Diagnosis 2: PTSD

Diagnosis 2: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

I've never been in a fight of any kind. Never lived in a war zone. Not a veteran. However, I have had a few choice experiences do a number on my sub-conscious. 2 main things have gotten "stuck" in my emotional processing system; the first is that school, a place I love, a place I want to spend the rest of my life, was not safe for me growing up. The second is that a non-blood relative conditioned me as a child in some very unacceptable ways. I could name names, I could be specific, I could tell stories, but I won't. Retelling them to the world will not change the past, will not make me feel better, and will only cause more pain to those who were affected, intentionally or otherwise. That being said, I now deal with a number of sub-conscious fears and ideas that make parts of my life very difficult. 

On top of having little to no will to live due to physical pain, I was also very angry. Angry at everything, everyone, and eeeeeeveryone knew it. No one understood my pain, people said I should just get over it, that I should stop being depressed and live my life. Some said I'd never get better, and I started to believe them. I still struggle with that thought. It's what made me consider suicide in the first place. I wasn't going to get better anyway, why should I have to suffer? Wouldn't my family and friends understand and be glad that I didn't hurt anymore? Sure, dying would suck, but then I'd be free and no one would have to worry about me or feel bad that I was ill. Wouldn't that be better than this hellish prison I was calling life? If I hadn't gotten help when I had, I don't know if I would be here now. I understand medically assisted death so much better now. Not that any doctor in their right mind would have helped me do so, I'm not terminal or anything like that, but I know better now how it feels to want OUT. When your quality of life is so low that simply being awake is a painful chore, you really start to question the point in living. Even if someone had said "give me 2 months and you'll feel 50% better" I'd have called them a liar.

Once I started EMDR therapy, I started to feel better after a few weeks. Honestly, I'm positive it had more to do with the pills they had me on than anything else. We didn't really start the hand-wavey part until about a month in. I started to be less angry, Wade and I didn't argue so much, I didn't see everyone as combative anymore. We started an argument we'd had before, probably along the lines of why dishes and/or laundry hadn't been done in an eternity (my words, not his). I stayed calm the whole time, I didn't throw petty insults and it stayed a discussion instead of exploding into a screaming match. I apologized, I needed to get better about doing my share around the apartment, I wasn't going to feel better if I truly did nothing all day. I agreed that I should probably start looking at going back to work, I also agreed that I had been majorly slacking on my school-work. I'd gotten into an online college months prior, and not done a single assignment. Conversations stopped going the route of yelling, we started to TALK to each other again. Though there were only a few months where things were very terse and my depression was really bad, it had still taken its toll. 

I don't share every little thing with my therapist. I don't need to. I know how to manage most of my life mentally. He's there to help me through my sub-conscious, the things I wasn't aware were affecting me. Some days are harder than others, and I fully intend on there being a day when I don't need to go back. In the mean time, there's no shame in getting help. Therapy can be like a GPS for your brain, warning you of potholes and road closures so you can arrive at those locations expecting delays and work instead of running into them by surprise and being caught off guard. I'm very proud to say that after about 6 months of therapy, I'm off almost all my mental-medications. No more anti-depressants, no more sleep aids, I'm not having nightmares anymore and I'm not suicidal. Sometimes I get anxious, and we're working on that, but my medication amounts are at about an eighth of what they were 6 months ago.