How Survivors Define PTSD
People who struggle with PTSD know best what it’s like to live with it from the inside out.
In their own words, here’s how survivors explain life in the PTSD fog:
I am unable to accept and process what has happened.
PTSD is all about being STUCK. Stuck in the moment of horror, unable to move past it. The feeling is very much like being trapped in a nightmare, unable to wake up; or like a computer that’s “frozen” and incapable of functioning.
A ‘fracture’ in your experience of life, caused by a traumatic event. This fracture is caused in your mind, by you (and no one else). It’s a response for attempting to cope with what happened. But unfortunately, it’s an ill-informed response. And it’s one that makes you feel like something is being done ‘to you’ instead of what’s really going on, which is that your own mind is causing you to re-live your trauma over and over again.
A sense of being STUCK in the trauma, like being in a nightmare and unable to wake up.
Feeling physically and emotionally exhausted, depleted by trauma.
Easily overwhelmed by life, often unable to function, even at performing simple tasks, like a bogged-down or “frozen” computer .
A seriously curtailed life due to instinctive “guarding” behavior, through avoiding situations/people that could cause further trauma or a trigger.
Unbearable emotional pain, i.e.: debilitating depression, overwhelming, paralyzing anxiety, and terrifying rages that may induce fear of “becoming like the abuser.”
A sense of having no personal identity.
Psychological and physical symptoms, such as an extreme Startle Reflex, Recurring Nightmares, Flashbacks, Phobias, and Disturbed Sleep Patterns.
PTSD is, in a nutshell, not being able to differentiate in your mind the past, present and future.
In the present, people, situations, smells and noises merge and trigger into those things from the past.
PTSD… is being frozen and waiting for the sun to rise.
Being stuck in a fog..and sometimes even like sinking into a dark abyss.
Describing PTSD for me, is like trying to claw my way up and out of the deep hole that I have fallen into. I get so far and then something will happen. I will witness a similar tragedy, I hear sirens, or helicopters, drive by an accident, etc., and I slowly slide right back down into the hole. I then realize that I am safe there and don’t really want to leave.
My experience of PTSD is complete exhaustion, easily overwhelmed by “normal” life and getting through a day. I find that I am angry at most people now because I can’t stand this pervasive sense of entitlement that society seems to have and the selfishness that goes with it. I never felt this way before the traumatic event. I used to be compassionate, understanding and selfless. Now I am hateful, disgusted and intolerant. I feel like I don’t care anymore about anyone but my own immediate family. This is not who I used to be and not who I want to be. I feel as if something pure has been taken from me.
PTSD is like being frozen in the moment the trauma happened. You can not break the cycle. Sleep is impossible, and I became an agoraphobic. I can only hope one day to not relive what happened to me.
To add your definition of PTSD, email us through the Contact page.
(Photos: Blue Out, vat_i_can, The Mighty Jimbo)
Read More