Can Pesky Tarnation Strand Ducks?

It’s the age old question, isn’t it?

C-PTSD. Do you know what that is? I did, but I didn’t, not really.

In the 1990s when I was first diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the psychologist who gave the diagnosis commented that “sometimes, people experience trauma after trauma, so that it’s not just one event that leads to PTSD, but a series of events.” That blew my mind. 

What I’d known about PTSD up to that point was very little, but essentially it centered around “shellshock” and Gulf War Vet syndrome. I knew I had gone through a hard time, but I didn’t know that I had PTSD. I just knew I was reliving certain events wherein attempts were made on my life. I knew I was basing nearly all my daily decisions around my safety from certain people who I had not seen in years, and I knew that wasn’t normal. I knew I couldn’t sleep. I knew I wanted to sleep, so badly.

Now, a solid 20+ years later, I have learned there is an emerging diagnostic label called Complex PTSD. Unlike your run of the mill, vanilla PTSD (ha! HAAaaaa!!!) that had me crawling on the floor of my house like a Vietnam Vet afraid of Charlie, C-PTSD is the kind of situation my original therapist was describing. C-PTSD doesn’t come from just one event. It comes from a series of events, typically in childhood. There was no diagnostic test for it at the time, and it’s not yet in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), so it will probably be a few years before specialized treatments are developed for this particular bag of nuts.

So why does it matter? Why do I care? I’m a well-adjusted adult woman, I’m a good mother and wife, I am helpful and kind to neighbors and friends, I’m a good citizen, etc., etc. I’m not some nutcase, right? What does C-PTSD have to do with me? Most days there is nothing wrong with me that a little wine or chocolate can’t fix.

Here’s the thing. Upon my son’s diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder, I realized that I, too, am very likely on the spectrum. It explains a lot of why & how I process inputs the way I do. It also explains the way my memory functioned until the past eight years or so. I was never an expert on PTSD, but I felt like I had my symptoms and stress level under control, so I didn’t need to be an expert. I’m reading all the time about ASD now, and dealing with a teenager on the spectrum who is being traumatized by ongoing bullying. Parsing everything he is going through, trying to deal with his reactions (some angry and destructive), trying to shield him from disciplinary actions he does not deserve–all while waiting in limbo for our letter from BDDS so we can receive services that might help him (hey, no guarantees) to live a better life…all while mothering three other children with the same level of need as any other kid. It’s a lot. It has thrown me into autistic shutdown mode. That’s not fun, but that’s not the thing. The thing is the emotional flashbacks.

Emotional flashbacks. Emotional fucking flashbacks? Seriously? Emotional flashbacks.

Yes, they are a thing. I’ve had these from time-to-time for years, although for the past eight or nine years of marriage to Tim, I’ve had them so much less. (Funny what being LOVED by a reciprocal partner will do for your mental health, huh?) Rarely do I feel so badly that I can’t tell him how I’m feeling, but that happened over the weekend.

You know that tipping point where you feel so badly, you can’t bear the pain, and the only obvious escape is death? If you’ve never felt that way, then you are so blessed. As I’ve matured and made my life less populated with problematic people, I’ve experienced that feeling less and less. I’ve grown. Sometimes I feel strong. I remind myself when I am very low that these feelings always pass. I’m blessed to have lots of hugs and loving, sweet faces to remind me that I’ll be grateful for pushing on. I push on. Things get better. I move away from the sad episodes and do healthy things for myself–take a walk, get a massage, meditate, take my vitamins, make fresh juice, call a friend, listen to a novel on audiobook while I accomplish a household chore…it’s called self-care. I do that stuff. It doesn’t fix the wounds/scars deep down inside me, but it puts me back up on the level of human-kind. Away from the worms. Or maybe I should say the Pesky Tarnation. I do my damnedest to get past the past (ha) and be fully in the now, even if the now is extra advanced level difficulty and I’m forever a novice.

This weekend I found a book about C-PTSD. It’s an audiobook. It was quite informative. It helped me understand so much about myself, and about my problematic stress response to parenting challenges. All of this preceeding text is an introduction so I can share it with you, just in case you need it. I checked it out from hoopla on audiobook for free, but here it is on Amazon: Complex PTSD : From Surviving to Thriving: A GUIDE AND MAP FOR RECOVERING FROM CHILDHOOD TRAUMA by Pete Walker.

If you find yourself in the pages of that book, there’s also a nice reddit community I’d like you to meet: CPTSD on reddit. I don’t post there, but it has been helpful to read the stories and even to laugh at the memes. 

I don’t like to lose myself in the hole of self-diagnosis and all that stuff too much. I just know that I need psychic first aid at times and in ways that no one ever talks about, no one ever demonstrates in books, movies, or songs, and I’ve never understood why. Like, I knew I had a rough start, but why couldn’t I overcome my past entirely and put all of that behind me and just be unencumbered by it? A great majority of people seem like they can do this, and I’m obviously not so dysfunctional as to require disability and full-time care or anything like that, so…why? Why intermittently break down?

I don’t know. I’m a stranded duck, sometimes, but I can, and do get past it. I don’t share this often, but sometimes, the pain is back, and it’s so loud, I can’t even speak. I can’t ask for help. I can’t tell Tim I need him to hold me. I can’t drown out the voice in my head telling me that I should just die because the pain will never get better. I certainly can’t text a friend or call someone or announce it to FB.

All I can do is get through it the best I can, until I reach a point I can apply a little bit of self-care. 

Today is World Autism Day and people are posting about ASD, so here I am posting about C-PTSD, lawl, bc of course I am. My ex-husband used to criticize me for becoming defensive and angry after opening up emotionally. He wasn’t wrong. I will hit publish on this and then regret it, burning inside like I’m on fire. It will eat at me and I will feel immense shame, although I know full well I did nothing wrong, and endeavor daily to do so many things right.

If you’ve read this far, please leave a kind word. Any kind word will do.