Father's Day surprised me this year.  All I did was happen to go out with friends the night before it.  But hearing their Father's Day plans triggered my PTSD and support here on DS PTSD pulled me out of it.

I was ready for Christmas and New Years, and I was ready for Mothers Day.  Yet Fathers Day snuck up on me like that.  And now another big day is coming.

When my PTSD gets triggered, I have flashbacks, nightmare, and panic attacks, but its worst symptom is when I I can't move.  I've had PTSD panic attacks 3 times where I couldn't breathe so bad I passed out and I was put in the hospital.  I've had years of PTSD flashbacks and nightmares with cold sweats and insomnia so bad I had to go on Seroquel.  But when PTSD paralysis hits is when I wonder if it's not the end for me.

It's what therapist Pete Walker describes in his writing about CPTSD and the "four f's."

http://www.pete-walker.com/fourFs_TraumaTypologyComplexPTSD.htm

There are 4 kinds of PTSD defenses, "narcissistic (fight), obsessive/compulsive (flight), dissociative (freeze) or codependent (fawn) defenses."  Mine is that dissociative one.  When my PTSD is triggered I completely freeze--I sit in middle of the living room floor.  I can't shower or feed myself.  I will myself to, but I cannot move.

It goes back to the two times I was assaulted by a pedophile as a ten year old, and then shamed for it when I told my mother and beaten by my father when she told him.  I fought the pedophile off all night until daybreak, when I couldn't fight any more, and then I dissociated to survive what happened next.  When I told my mom, I dissociated when she unleashed her verbal abuse on me that went on for years, telling me I was so disgusting now that even Jesus couldn't have mercy on me to let me into heaven.  I believed her.

I dissociated for years after that whenever she repeated that on Sundays when we went to church.  And I dissociated when my father began beating me weekly after she told him.  My defense was to do as I did with the pedophile, to go somewhere else in my mind and not even be there.  I wouldn't even lift my hands to stop the punches to my face.

It may not sound like it to anyone who hasn't been there, but I can assure you that dissociating "frozen" is terrifying.  You're reliving horror so intensely you're so helpless that you literally can't lift a finger.  I have to admit that's why in my past I've stayed in some relationships.  I was afraid to be alone if I had an episode of dissociating "frozen" paralysis.  It's why I'm proud now to have had the courage to live alone and independent for 6 years now. 

But it did happen to me in my house all alone on Father's Day.  I sat in the middle of my living room dissociating with PTSD, paralyzed.  It's so serious that as an honors student years ago in grad school I lost a Fulbright Scholarship abroad to that PTSD paralysis once.  A foreign psychiatrist had to come make a house call and I was sent home to the US, embarassed before everyone in that small country.  Years later I lost a job as a professor at a nice little private college to that kind of PTSD paraylysis once again.  I teach public community college now.

I managed to post here on DS PTSD in that episode on Father's Day and your support brought me out of a dissociate "freeze."  Now day after tomorrow, July 1st, is my birthday.  It's coming.  I made plans to be ready like for Christmas and New Years.  I'm going to have lunch on my birthday with a friend.  Then I reserved a hotel room and bought a ticket to a major league baseball game for the night they have the fireworks display for July Fourth.   

Still, though, since Father's Day did get to me, I decided an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  Your support pulled me out my surprise PTSD triggered dissociative "frozen" episode on Father's Day.  I wrote back to you that you and your support here got me moving again--literally.  So I figured it's wise to ask you for support BEFORE my birthday, just in case.  

I'll turn 59, with only 3 more years to early retirement in Mexico at 62, which is reason alone for celebration.  But since I'm an old bachelor estranged for my safety from a historically abusive family and since Father's Day still got to me, you never know when it's your birthday and old birthday parties might come back to haunt you.  Better safe than sorry.  

That's why I'm posting to say that any and all birthday support is welcome.  Truly.