5/25/2023 C-PTSD
All my life I’ve felt like I’m in my own fish bowl. The ugly duckling. The peg that doesn’t quite fit. My reality always seems so off from what others expressed. My world was always full of this intense despair and hesitation. Fear. As a little girl I searched in books for the answer to, “What’s wrong with me?” Is something really wrong with my brain? The answer bothers me more than I expected.
Typing it pisses me off. Anger… yup, that’s another symptom. I’ve felt angry all my damn life. It’s not even anger. It’s rage. I thought I outgrew that. Maybe it was part of being a teenager but I just got better at disconnecting from it. It’s easy to feel irritation or annoyance. Especially with myself. It ties in with the shame, guilt, and sense of worthlessness. I’m garbage and no one can change my mind. Stress is a fast track to an immediate, “I’m broken” or “I should die” thought.
Is that an issue with emotional regulation? An overreaction to stress? An emotional flashback? Do other people feel this way ever? Is this not a thing? What about the interpersonal relationship stuff? I know I have a very difficult time trusting. I maintain a distance even from those I love because it’s dangerous to relax. To let someone help because I might forget how to do it myself. I rather avoid that emotional rollercoaster. But I do have long-term relationships. Do they see this stuff? C-PTSD sounds like an awful person. Is that why I dislike myself? Does part of me know I’m an asshole? I know my ACE score is 9/10 but that’s not meant to be an in-depth assessment.
Could you be a 9 and not have C-PTSD? These articles and websites say most childhood sexual abuse victims have it. That’s stupid. I doubt that’s accurate because as one, I don’t go around telling people about it let alone even know what symptoms I have. Apparently, I can spend my whole life not knowing. Most of us don’t even report it-the abuse. We shove it down and move on. Is that the reflex of an unhealthy brain? According to all these sites my brain is “unhealthy”. Another symptom is the increased risk of health problems. My medical chart is excessive. I have a specialist for every organ in my body. Inflammation disorders, skin disorders, digestive issues, endometriosis, fibroids, muscle tension, body pains… (even with disassociation, that seems explains my ridiculously high pain tolerance)...but the list goes on. The cells in my body hold the suffering of my life. They’re angry like me and set fire to my insides.
EMDR is helpful for singular events of trauma. Not so helpful for this complex crap. So, am I stuck with this brain? With this… person? My brain was too vulnerable when this shit happened. It didn’t even have the chance to develop… I didn’t have a chance. So how can anything fix the damaged wiring in my skull?
I don’t even know what is part of my personality and what is defective wiring. Am I a heavy drinker because it’s, “what I enjoy” or because I can’t cope with all these stupid symptoms? Do I withdraw because I’m, “respecting my alone time” or because I need to avoid others? Do I have a hard time trusting people because they’re assholes or because I’ve experienced one too many assholes? Do I hate myself because I’m a piece of shit or never had the opportunity to take in another perspective in my early developmental years?
Then there’s the shit of having the most leveled and appropriate response to absolute danger. I can handle violence, threats, and danger. Is this a defect? That’s the only time my hypervigilance, beliefs, judgment, and emotions seem on point. COVID didn’t hit me like others. I was built for that level of constant vigilance. Law enforcement? Cake. Fight breaking out, threats to my safety, even verbal assaults are expected. But every other time it’s an obnoxious reaction to a mistake I’ve made or perceived to make, because of the whole, “I’m garbage” shit.
Who could I have been? Is my amygdala enlarged? Is my frontal cortex remarkably smaller than the norm? Could I have been smarter? Kinder? Trusting?... Happy? Is there another reality where I’m not scared, anxious, depressed, mistrusting, lonely, ashamed, self-destructive, irritable, hostile, hypervigilant? Where I don’t have panic attacks, insomnia, nightmares, unwanted thoughts/memories, detachment/depersonalized episodes, safety behaviors, poor memory, difficulty concentrating, heightened startle response, or feel completely at the mercy of whatever my brain feels like doing for the day?
Am I meant to spend the rest of my life finding ways to work with tangled Christmas lights for a brain?
