Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
Find support with others who have gone through a traumatic experience. Whether you have chronic or acute PTSD, we are here for you.
i've been posting so much lately that i am starting to feel the apologetic urges. despite the decades of therapy work, i still often feel like i ought to apologize for the crime of having been born and/or my continued oxygen intake. reminding myself that recovery takes what it takes.
anyhoo. . .
somewhere in the 70's, i declared december to be therapy month. life in the kiddie whorehouses i was raised in gets especially perverse in response to all the sugar and piety of the holiday season of the 50's and 60's. december is one, long trauma anniversary. happy bah humbug to you, too, my friend. i prefer grinch, thank you. he has MUCH cooler toys than scrooge. i feel like declaring december to be a therapy month paid off. i still wasn't ready to wear a red suit, but i was no longer triggering into flashback hell with every yuletide advertisement. i had found december serenity in watching the commercial yaddahs passively from a safe social distance and had even begun joining in on some of the religious celebrations.
the paradigm shift happened in 2018 after my 2 elder grandkids had been seized into protective custody in october and their baby sister was being born into another socially distant limbo of her protective custody. distraction needed. the full ho ho seemed in order. ditto for december 2019 shortly after the fatal car wreck which changed the protective custody question with distressing and equally confusing thoroughness. ditto for 2020/21 when we were grieving the loss of our world to the covidic madness. by 2022, the childish expectations had formed and i didn't feel inclined to rock the boat.
i feel a bit hypocritical in saying ditto for 2023, but i'm a-sayin' it, anyways. i find myself a bit worried that the hypocritical feel is a regression to the bad old days of that flashback hell. i don't really believe so since the far milder flashbacks are not trauma flashbacks. they are to the people and places of the decades of living december as therapy month
this time i leave the mood icon squarely on "okay." just sorting. . .
no, i'm not really sorry for posting so much. recovery takes what it takes.
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Hey All...I hope that you have a lovely, peaceful beginning of your weekI have a bunch of chores that need doing but may put them off til tomorrow and just hang out with my landlord/roomie todayWhat about you?...Anything special going on?Have a great day and take good care of you!!..Xo
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Once again I've had a fever today. I'm not going to the hospital because that's a huge waste of time but I did schedule a dr appointment for Wednesday afternoon.
Then as you also know, Dec. 8th is the 50th anniversary of when as a missionary kid overseas I was grabbed by a military death squad that professionally tortured me. In their perverse way they were just as professional about harm as a surgeon is about healing, as they were trained by the CIA's Daniel Mitrione.
From Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Mitrione
"Daniel Anthony Mitrione (August 4, 1920 – August 10, 1970) was a U.S. government official in Latin America who trained local police in the use of torture.[1] He was kidnapped and murdered by the Tupamaros guerrilla group fighting against the authoritarian government in Montevideo, Uruguay."
Mitrione's son Matt and I were junior high school pals so I knew Mr. Mitrione personally though I didn't know what he did. Matt came to sleepovers at my house, and I went to sleepovers at Matt's. It was really ironic, then, when Mr. MItrione's torture students got a hold of me, mistook my identity for a union activist somehow, and tortured me.
The torture has left me traumatized for life, of course. Coping with its after effects in flashbacks is daily work for me. However, when Dec. 8th rolls around the flashbacks tend to be worse than at any other time in the year. As you know, too, the torture session ended with kneeling me down with the officer's handgun held to my temple. He pulled the trigger twice and both times it jammed.
Lucky for me, he just got frustrated with his own gun and didn't borrow one from one of his soldiers standing next to him. The fact that the second time he pulled the trigger I wet my pants seemed to be enough for him.
I repeat talking about it here at DS PTSD because my therapist taught me that "repetition brings mastery", and so I want to be ready for Dec. 8th with the mastery I need to get through the trauma triggers of that date.
You're a real role model to me, arfie, as you had your own version of a different deeply traumatizing childhood and yet your recovery work is awesome. Thanks for posting here every day, it really is very supportive me.
the surf reminded me of a 1985 film out of argentina, "la historia official." for some odd reason, i thought you might appreciate it. just in case. . .
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089276/
while resisting the urge to question your choice in role models (it's still hard for me to accept a compliment at face value), i wonder if the most important part of my recovery work has been the study of how to look back without staring. yest, it's important to be comfortable being reminded of the past and able to speak of it casually, but the past is past.
They are for sure what people wish or hope for rather than reality.... Sadly your reality was horrific Arf.....I hope that you can escape 'flashback hell'... xo
I’m glad that you share as much as you do, it also helps me when I feel kinda mute … I hope that makes any sense
Here with you pana
Sending support, hope & many prayers
Big hug <3
makes sense to me, missy, but that's not the highest credibility rating on the social scale.
ya got me on, "pana." my translator says it means, "corduroy" with no further alternatives. that doesn't make so much sense as the rest of it.
Pana means friend with sense of comradery <3
a cute word twist down that line came from our dominican farm assistant. in her country, a bus is called, "a gua gua." pronounced, "wa-wa." in ecuador, gua gua is the quechua word for baby and in common usage. five mornings a week i walk the gua guas to the gua gua.
fa doesn't know where the dominican word came from. i'm betting it is from andino mechanics who have to get the buses running every morning. "c'mon, baby, you can do it!"