the associated peer support has changed radically as PTSD has grown into a household acronym. more and more i find myself avoiding the PTSD support groups in favor of the more generalized anxiety support groups. PTSD is an axiety disorder, after all, and the more generalized groups focus on managing symptoms more than the public pity parties and assumptions that other people can know my PTSD triggers better than i can. the TWs are hitting my senses as yet another form of ineffective public censorship. i promise the hollywood censorships do not often guess right on what i need to be protected from.

"i'm sorry" has been a trigger phrase for me since before i had enough psychotherapy under my belt to know what a psych trigger is. as a child prostitute i translated "i'm sorry" as "go away, brat. i ain't got time or interest for you. end of discussion."

as the phrase has reached standard usage in the mainstream PTSD support, i have simply increased social distance while thanking the cosmos that the peer support network is so diverse and vast that there is always someplace to go when the public awareness invades our anonymity. i am not repressing my sorrow nor rejecting the empathy of peers who are struggling with similar sorrows. i just ain't looking for effective support in generalized social platitudes. my symptoms respond well to strictly personal empathy but not so much the generic sympathy. public pity still feels toxic to my senses. i prefer privacy when i am on the pity pot.

or? ? ?

should i treat "i'm sorry" as a strictly personal psych trigger in need of exposure therapy? it does seem quite similar to my responses to the light metaphors which carried my long gone child pornograpy sets into poetry readings, church sermons, etc.

i am sorry. how are you?