This day starts with a large, smelly dog's face using tongue licks as persuasion to get me out of bed so he can take my place to catch a longer snooze with 'Dad'. I should stop the behavior but it suits me fine. I don't take it personallly! Alone in the morning is heaven.
By morning i mean 'before the dawn'. Coffee in hand, appropriate outerwear zipped up, i sit on my small back porch surrounded by big trees and long lawns, sipping and smoking, pondering great things. The dog may drift in and out, checking on me (as sheepdogs are prone to do). He shuffles off back to the bedroom once he decides all is well, slowly drifting by his food bowl, stopping and glancing back as if to say 'are you sure?'.
A sign on a gas station near my house - "Reality is the leading cause of stress". Hahahahahha. So true. There are stress measures (re: death of family member = 10 points, divorce = 9, etc.) but it is the PTSD sufferer's unpredictable response as well as the need to constantly assess "reality".
We ask, 'what is a threat? what is not?' Time-consuming "assessments" - whose car? driving record? Health card? Accident? What will happen? Where will they take me? How will i communicate? Who will i meet? How will i hide and i go on and on and on and on and on. All those shadows/fears. i'm very sad that this behavior is still with me. It remains one of my bigger hang-ups. The more experience i have with going to familiar sites has made this more tolerable but i still HATE the proposals to do something new. Ugh. Not worth it. As we used to say as teenagers: REALITY BITES!....and i need stitches!!
The only way for me to stay sane is to find as much quiet as i can in order to keep organizing myself and cranking up the ol' engine. Breathing. Thinking. Writing (now more than for several years. Alternative - lay down, rest my spinning head, focus, breathe, perchance sleep and escape all stimuli!!!!! Alternative - take a pill. Don't like pills.
PS. Christmas shopping starts. I went to The Bay yesterday for the entire last time in my mortal life! Calm sigh. All the way through i kept saying 'oh,oh, trouble'. Found my little allegedly sale-priced, artificial Christmas tree and vamoosh, i was gone, sister.
Visiting "malls" - another leading cause of stress!
1 comment:
Malls are now definitely a thing of my past!!
That question, "What is a threat?" ... I'm thinking right now that (how to say this) it's no longer simply a question -- It's been answered a zillion times ... To a brain whacked out with chronic PTSD, *everything* is a threat -- simple sensory stimulation -- ordinary sounds, sights, noises, whatever ... I often think that in PTSD, we are easily overwhelmed by even the ordinary ... Where most folks can kvetch about the noise and craziness of a mall, they'll still head on in and do their thing. Those of us with shell-shocked brains ... Holy shit, it's like we're going into a hot zone!
Oh darling friend ... I understand the need to ask all those questions, to scan and scan and *scan* the world around us ... and you say something that helps me understand the exhaustion of PTSD --> "perchance sleep and escape all stimuli" -- Stimuli that are "normal" for "normal" people (heh) are like screaming sirens to some others ...
Malls ... oh, geez ... don't get me started ...
;-D
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