Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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Hello again. I am embarrassed that I disappeared for the last couple months, I fell into an old pattern.
When something big happens, I tend to internally shut down completely, while turning on a facade of being totally fine. It takes me months to come out of it, and the sad fact is that the people in my life like this facade so much that when my emotions reawaken I end up trying to act like the facade.
Anyway, lately I'm starting to come out of the 3 month-long numb, which, pathetic to say, I actually miss. I'm just done with my feelings. I don't give a flying fcuk about feeling happy, I just don't want to be sad anymore. And it's not even sad, it's bereft. Forsaken. Spent. I couldn't cry of I wanted to. I can't even feel angry anymore. My family loves it, I'm steady as a rock and always pleasant and smiling.
And I feel like ash. The smallest gust and I will blow away in a million pieces. If I'm a rock, I'm at the bottom of the ocean held in place only by the pressure of the water over me.
I've fought and struggled and worked with this d@mned condition, disease, whatever it is since I was a child AND I'M TIRED. I'm soul tired. I'm tired of acting fine when I feel terrible, or of losing my ability to feel at all and then having it just show up again one day. Of keeping it all a secret so nobody else, no matter how culpable they are for my traumas, feels even the slightest bit bad.
It used to comfort me, the saying about its not how many times you get knocked down , it's how many times you get back up...and I've had to start back at square one plenty of times. I've done it.
But what do you do when you don't want to get back up anymore? What do you do when you just want to lay down, when you are just too tired to get back up?
When something big happens, I tend to internally shut down completely, while turning on a facade of being totally fine. It takes me months to come out of it, and the sad fact is that the people in my life like this facade so much that when my emotions reawaken I end up trying to act like the facade.
Anyway, lately I'm starting to come out of the 3 month-long numb, which, pathetic to say, I actually miss. I'm just done with my feelings. I don't give a flying fcuk about feeling happy, I just don't want to be sad anymore. And it's not even sad, it's bereft. Forsaken. Spent. I couldn't cry of I wanted to. I can't even feel angry anymore. My family loves it, I'm steady as a rock and always pleasant and smiling.
And I feel like ash. The smallest gust and I will blow away in a million pieces. If I'm a rock, I'm at the bottom of the ocean held in place only by the pressure of the water over me.
I've fought and struggled and worked with this d@mned condition, disease, whatever it is since I was a child AND I'M TIRED. I'm soul tired. I'm tired of acting fine when I feel terrible, or of losing my ability to feel at all and then having it just show up again one day. Of keeping it all a secret so nobody else, no matter how culpable they are for my traumas, feels even the slightest bit bad.
It used to comfort me, the saying about its not how many times you get knocked down , it's how many times you get back up...and I've had to start back at square one plenty of times. I've done it.
But what do you do when you don't want to get back up anymore? What do you do when you just want to lay down, when you are just too tired to get back up?
Soul tired. Now that one I've said myself, and many times. PTSD's persistence results in that from time to time. Every time if feels like there couldn't possibly be a way energy could be found for a come back. And it energy could be found, there couldn't possibly be a reason to use it on a come back knowing you'd be down again somewhere down the line.
I know. However, not being there at the moment (I was for most of 2010 and half of 2011) I can say it does feel good after getting back up and down the road a bit on the journey. The gray, black, and white of ash regain color, and there's actually fun in life again.
Cold comfort at the moment, I know. But it is so. I wouldn't be forthcoming if I only said I knew what soul tiredness felt like and didn't say what rest for the soul feels like when it comes, too.
Meanwhile, please accept this in the spirit in which it is offered, which is just to say bad times are real and good times are real both with this PTSD thing. And when you' re down and tired you can stay down as long as you feel you need to in order to get a rest from this whole thing. Gentleness to self, kindness to self. If you can muster those, you deserve them.
Again, it's good to have you back.
Muji