Category Archives: PTSD

just a kids birthday party

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You are minding your own business typing on your laptop and spacing out. Then bam! What the hell is that? Your body instantly shakes. You want to hide, but there is no table high enough to get under as you only have a coffee table in front of you as you sit in your favorite cozy comfy chair at the tea shop. The guy next to you sees you shake and says, “It’s just a kids birthday party.” You feel a part of you get angry at him, and you can feel the hot gaze that you are giving him. He offers his hand to yours, but you’re too much in touch with this angry part of you to take his hand. Another kinder part of you wishes you had taken his hand. This nicer part of you knows that he was just stating a fact to you without judgement, but the other angry part of you still fights this understanding, and insists on being a weenie jerk with a wall of silence.

You feel stupid when you realize it’s just a balloon popping from the birthday party in the next room of the tea shop. A river of tears comes pouring out of your eyes, and there is no place to hide, no way to shield it from the people sitting around you knitting as the set up is a series of comfy chairs around a coffee table. Someone asks, “What happened, hon?” You can’t answer because you have not yet found your words. Your words are floating around you like bubbles you can’t catch. You reach for your words and they disintegrate before they come out of your mouth as articulated verbiage. The lady next to you says, “Did someone say something mean to you?” Then the guy beside you says, “Balloon popping from the birthday party startled her.” Thankfully, his explanation lessens their attention on you. Everyone mercifully goes back to their knitting.

Your mind is still amped up and jumbled like a slew of cords that can’t be untangled. And just like Adam Sandler’s character who fought PTSD in the movie, Reign Over Me, you put in your ear buds and turn up the volume as loud as you can take it. You need the jolt of music to hit all your senses so that you can try to get out of this cloak of fear that will not come off. Coincidentally, when you hit play “Shake It Off” is what you hear. That’s ok, it’s just the song you need to distract you because you do need to shake it off.

a grey hoodie and black yoga pants

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It is entirely possible to wear a grey hoodie and black yoga pants too many days of the week. Initially, one might not think this is possible. But, after three and a half weeks of not working, such attire has become a uniform of sorts. And uniforms inevitably start to have an unfun feeling to them. The grey hoodie and black yoga pants have become the uniform of absenteeism, illness, and feeling down and out. The grey hoodie and black yoga pants have gone from fun after work/weekend lounge clothes to a uniform I no longer want. I now find myself at a loss when I arrive home in the evening as I am already in my “evening lounge clothes.”

My weekly laundry is now down to one easy load full of yoga pants, t-shirts, and other related exercise and lounge wear along with the usual socks and underwear. Yesterday I had an appointment that required “real clothes” and I had to unearth my favorite black and blue Ralph Lauren dress with a long black flowy jacket. I put on the dress and jacket with the pearl necklace my sister gave me for my birthday years ago, black pantyhose and long black boots. It’s amazing what clothes do to the spirit. Just putting on this outfit restored some of my sense of usefulness.

Shiny orange running shorts and a print t-shirt, soft from repeated washings, with a chihuahua dog on the front that states, “No more stinkin’ tacos!” make up the new evening lounge wear. Given that the temperature outside has started to plummet, there is little chance that this getup can become the new uniform of being down and out.

Just for today

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The PTSD brain can be hard to trust when it gets jacked up. It just takes off down the road like a scared chihuahua. Too many things become anxiety producing and stressful. You become hyper-vigilant, and immediately jump to the worst possible conclusion in too many scenarios. In the far reaches of your mind you know that every situation in your life cannot possibly be this dire. But when your brain is amped up on PTSD fear it can be increasingly difficult to conjure up the objective and reasonable side of your brain. And with a certain amount of this hyper-vigilance, it does not take long before the dark veil of despair becomes a fixture over your head. 

It works like this: First comes hypervigilance, then indefinite despair that is difficult to kick. You want to just shoo it away, but like an incessant weed, it comes back. 

There are intermittent moments of hope, such as those fleeting moments with friends at breakfast, or the renewed energy from that breakfast that makes you think you can do some baking today. You head to the grocery store to get items to attempt a straight-forward recipe for gluten free donuts. But after trips to Bed, Bath and Beyond and the grocery store you find yourself seemingly glued to the seat of your car. You feel too heavy to move, and you know the floaty feeling is settling in. You make a phone call in order to reach out for help, but there is no answer. So, you turn up the air conditioning to try to jump start yourself out of being stuck. But you just get cold, you’re still stuck. You read your Facebook feed, and then your emails on your phone. Finally, you resolve to get out of the car. You have to plan it out in your mind: all the moves that will get you out of the car, and into the apartment. Your skills as a stage manager in college come in handy for this exercise. 

Finally, you come inside the apartment and throw a leftover quiche in the oven for dinner. The gluten free donut recipe now seems like a far-fetched fantasy. 

Somewhere in the back of your mind you know there are good reasons to keep going, keep trying. You decide that just for today you have to trust that those reasons are real and worthwhile. Otherwise, there is nothing else.