The Eternal Beast
I was diagnosed with a disorder 12 or so year ago. It’s something that can be quite intrusive and debilitating. It can be as simple as lack of sleep and as bad as where I find myself not wanting to leave home. It can also leave one with the attention span of a 2 year-old after drinking a 6 pack of Coke.
The disorder is PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). You largely see it in any soldier who’s gone off to war. They’re not the only people who can develop it. Anyone can develop it over time. Ir just requires some form of trauma. Rape survivors, children living in abusive situations, hostages, and so on. They can all develop PTSD.
The source of my PTSD is from 2 sources. I was raped when I was younger and I was raised in both a physically and emotionally abusive households. Both of which have left a pretty indelible scare on my brain.
It’s something that I have been capable of controlling for some time. It’s not perfect though. There are some things that I can easily avoid so I won’t trigger another breakdown. However, avoiding the issues that have come from being emotionally abused for 25 years is a bit more problematic. It’s harder to work out those issues. To this day I still have feeling of inferiority and insecurity as I was repeatedly told that I was a stupid, fat, ugly bitch for 8 years straight. I’ve been told that I’m an awful, thoughtless person. I’ve even had someone go as far as initiate a fight in a public place and than make me feel bad and call me crazy because I got mad.
Needless to say, it’s created quite the mental monster.
I’ve been fighting an overwhelming tide of stress for the past year and half or so. And up until June, I had been doing a pretty decent job of staying above the tide. As of recently I’ve been floundering. I think I’ve been shouldering too much stress and it’s caught up with me finally.
What does that mean?
It means that I’m feeling a lot less social, a whole lot angrier and very on edge. I haven’t had a decent nights sleep in a year and a half which is certainly helping with exacerbating the problem. The worst part is that it’s killing my concentration. I have a hard time concentrating long enough to write. My brain feels like the 2 year old who drank all the Coke in the house.
How does one cope with such a disorder?
It’s dealt with by doing what you want to do the least, talking about it. By actually facing the things that caused it in the first place, you can fight back with tools given to you in therapy. It’s worked in the past. Now I get to dig through the quagmire of everything that’s happened in the last year and a half.
So, please forgive me if I’m not as productive as I was before. I’m trying to wrangle in a brain that is having problems with me concentrating. I will try to write as often as I can. I will also try and update as I work through this current bout with this disorder.