PTSD from the inside

Right, strap in, for more from the heart, stream-of-consciousness stuff. I warned you!

I want to simultaneously get stuff off my chest, talk about something very serious, and also not overthink what I am saying. Because if I stop and think, I'll get scared, and not do it.

PTSD is flooring me at the moment, making me feel a bit insane, whilst detached AND over-emotional. It's the first time I've experienced it fully as an 'entity' in probably twenty years. I feel separated from myself, whilst also fully logical. It's a most strange sensation. It's also frightening. I'm frightening myself.

I wanted to get down all the ways that the trauma, and the healing from it, is manifesting at the moment. Maybe some of you reading this have experienced trauma, whether once, or from a young age that set physiological patterns that never quite seem to leave you. Maybe the honesty of my written bollocks will help validate you, make you feel less insane or 'broken.'

As I get older, honesty seems to be the value that gets stronger and stronger for me. The value that becomes more important to uphold and live by. Being honest doesn't necessarily make life easier, but it does give you less to fear. It does allow you to live authentically, and mostly without ego. With less pride, less need to hide. You can move through most things, with honesty.

The main symptom is a constant feeling of fear, of unease, and utter exhaustion. It's basically your nervous system being flooded with 'fight or flight' hormones, in order to protect you, get you ready for danger.

I feel very, very tired. As bad as I was back in the winter months last year. I'm struggling to sleep before 6 or 7am, and struggling to wind down at all. I already have severe chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and chronic blood cancer, for the last few years, so I have already had to adapt and adjust my lifestyle according to my energy levels and back-to-front sleep pattern. My new 'normal' in regards to sleep pattern, has been 2am - 2pm roughly.

Then, after a few years, as my illnesses progressed (and especially in the darker, colder months) it became 4am-4pm.

This last week, after my PTSD 'crash,' my body is needing 12-15 hours sleep, and I'm still very tired. Mentally and emotionally, as well as physically. There's nothing I can really do about it, I need rest. And I don't have the luxury of a choice, not until my body and brain heals and comes back to 'normal' a little.

So basically, I'm unable to relax at the moment, or concentrate on anything for too long.

I'm scratching my scalp and picking at my nails, both nervous habits that get worse when I have severe anxiety. The anxiety can be at the forefront or in the background. At the moment, it feels like it's in both places at the same time. It's at the front, mostly taking the reins, escalating me quickly into panic and stress if something gets too hard to navigate.

It's also in the background, waiting to rear up and shout 'I TOLD YOU SO!' in my face, and smash everything up. It's like managing three different personalities that are co-existing in the same head. You need everything and nothing all at the same time.

You need to be left alone, but you need NOT to be alone.

You trust nobody, and nothing. You have lost all faith on some level. But, at the same time, your optimism and belief in everything is still there, a little floating speck, waiting to come back to full fruition when you are 'well' again. You know it's there; you just can't access or feel it right now.

You need gentleness and softness, but you also also craving extremes, just to FEEL something. I've punched the table a couple of times this week, out of rage and upset. The pain was satisfying. But it was a horrible thing to do.

You need to hide, and be alone, but also feel seen and cared for. Struggling to be in a room with my partner as I want to be in a room on my own. I feel self-conscious that he's looking at me, somehow expecting something from me, when I don't have much to give at the moment.

Compulsively checking my phone, cannot seem to stop. It's like a little black box of reassurance. Yet, I hate it.

Going to the toilet a lot more. Cleaning more, to feel in control.

Feeling more jumpy. Being clumsy, knocking things, dropping things. Bruising myself without knowing how.

Sitting on the floor more, wanting to be lower down. I can't figure out where this comes from, but I always quite liked sitting on floors, on cushions, beanbags etc. I seem to feel safer down there?

I also did a thing recently where I was really upset, and I DIDN'T want to sit next to my partner on the sofa. I needed him to go to bed, so that I could be on my own and process these extremely complicated feelings I was feeling, that I couldn't myself understand, let alone begin to explain to someone else. I took my hot drink and I went and sat on the floor by the door. It was the only place I felt safe, and alone enough. It's a weird thing, and it worried my partner. But it's what I needed to do, I needed to be left alone to do it.

I guess by the front door is close to an exit, so it's a safety ejection thing? God knows. I didn't understand it, and neither did he. But he let me do what I needed to do in that moment so that I could stop feeling so distressed, and begin to calm down in my own way and in my own time.

There's nowhere to go in our house, no spare room, no conservatory. One small open-plan living room with an adjoining small kitchen. We could do with an office space / spare room / place to go to read, write, be the fuck-alone, fuck-off when one of us needs to get away from the other.

I don't know how he puts up with me. There are large chunks of time, often whole days where I don't feel equipped at all for relationships. Friendships and connections - yes. Mother/daughter - yes.

Anything more than that - where's the operations manual? I lost it, and even when I do find it, it's in another language, or the rules keep changing.

Trauma instils in you from a very young age that something is wrong with you.

Other people's silence, and refusal to discuss it with you, or take accountability - confirms this.

And then when you struggle with love and trust, when you feel unlovable, not good enough, and relationships end - this confirms this also.

When your needs are just too much for anybody to cope with - you feel like nothing.

I'm usually a positive, fun, go-getting person. This isn't me. This is scared, angry child-me. I want to give her a hug, tell her it's okay. Tell her I don't know what brought her back, after all the work and the therapy I already did. But that I'll give her a hug anyway.

Thing is, I need someone bigger than me to hug me, and tell me it will all be okay. Someone I feel safe with.

I need my layers of skin back.

Damn, I hope this passes soon.

Love to all.

K x