So about that pesky PTSD
I sometimes see fandom talk about triggers. Just to be clear: I'm gonna talk about the clinical kind of trigger, not like a discussion about fic or anything. I'm not in that kind of place.
I was going to go over the various external stressors (sixty hour weeks, government shutdown in a state job, major budget shortfall, employee problem, health issues, etc etc), and then I was going to explain the tigger (my dad told me that I was a "disappointment". Again. Because that is just how he rolls.).
But instead, I thought I'd tell you what it looks like. (No, I don't know why I'm feeling like sharing. But I haven't posted in a month or so, and this is as good a post as any.)
Total food eaten today:
Breakfast coffee with milk
Toasted waffles
Chai tea
It's 5:39 pm. Whoops, now it's 7:15 pm. Still haven't eaten anything else.
Current packed lunch: three super-extra fancy granola bars. They were a gift. Eating to please other people works... Sometimes. But probably not today.
Music listened to in the past week:
All Apologies (and all alone is all we are, always and always) with the occasional Come As You Are
Corpus Christie Bay (hey, at least it's not Tom Waits)
Across the Great Divide (yeah, yeah, I know exactly what's it about, and it ain't geography)
I may have listened to some Zeppelin. I keep meaning to clean out some of my damn eight days worth of music, but it never happens. You just never know when listening to Kashmir is essential to personal survival.
Clothes worn:
Jeans and boots
Motherfucking boots motherfucker, always, and don't you forget it
Mostly black, worn denim, leather, and plaid
Forced myself to wear soft blue, gray lavender, and black tied shoes today. It was a hell of a struggle, but I had to go to work. Show up, do the work, look the part. Don't flinch.
Startle reflex
Off the charts: do not touch
Ability to be touched
Normally I can interact appropriately with others in public situations. I can shake hands. I can have patrons from other cultures enter my personal space. I can let friends and family give me hugs. I can sit quietly within a foot of someone at a meeting table
Current ability to be touched: Able to be near dog, that's it. Cannot be closer than two feet to anyone else. Having a hard time keeping the office door open.
Ability to sleep
Srsly? Shine on you crazy diamond with that sleep shit. No fucking way, even with the doctor's drugs and the dog right there. It just ain't happening.
Time Skips?
I took notes for some meetings. I assume that means I was there, but maybe it was a LMD.
Apparently I sent some emails, did some statistics, even did some coding.
Also worked on some art.
Woulda been nice to remember how I did that shit.
Oh well.
Pook-o-meter
(that is, is the dog willing to snooze in other rooms or does he hang out near me in case I get twitchy)
Dog seems to believe I need watching. He has so far barked me awake at 8 am (was only asleep patchily anyway). He's barked me out of a couple of what I assume were dissociative states (staring at the trees, lost an hour or so, whoops, lost three hours once, woke up in the tub with the dog barking at me).
Focus Ability
I've got an 'go' button and a 'whut' button right now. Catch me when I'm 'on' and I will focus on that thing and nothing else until it is done done done.
Tell me about something else to do? No chance in hell I'll even remember we had that conversation. Vom is unavailable, please leave a message at the tone, except she turned the phone off and left the charger at a Flying J.
Hair
Pulled up and away. It's so long that I'll sit on it a bit, but I cannot bear to have it down at all right now. At least I haven't taken a nail scissors to it (happened a couple decades ago)
And of Course
And I really want a cigarette. Unfiltered camel for preference, sharp and hard. Marlboro Reds, maybe. Jesus Christ. I never smoked much, but god damn, I want the punishment of that dry hard taste all the way inside from the fierce burn in the throat to the slow warmth in the belly and the heady heady ache in the mind. It's like the hard of it makes the world make sense. This new world, I don't get it. When I grew up, everyone smoked--only rich people refrain from the lure of it.
It's like that harsh sharpness of gray smoke would hold the world together, a haze around everything. I remember the rain, the rough smell of city, the pool table, the amaretto added to the coffee, the faint sweet-green smell of the marijuana, the knowledge everyone had that the world was hard, so hard.
All alone is all we are
Talking to other people now, it's like they don't get it. (Yes, I know, some do.) The hard of the work, the short of the money everywhere everywhere, the game of add a check here to cover a charge there, round and round, hanging on, hanging on, working through the long pain, working and working, never stop. It will never stop.
"I'm so disappointed in you."
All that I am, always, is never going to be enough. The mind knows how that works, why it gets said (not my fault, never gonna get a right answer from there). The soul doesn't.
But
When your day is long
And the night, the night is yours alone
When you're sure you've had enough
Of this life, well hang on
Don't let yourself go
All I want is my worn-thin gray heather tee shirt, soft worn jeans, heeled boots, plaid shirt, smoke, sitting on the porch with the fierce dog hanging at my back. Maybe a knife in my boot.
Been a long time since I felt this way.
Safety is still a ways away.
Right. Gotta do the work. Pull myself back in, follow the plan. Balance the comfort of dissociate dissociate with be here do the work it's ok to be the you that you are. Can't always do the one, can't always do the other, but keep on, this too shall pass.
If you ever wanted to know what a fairly bad trigger state looks like, here you go.
Sometimes I can look at how I'm thinking and what I'm doing (body language has hit lower-class hard 'do not bump into me motherfucker') and think: shit, am I ever a hot mess, this is like being twenty again, fucking hell. Come on, brain, cope. Cope!
Sometimes I can focus enough to get the things done, complete the work, focus my mind, get myself to do the stuff that helps.
Sometimes I can't. All Apologies.
Seriously, though. I am working on it. Unfortunately, you can't just say, Dear Loved Ones, Currently crazy as a bag of cats, try me again in three weeks. Because life don't work that way. I have to work, I have to function, I have to interact with loved ones. And I am and I do. You also can't say, Hey Brain, you been done fucked up six ways to Sunday, come back to normal please and thank you.
So I'm working on it.
But it's gonna take some time. I thought for those who've never been there, this long-ass description would be interesting. For those who have been there, yup, you're not alone.
It's gonna take a while to get back to normal. Maybe if I get another pair of boots and let the dog stay close.
I was going to go over the various external stressors (sixty hour weeks, government shutdown in a state job, major budget shortfall, employee problem, health issues, etc etc), and then I was going to explain the tigger (my dad told me that I was a "disappointment". Again. Because that is just how he rolls.).
But instead, I thought I'd tell you what it looks like. (No, I don't know why I'm feeling like sharing. But I haven't posted in a month or so, and this is as good a post as any.)
Total food eaten today:
Breakfast coffee with milk
Toasted waffles
Chai tea
It's 5:39 pm. Whoops, now it's 7:15 pm. Still haven't eaten anything else.
Current packed lunch: three super-extra fancy granola bars. They were a gift. Eating to please other people works... Sometimes. But probably not today.
Music listened to in the past week:
All Apologies (and all alone is all we are, always and always) with the occasional Come As You Are
Corpus Christie Bay (hey, at least it's not Tom Waits)
Across the Great Divide (yeah, yeah, I know exactly what's it about, and it ain't geography)
I may have listened to some Zeppelin. I keep meaning to clean out some of my damn eight days worth of music, but it never happens. You just never know when listening to Kashmir is essential to personal survival.
Clothes worn:
Jeans and boots
Motherfucking boots motherfucker, always, and don't you forget it
Mostly black, worn denim, leather, and plaid
Forced myself to wear soft blue, gray lavender, and black tied shoes today. It was a hell of a struggle, but I had to go to work. Show up, do the work, look the part. Don't flinch.
Startle reflex
Off the charts: do not touch
Ability to be touched
Normally I can interact appropriately with others in public situations. I can shake hands. I can have patrons from other cultures enter my personal space. I can let friends and family give me hugs. I can sit quietly within a foot of someone at a meeting table
Current ability to be touched: Able to be near dog, that's it. Cannot be closer than two feet to anyone else. Having a hard time keeping the office door open.
Ability to sleep
Srsly? Shine on you crazy diamond with that sleep shit. No fucking way, even with the doctor's drugs and the dog right there. It just ain't happening.
Time Skips?
I took notes for some meetings. I assume that means I was there, but maybe it was a LMD.
Apparently I sent some emails, did some statistics, even did some coding.
Also worked on some art.
Woulda been nice to remember how I did that shit.
Oh well.
Pook-o-meter
(that is, is the dog willing to snooze in other rooms or does he hang out near me in case I get twitchy)
Dog seems to believe I need watching. He has so far barked me awake at 8 am (was only asleep patchily anyway). He's barked me out of a couple of what I assume were dissociative states (staring at the trees, lost an hour or so, whoops, lost three hours once, woke up in the tub with the dog barking at me).
Focus Ability
I've got an 'go' button and a 'whut' button right now. Catch me when I'm 'on' and I will focus on that thing and nothing else until it is done done done.
Tell me about something else to do? No chance in hell I'll even remember we had that conversation. Vom is unavailable, please leave a message at the tone, except she turned the phone off and left the charger at a Flying J.
Hair
Pulled up and away. It's so long that I'll sit on it a bit, but I cannot bear to have it down at all right now. At least I haven't taken a nail scissors to it (happened a couple decades ago)
And of Course
And I really want a cigarette. Unfiltered camel for preference, sharp and hard. Marlboro Reds, maybe. Jesus Christ. I never smoked much, but god damn, I want the punishment of that dry hard taste all the way inside from the fierce burn in the throat to the slow warmth in the belly and the heady heady ache in the mind. It's like the hard of it makes the world make sense. This new world, I don't get it. When I grew up, everyone smoked--only rich people refrain from the lure of it.
It's like that harsh sharpness of gray smoke would hold the world together, a haze around everything. I remember the rain, the rough smell of city, the pool table, the amaretto added to the coffee, the faint sweet-green smell of the marijuana, the knowledge everyone had that the world was hard, so hard.
All alone is all we are
Talking to other people now, it's like they don't get it. (Yes, I know, some do.) The hard of the work, the short of the money everywhere everywhere, the game of add a check here to cover a charge there, round and round, hanging on, hanging on, working through the long pain, working and working, never stop. It will never stop.
"I'm so disappointed in you."
All that I am, always, is never going to be enough. The mind knows how that works, why it gets said (not my fault, never gonna get a right answer from there). The soul doesn't.
But
When your day is long
And the night, the night is yours alone
When you're sure you've had enough
Of this life, well hang on
Don't let yourself go
All I want is my worn-thin gray heather tee shirt, soft worn jeans, heeled boots, plaid shirt, smoke, sitting on the porch with the fierce dog hanging at my back. Maybe a knife in my boot.
Been a long time since I felt this way.
Safety is still a ways away.
Right. Gotta do the work. Pull myself back in, follow the plan. Balance the comfort of dissociate dissociate with be here do the work it's ok to be the you that you are. Can't always do the one, can't always do the other, but keep on, this too shall pass.
If you ever wanted to know what a fairly bad trigger state looks like, here you go.
Sometimes I can look at how I'm thinking and what I'm doing (body language has hit lower-class hard 'do not bump into me motherfucker') and think: shit, am I ever a hot mess, this is like being twenty again, fucking hell. Come on, brain, cope. Cope!
Sometimes I can focus enough to get the things done, complete the work, focus my mind, get myself to do the stuff that helps.
Sometimes I can't. All Apologies.
Seriously, though. I am working on it. Unfortunately, you can't just say, Dear Loved Ones, Currently crazy as a bag of cats, try me again in three weeks. Because life don't work that way. I have to work, I have to function, I have to interact with loved ones. And I am and I do. You also can't say, Hey Brain, you been done fucked up six ways to Sunday, come back to normal please and thank you.
So I'm working on it.
But it's gonna take some time. I thought for those who've never been there, this long-ass description would be interesting. For those who have been there, yup, you're not alone.
It's gonna take a while to get back to normal. Maybe if I get another pair of boots and let the dog stay close.