PTSD can happen to anyone. You don’t have to have fought in an actual war. You had your own type of war. You could have dealt with something traumatic. Whatever is traumatic to you may seem small to someone else, but they were not the ones left with the wounds that take a lifetime to heal. They will not fully understand what you are going through. They will not understand your struggles and internal battles. That is okay. It is not for them to understand. You must learn what your triggers are, and how best to face them and not let them defeat you. If someone wants to be in your life, they have to be patient. They cannot fix you. They can only support and encourage your healing and growth. If they can’t, then you must let them go and know that your issue is yours and yours alone to overcome.

I live with my own form of PTSD, and am dealing with its ugliness right now. It adds a smudge on something beautiful and fun in my life. I call it “my crazy.” For a while, I listened to my “gut”, only to realize that it wasn’t my gut talking to me. It was my emotions and my fears. So now, I don’t trust my judgment or my gut anymore. That is a problem. People that I trusted, people that I thought were good people, people that I thought had great hearts ended up being hypocrites, liars, and manipulative. They were in my life when they could benefit from me, from my advice, from my listening ear, from my caring nature. But, when push came to shove, they could not care less when the tables were turned and I needed them. They didn’t practice what they so passionately preach about. They couldn’t walk the walk. They were and are only talk.

So, here I am. Struggling with my crazy. My crazy can have a negative impact on something that makes me smile from deep down in my soul. No one can help me but me. I have feelings that I am fighting against. The fight has no justification. It’s my knee-jerk reaction. It’s my fight or flight. It’s the rabid face of PTSD demanding all of my attention. And, it is scary. A moment of pure happiness turns into a whirlwind of confusion and fear of the unknown. But, I am staying put. I cannot run, as I’m so accustomed to doing. I’m learning my patterns and trying to break them before they break me. Am I okay? In a way, I am. I may not feel okay, but I know that I will be. It’s something that I have to confront head-on. Every cell in my being wants to run, screaming like I’m on fire, but I stand still. Letting the flames engulf me, it’s the only way to get to the other side.

What is standing beside me and waiting on the other side is pleasant. It’s what I was searching for while sitting at the fork in the road last year. Is it worth it? I don’t know. That’s what I am struggling with right now. I am not a fly by the seat of your pants type of person. I’m a planner, as I’ve said many times over throughout my blog entries. I didn’t plan what is going on in my life. And, I for damned sure, didn’t plan what caused my PTSD. I know deep down that I cannot plan what will happen on the other side of the flames. My fear is that. I have no idea what will happen. I don’t know how to protect myself. I don’t know how I will deal with another crushing blow. The last one wanted to kill me, literally. And the last one almost killed me because of my reaction afterwards. Insomnia and starvation are never the right behaviors to take on when faced with trauma, but stress takes a weird hold of some people.

I rarely speak of a specific person or experience. I rather blog vaguely about them and those involved know it is about them, and other readers can connect with the “feeling” that it triggers in them. This blog is no different. Those that have shown that they are not who they present themselves to be, she and he will know who they are. (Notice how it’s ‘and’ , not ‘or’?) The one standing beside me while I’m burning knows who they are. And, they know that my gratitude is beyond measure. Because I am standing along side them while they are ablaze, as well. We just hope and pray to come out on the other side together.

Do you know your triggers? Are you running into your own fire? Are you in the middle of your flames and waiting for them to suffocate so that you can step out of the ash?

#itsatamithing