Coping With PTSD - Part 1

WARNING: This post contains things that may be triggery for some people. Read with caution.

I was asked a while back to write an article about my experiences with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I dragged my heels for quite a while, at least in part because about half the time I don't believe I have it and the rest of the time I feel guilty about it, but eventually I started writing, almost against my will. I can't seem to sit down and write the whole article, though, so I'm posting in pieces.

This is not intended in any way to be an exclusive list of things that people with PTSD think or feel - merely my own experiences.

The Pop Psychologists

When you've gone through a traumatic experience, whatever it was, people always want to know how it felt. I don't know if it's empathy or a need to reach out or if it's something darker, some need to dig at you for entertainment, but you can see it in any piece of journalism. The first question anyone gets from the media is, "So how did you FEEL about that?" Armchair psych, times a thousand.

The majority of humans react to tragedy - after the initial crisis period - in one of two ways: they get very rude, or they get very polite. Either they ask inappropriately probing questions - "What exactly did he do to you?" "How many people did you kill?" "So you must be really messed up, right?" - or they ask inappropriately inane ones. On the whole, private citizens - especially the ones who know you - tend to react a little more subtly than journalists. Small talk abounds. Statements come couched as questions. "You're OK now, though (?)" "I bet it's good to be back, right (?)"

In some ways, the rude ones are easier to deal with. You don't have to be polite back. You can answer honestly, or you can ignore, or you can tell them to go sit on a pineapple. Polite queries tend to demand a polite reply, even when all that's expected is assent. Perhaps especially when all that's expected is assent. Yes, I'm OK. Yes, it's good to be back, to be home, to be safe.

Some days I wonder how people would react if you said no.

Because here's the thing: sometimes the answer, the real answer, is no. No, I'm not fine. No, I don't feel safe. No, it's not good to be back. It's that last one that would really kill people - figuratively - if you told them that sometimes it's not good to be home, that at times you almost wish you were back there in hell, where at least you've learned how to cope with whatever's thrown at you, where choice is nonexistent and you know the rules, where life is simple even if not easy, where you don't have to deal with incidentals that crop up because everything you do is streamlined towards that one basic goal of survival.

Sometimes being home safe doesn't feel better. Sometimes it feels better most of the time, until you have a breakdown and start crying on the phone because you don't know how to make the choice between paying your gas bill by check or direct debit. Or you end up wearing the same outfit until you start to smell, and then wash it, and wear it some more until the seams tear, because trying anything else on seems like an overwhelming task. Or you spend forty-five minutes in one aisle of your local shop, absolutely lost when it comes to picking out butter.

Or maybe, like some of us, you just don't answer the phone. Or go to the grocery store. Or get dressed.

There's just no good way to have that conversation with your loved ones.
 

A Glitch In The Matrix

I am a creature of habit. To some extent I was born that way, but with each new little tragedy my tendency to ritualise things increases a bit more - sometimes a little, sometimes exponentially. I do still strike out for the unknown (sometimes, occasionally, for a couple hours) but more often than not I find a thing I like and stick with it. For the first couple months after the memory loss, I listed everything that I tried: foods, books, movies, places. I made lists of what I liked and disliked. I made lists of every book I read for a year. Everything was new and overwhelming.

It's still overwhelming.

Know how long I've owned Mario 64 DS? Probably about nine months. Know how many times I've played it? I'd guess about thirty. Sometimes I finish the game and immediately start a new file. It's not even that I enjoy the game anymore, not really. I just know how to do it. I know there aren't any surprises. There are simple goals: collect the stars, free your friends, defeat Bowser. There's some variety in which level you play when, but aside from that it's always the same.

And no, that's not the only one. I could play New Super Mario Bros DS in my sleep. Or Urbz. Or Spyro the Dragon 1, 2 or 3 for PS1, or Spyro Season of Ice, Season of Flame, Adventure for GBA. Crash Bandicoot N-Tranced. Zelda Phantom Hourglass or Spirit Tracks. I don't even need to be fully awake to play them. And it's not unusual for me to finish and immediately start from the beginning.

I have a personal library of around 1500 - maybe 2000 - books, and another couple thousand that belong to mom and me communally. Half of which I have read in excess of a dozen times - some in excess of thirty times - and half of which I haven't read at all. Only a few have been read once or twice.

I eat the same foods. I buy from the same restaurants. Occasionally I'll go to a restaurant and they won't have what I usually order, and it'll take all my self-control not to get up and leave rather than try something new.

And then every so often my mother, or my ex, or a friend, asks me if I want chicken tikka takeaway from the local for dinner. And they know what my order is. And I suddenly bubble over with resentment and scorch the entire room with my anger because nobody but me appears to find anything wrong with the fact that life carries on the same, with the same books and foods and movies month after month, year after year; because nobody was around to tell me that it's not natural for a twenty-something to be incapable of change and exploration and growth.

Except that my choices to live a rerun are really nobody's fault but my own.