PTSD

Anxiety isn’t purely psychological; as if the crushing pressure on your chest isn’t enough, the adrenaline courses through your body making even the lightest touch resonate and the most exhausted body refuse to sleep.  You look at me and see calm, cool, and collected; a woman who makes lists, keeps calendars, and is the first one there for a friend in trouble.  I organize my life because there are times when I cannot organize my thoughts.

It used to be worse, so much worse; it was constant, and physically and emotionally draining. It was an encumbrance on the most elusive parts of my mind, but time passed, memory faded, and my body adapted.  

Suggesting that PTSD can be cured by gaining control of one’s mind is as much an affront as suggesting an amputee could be cured by simply growing back their limb. Instead, management comes with lifestyle change, the recognition of warning signs, the willingness to talk about symptoms and triggers.

My support system fell, my lists and plans failed me, and in that desperate and hopeless moment, I betrayed myself. Tonight I was back in that place, tonight in a moment of anxiety and loneliness I thought again about suicide, how easy it would be… Instead, I’m writing.

I will continue to write through the tears, for anyone who will listen, or for no one at all; it helps me find clarity and sanity, stringing together thoughts and forcing me to look introspectively at my own journey which in a perfect world is far from over, I will rise above my circumstances.