It's about what it can become.

The PTSD brain is constantly storing memories without my knowing. Taking bits and pieces of my day and cramming them into some hole in my brain, ready to retrieve them at any given traumatic moment. It stores and stores and stores until one day something bad happens and a tiny little PTSD monster runs to retrieve them all and lock them in one of those godforsaken rooms.
It remembers things that I didn't even know it could be capable of remembering.
Things I can hear, things I can feel, smell, see, experience as if it was that exact moment.

When something bad happens the memories all come flying back at me tenfold. The memories I wasn't aware I was keeping.
A simple sentence spoken by a friend, about what his life could be, becomes a haunting memory when that life is cut short and he's no longer in existence.

Sometimes it's a daily, hourly, struggle to keep triggers at bay. They're always present, but you have them on a leash so they can't get out of control. They're still trying their damnedest to get away from you, run free and reek havoc on your mind. It's a game these triggers play and they don't want to be distracted away or put back in a safe box where you can't see them, where they can't grow into a big ugly monster.
Memories want to ruin your brain, tear you down bit by bit until there's nothing left but blank space. They're only there to win and they will come at you until there is nothing left to break down. Until you're staring off into nothing and can't even seem to form a thought at all.

My triggers depend upon so many different variables to the day. Did I sleep well? What did I dream about? How many opportunities for distraction will I have in a day? Did I get to listen to the radio when I woke up? What time of year is it? Is it a trauma day? Is something weighing heavy on my mind that particular day? Did someone creep out of the abyss to say hello?

I didn't sleep well last night.
On my way to work the radio started talking about festivals over the summer.
(Today this particular topic has triggered my brain.)
I thought of fairs.
The state fair.
The county fair.
Then I had a flashback. I saw a memory I had from a fair - one with someone who is no longer here.
Then I envision what his death may have been like. How he lay in his bed dead for 2 days before anyone found him. These are things I'd rather not remember. Even the happy memories I have of his life are enough to pull on the heartstrings of loss.

Then a whirlwind of sound and a rapid fire of short clips of visual memories of that person flashes through my brain. They've all been let out of their tidy little room. The door to that cluster of memories has been knocked wide open and here I stand, watching them rush by.

Most of the time I'm able to literally run from that situation.
It would have stopped my brain at the fair memory had I been able to distract myself. Life is life though, so it's not always that convenient to do so. I was in my car at the time and there's only so much one can do. Even with years and years of practice I don't always catch myself before it's too late. I could have turned on my copy of The Fault in Our Stars (my favorite novel) on audio to drown out the voices that played through my mind, but I didn't. I got sucked in too fast and rendered the ability to think about solutions until it was an afterthought.

Last week at work a client smelled like a familiar smell. The Naltrexone running through my body had done it's job to serve as a "get the hell away from that now!" warning so I tensed up and walked quickly away. This, thankfully, happens several times a day, this warning of sorts. It isn't a pleasant feeling (imagine the feeling you get from being startled by someone who you were unaware was waiting right around the corner - this is one instance in a day where I feel like that) but it's far better than the alternative mind trap of memories that I don't want. My amygdala is running wild at the warning from the drug that keeps the flashbacks at bay. I feel like I need to run as fast and hard as I can until I'm nowhere near the "danger" (trigger).
I can't run. I'm in the middle of a counseling a group, my clients would think I was insane if I took off running. Instead I just look around in a panicked manner and take a seat on the opposite side of the room as the person who's scent triggered my brain. My heart is racing and my veins are pulsing with adrenaline. All the while my brain is frantically searching for the connection of this scent and whatever unpleasant memory goes along with it. All I can do at this point is pray that it's unsuccessful in finding that link.

If you ever see me dance in place for no reason, you can bet that my body is telling me to run at a time that I know I have to sit still. My eyes are probably wide with fear and knowing. I might get snippy with you. I might be short in my answers. I might appear as though I'm extremely annoyed with whatever is going on around me.
I'm not. Don't take it personally. If you still feel like it pertains to you, just ask. I'll be happy to reassure you it doesn't.

This week one of my favorite podcasts (that I usually use to distract my mind from being triggered) did an episode on PTSD: Stuff You Should Know - How PTSD works. (<-- you can click those words for a link) if you have the time you should check it out, it's very informative.

All at once

I wish that when something devastating happened you could just choose to give up. I mean, I know most people say things like "I had to be strong for XYZ reason"... but what if you had a choice? What if you had no one that you were actually responsible for and you could just simply say "I'd like to give up now."?

And then *poof*, someone takes the pain away. They take you away and then you don't have to continuously relive that horrible moment that brought you to your knees. You don't have to allow that thing that damn near swallowed you whole to continue to live inside of you.

Why should it get to live on? You don't get to truly live. Instead it lives inside of you and you have to wake up in the morning and slowly let it all seep painfully back into your consciousness. Then you get to watch time tick by slowly while every minute is greeted with a pain that might as well be a blade through your skin. Every time you think of that ugly festering thing you get nauseous so you can't even look forward to simple pleasures like eating a meal during the day.
So you continue to pray that something distracts you for even the smallest moment so you don't have to deal with the constant reminder that your failed life is dancing a cheerful dance in your brain. During all of this day... your one objective is to get to the night time, to bring an end to the day... when you can sleep and not have to be consciously tortured by your mistakes and the wrong doings that have been done to you. Not to mention the decisions you've made that were (of course discovered too late) the wrong decisions.

But then sleep... it's just as evil as wake. In sleep your mind can take your fears, the fears it had so slyly learned during your waking hours, and it can run with them. Sleep can turn them into reality. Force you to see what you're trying your hardest to forget.

How beautiful this brain is.
It rips us to shreds and leaves us cowering on the ground.
Makes us wish that life didn't exist.
It hurts and hurts and hurts and just when I think I can't take anymore - everything grows quiet and calm. When the brain can't handle any more it shuts down. Then there is nothing. Nothing except the quiet whisper of one sentence; "I don't want to exist anymore".

I have to fight back from that. Constantly. PTSD intensifies everything that I experience... the good and the bad. My biggest question is always "What's the point in all of this? Why do we wake up and choose to struggle through a day?" I constantly want to ask people what makes them want to get up in the morning.
Just when I think I can't answer any of those questions, I have these strong serene moments where I see the good in the world. I see purpose and people with cancer who are fighting like hell for their life and then someone, unknowingly, squeezes me in to the facets of their world - making me feel like I belong somewhere.

This world can be so beautiful and so very cruel all at the same time.

At first, I was afraid to share such brutal honesty. I wanted to keep it for myself, as I usually do. But then I realized, that's not what this blog is about. This blog is about me being able to say the real things, the things that other people might not understand. The things that make the people who do understand, feel less alone.
...About the things that PTSD does to the mind - regardless if someone is behind me whispering "you're not supposed to say that out loud...".

They say "That's not normal."
Well, it's my normal.