PTSD: Ashamed Of Being Afraid All The Time

Returning home earlier from work, I was initially glad to be back indoors now that it's getting pretty chilly outside. Then I heard it again.

*thump* *thump* *thump*

I could feel some part of my mind shrivel up in fear at the sound of this. Then the sound stopped for a moment and I felt the tension fade again. Readying to prepare dinner I had music playing in the background. This always helps to drown out the sounds some. Yet today it wasn't enough.

*thump* *thump*    *thump* *thump* *thump*

Every thump sending a jolt through my body, instinctively reacting to this perceived threat. Part of my brain was screaming at me to start running, that I had to get away from here right now, yet I realized that I couldn't run away. This is my home. There's nowhere to go. I realized that I was making panicked noises again as tears began to flow down my cheeks. Before I knew it I was crying in fear and terror. Any moment now. It'd happen any second. Got to get away.

Then rage. I would show them. Fight back. Anger. Determination. Ready to counter with force. This followed by the realization that none of this was an option and feeling the urge to just destroy this body as my final defence. I admitted to myself repeatedly that I felt really terrified. Then finally dinner was ready and I could sit in front of my computer with headphones on and music playing. The tension was still there, but fading with nothing but my own, controlled environment to worry about. Only the sounds and other stimuli which I expect.


There's a reason why I have been toying with the idea of writing the landlady or janitor or whoever a letter describing my daily terrors in my own apartment. From the *tick* *tick* of the heating system to the *thump* *thump* of walking, toilet usage and sometimes entire conversations from the upstairs neighbours, most of the time that I'm at home I'm either wearing headphones or put in earplugs when I want to sleep. Even earplugs don't keep out the thumping noise, though. I often find myself fearfully listening whether I didn't just hear it whilst lying in bed. Falling asleep is mostly a matter of getting the terror down to a level where I feel safe enough to sleep.

I'm not proud of living like this. I feel ashamed. Humiliated. I'm tired of feeling like a caged animal, agitated and restless every second I'm awake, mostly because of noises around me. I feel ashamed because I'm apparently the only one. Everyone else seems to take noises like these and worse in stride and can ignore it. For me it's as easy to ignore as getting kicked into an active battlefield is. Once a noise or similar trigger activates my fight-or-flight mechanism there's no escape for me any more. First I want to run. Get away from it, which is usually impossible. Then I feel the need to fight back. Making noises myself in revenge. Breaking things so that they stop making noise. Anything to make the threat go away. Then the collapse as I realize it's all impossible and futile.

There's obviously something very wrong with me that I cannot live with things everyone else has no trouble with. I must be deeply mentally disturbed if something like a ticking heating system or hearing upstairs neighbours walk around makes me want to claw open my own skin.

I can't let others show these weaknesses, though. They will abuse it. They always will. Can't trust others. Never again. More tears as I realize how deep my paranoia and distrust towards others around me goes. I want to be able to trust humans again, but I realize I likely never will do so again. The realization how cut off I am from society as a whole.

Knowing that I feel like this because I am still being herded towards my death - preferably by my own hands - by actively denying me medical care for my intersex condition and instead damaging me psychologically to the point where I will break. I cannot otherwise explain why I'm being fed two completely opposing conclusions by the medical world, with likely one the truth and the other a complete and utter lie. Or maybe both are lies. All to break my spirit.

I'm so ashamed. Ashamed of being like this. Paranoid. Delusional. Obsessed. Of being terrified of everything and everyone. Of being a dysfunctional human being in so many ways. And yet in the knowledge that the only thing that is wrong with me is this post-traumatic stress disorder. A disorder caused by the systematic maltreatment and brainwashing by physicians without knowing why.

I don't know why. I don't know anything. There's only the constant feeling of terror. Of knowing that the next horrible, agonizing thing will happen any second now.

*thump* *thump* *thump*

Any moment now. Can't be long now.

*tick* *tick* *tick*

Can't you hear it? It's right there. Better start running.

*thump* *thump*

Nowhere to go? What a shame. Nobody cares.

*tick* *tick*

Huddled in a corner, crying like you just witnessed the slaughter of your entire family and barely escaped with your own life. What a crybaby. How shameful.

Just some sounds. Nobody would get so upset about that. You're pathetic.


The thing that frightens me most is that the only time I can remember in my entire life when I felt the most calm and most at peace with myself was when the pressure had become too much and I was readying myself to take these beautiful white pills which would end my life right then and there. That was over three years ago.

The one moment I was in control of my own life. Of my own destiny. That's all gone now and only fear and terror remains. It's all I will know for the rest of my life, because I am not allowed to feel in control of my own life. The medical community and everyone else will make sure of that. It's them versus me.

I'm ashamed of who I am. Of what I am. Of being weak. Of allowing everyone to do this to me. I feel humiliated at having to make such a confession, but I also know that I need to hang on and send out a cry for help if there still is a possibility of help.

I realize it's better to feel ashamed and humiliated than to feel nothing any more and give up. I still pray and hope that having been born with this intersex body doesn't mean that I will have to die, even after ten years of everyone around me doing their utmost to prove that the only way to escape is to take my own life. It's the only way off this battlefield. The only way to stop feeling afraid. The only way to find peace with myself.

I don't want to believe that.






Maya