaching, invisible to few, and ignored by many.

• My original nightmares have started up again.
• Sleep had been vastly improved. It’s seriously regressed. I struggle to sleep, wake up multiple times a night and get up the next morning tired.
• High levels of anxiety, including palpitations and hot flushes, plus more.
• I am constantly on edge, it has been described as looking like I am ‘armed for an invisible battle
• Really struggling with emotional detachment. I often find myself sitting in a trance like state, mind not able to focus on any one thing, like all the thoughts are up there circling around just above my head and I can’t quite grasp any of them.

I feel like the broken person on the right in this picture.

Personally I feel like PTSD is a term that is very widely used (perhaps over used / abused) and very little understood. It feels a bit like the word FLU. It is very overused often describing something that really is only a common cold, not real flu. PTSD feels like that.

People nod their head and say they understand, but they really and truly don’t. they don’t have a clue.

PTSD feels a bit like an evil shadow. It’s always there, in the background. Sometimes the sunlight is so bright it is barely noticeable, but other days are so dark that it is able to be seen clearly, and wreak its havoc.

Imagine.. your darkest fears, worst nightmares, largest scariest thoughts – right through to your core… just there beyond your reach, ready to attack you at many moment.

That is a tiny tiny bit like having to live with PTSD.

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This week has not been a good week at all. But, I am celebrating my mini triumphs:

• I got through a really difficult meeting and managed to stay calm.
• I got out and did exercise outside three times.
• I got one night of relatively good sleep.
• I did two really good interviews with the media