What's it Like?
What's it like to be me? To be at constant war with your own brain?
Well, in short - it's hell.
Spending my formative years fighting for my life, literally, left me with some deep trust issues and a fun friend called PTSD. She comes out at the worst times possible - when I feel like someone is abandoning me. When I feel intimidated. When someone is yelling at me. When people are fighting around me.
I learned to control some of it. I'm great in an emergency - fire, car accident, violence... I'm ice cold and calm, during the event at least. Why? Because I don't give myself permission to panic until I am safe.
This didn't pan out well for me after I was raped while serving in the military. I was too calm after, too collected. I didn't act like they expected me to because, in my mind, I wasn't safe yet. I had to stay calm and strong until the danger passed. The end result? I lost my military career because I was too calm.
If only they could have seen the other side of the deal - what happens when my brain decides I am 'safe'. I go into full breakdown mode. I can't breathe. I can't eat. I can't think. I barely even know what is going because my brain is going 5 million miles an hour, flooding with every conceivable negative thought, even if it doesn't go with the situation at hand. I can't sleep. I have more energy than I need or even know what to do with. So I throw it all into trying to work, even though I am very sure the work quality is low.
As if that weren't enough, once I finally get out of the panic mode (which can last for days or even weeks), I drop like a stone into a depression that takes me from 5 million to zero in seconds. I can't sleep but I can't stay awake either. I don't want to do anything - I don't want to see people. I don't want to talk to anyone. I don't want to be touched. Sometimes, I get so low I start making plans. I probably would never follow through. At least, I think I never would.
The doctors put me on meds to try and find a balance between the two extremes. It kinda works. Except lately. Lately, I've been bouncing between the extremes pretty much daily. I wake up exhausted. I try to push through it with coffee... A lot of coffee. But eventually, I can't stay up anymore and I fall asleep. Then it flips again and I have too much energy but I can't stop the negative thoughts. The ones that tell me I am a failure. The ones that remind me how horrible I am as a mother. That I don't deserve her. That I don't deserve to live. It's almost too overwhelming - but I have to hide it. Which I do a piss poor job of because I can't seem to escape the stressors. The meds don't work anymore.
So, I keep pretending and I hide from my family. I don't really have friends. I can hide in my house for days, weeks, without saying a word to anyone.
Because that is life where you have PTSD from something someone else did to you that you had no control over. And you have Bipolar Depression. It's like winning the lotto - if the prize was extreme anxiety, depression, nightmares, and flashbacks.
So that's what it's like to be me. I fight this war with myself every day and I am losing. I don't want to lose but I don't think I can win either. And no one really cares or will even notice that things aren't right.
Well, in short - it's hell.
Spending my formative years fighting for my life, literally, left me with some deep trust issues and a fun friend called PTSD. She comes out at the worst times possible - when I feel like someone is abandoning me. When I feel intimidated. When someone is yelling at me. When people are fighting around me.
I learned to control some of it. I'm great in an emergency - fire, car accident, violence... I'm ice cold and calm, during the event at least. Why? Because I don't give myself permission to panic until I am safe.
This didn't pan out well for me after I was raped while serving in the military. I was too calm after, too collected. I didn't act like they expected me to because, in my mind, I wasn't safe yet. I had to stay calm and strong until the danger passed. The end result? I lost my military career because I was too calm.
If only they could have seen the other side of the deal - what happens when my brain decides I am 'safe'. I go into full breakdown mode. I can't breathe. I can't eat. I can't think. I barely even know what is going because my brain is going 5 million miles an hour, flooding with every conceivable negative thought, even if it doesn't go with the situation at hand. I can't sleep. I have more energy than I need or even know what to do with. So I throw it all into trying to work, even though I am very sure the work quality is low.
As if that weren't enough, once I finally get out of the panic mode (which can last for days or even weeks), I drop like a stone into a depression that takes me from 5 million to zero in seconds. I can't sleep but I can't stay awake either. I don't want to do anything - I don't want to see people. I don't want to talk to anyone. I don't want to be touched. Sometimes, I get so low I start making plans. I probably would never follow through. At least, I think I never would.
The doctors put me on meds to try and find a balance between the two extremes. It kinda works. Except lately. Lately, I've been bouncing between the extremes pretty much daily. I wake up exhausted. I try to push through it with coffee... A lot of coffee. But eventually, I can't stay up anymore and I fall asleep. Then it flips again and I have too much energy but I can't stop the negative thoughts. The ones that tell me I am a failure. The ones that remind me how horrible I am as a mother. That I don't deserve her. That I don't deserve to live. It's almost too overwhelming - but I have to hide it. Which I do a piss poor job of because I can't seem to escape the stressors. The meds don't work anymore.
So, I keep pretending and I hide from my family. I don't really have friends. I can hide in my house for days, weeks, without saying a word to anyone.
Because that is life where you have PTSD from something someone else did to you that you had no control over. And you have Bipolar Depression. It's like winning the lotto - if the prize was extreme anxiety, depression, nightmares, and flashbacks.
So that's what it's like to be me. I fight this war with myself every day and I am losing. I don't want to lose but I don't think I can win either. And no one really cares or will even notice that things aren't right.
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