Living with PTSD

Many times on this blog, I've mentioned one of two things: my struggle with my depression and my PTSD. I am not a war vet, so many people don't even know I have it. Plus, I would never compare myself to any of them when it comes to bravery and honor. These people make life altering decisions to protect my freedom. No, my PTSD came from what happened to me at 15. I, along with my family, were victims of a home invasion. And it has fundamentally changed my life.

Initially, I wanted to just forget that it happened. As a teenager, I didn't want to go to a counselor or admit that anything was wrong. I wanted to be normal. I remember I missed that morning at school after being up until 2:00 AM with police as they investigated my house. When I arrived at lunch time, all my friends were asking where I had been. Many reacted with total shock when they heard and treated me weird afterwards. I had flashbacks walking down the stairs from classes, in the halls. I constantly felt paranoid and couldn't calm myself. I didn't understand why it happened or why I couldn't just shake it off. I remember wondering if there was ever going to be a day where I didn't think about it. If these men had stolen my ability to think about anything else. 

Thankfully high school kept me stressed out enough I could focus all my energy on that rather than why I couldn't get past my brush with death. Unfortunately, that caused my college years to be chaotic. Emotions always ran high. I frequently had insomnia or just always wanted to sleep. I would shut down if something became too overwhelming and many times, I barely had the motivation to continue with my studies. Living with my best friends helped immensely. Meeting Jared got me through many of my rough patches, especially when I went to live on my own at the end of my schooling. But I couldn't deny my bouts of depression, frequent nightmares and outbursts of anger any longer. I struggled with God, wondering why I couldn't overcome my issues. I experienced his deep love at the bottom of my pit my junior year of college. But it wasn't until graduation and getting married that I realized my issues were much deeper and I really needed help. 

Thankfully, when I moved to Dallas I was referred to a really great counselor. At the beginning, I was really frustrated because I was diagnosed with PTSD. I resented feeling labeled. Yet, as I met with her and she explained some of the symptoms and ways to manage them, I realized it wasn't a label, it was a method of getting better. My nightmares were normal. My insomnia, flashbacks, anger, paranoia, all were explained and methods to deal with them were then introduced to me. I had an unrealistic expectation that I could "cure myself" where I never had to deal with it again. But God actually used my work with trafficking survivors to help me see that I was going to have good and bad days. That the symptoms would diminish, but not necessarily always go away forever. I would ask God why he wouldn't just take it away. But I realize he has taken something terrible that has happened to me and made it a way to remind me to always trust in God. Paul mentioned he had a thorn in his side that God never took away. Mine seems to be PTSD. 

So what does it look like to live with PTSD? For starters, you have to realize that your brain has been structurally transformed due to the prolonged stress. Fight or flight responses are great for survival. However, if constantly turned on, they actually form additional channels of neurons to help deal with the stress. Post-trauma, if any of these neurons fire due to just a little amount of stress, it can trigger the same emotions that you felt when the trauma was occurring. Some of these things can be big. A kid pointed a stick at me while I was jogging in the park the other day. He was playing pretend and was an army dude "protecting the bridge." The kid didn't know doing that was going to cause me to have a flash back. But I did. Thankfully, I knew how to deal with it using a grounding technique my counselor taught me. A mile down the trail. I was feeling shaken, but relatively confident no one was pointing a gun at me.

Yet, small things can do it too. Just the other day, Jared and I were geocaching. We couldn't find the darn thing. We were bushwacking and getting frustrated and I got so overwhelmed I began to cry. Obvious to any other person, a geocache isn't worth crying for. But the constant weaving in and out of bushes and getting poked by thorns set me off where I just broke. But, thankfully, I knew it was normal for someone with my brain to get upset by that. I reassured myself that we weren't in any real danger. Then two minutes later, I was fine. Plus we found the geocache haha. So, it's just a good thing for others to know, I might get overwhelmed for a couple of minutes, and I just need to cry it out sometimes. My brain is bringing all the emotions of my past and crashing them into my present. It takes me a bit to regain control, but I'm learning how to do it better and better these days.

Secondly, for me, I need to feel accepted by those that I love. It's hard to let your guard down and be vulnerable to a person when you have been assaulted. I tell Jared all the time to show me he loves me. I desire recent evidence to allow me to feel safe in our marriage, that I am accepted with my crazy brain and all. I know he's not perfect and thankfully, forgiveness runs rampant in our household, because we both need it. But when he does show me how much he loves me, it helps me immensely to be able to feel secure. Husbands and wives...show your spouse you love them. They often feel like weirdos and outcasts even without PTSD. Showing them they are VALUED helps the healing go a long way. 

And thirdly, know that because of what has happened to me, God has implanted a deep empathy in my heart for those that go through traumatic experiences. Dr. Tomi Grover said it best that God uses the gloriously ruined to rescue those whom God wants to gloriously rescue. I understand on a deep level the shame and insecurities that come with constantly battling the past and trying to not let it affect your future. He has given me a deep love for people. That love has since transcended into my calling. 

While everyone is different in how they deal with it, I hope me being raw and real helps you, the reader, understand a little bit more about how complex stress and emotions can become when living with PTSD. Sometimes, I don't know how to explain myself and my crazy habits sometimes. Lord bless Jared when he married me! Yet, honestly, if I could go back and do it all over again, I wouldn't change anything. While I know I might not ever be "cured," I also know that living with PTSD causes me to rely on God more than ever and to reach out to people who need him all the more. And I can say I am truly thankful for that.