Dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been a near life-long challenge for me, even if for most of that time I wasn't aware of having it. The biggest challenge for oneself I would say is to define what PTSD is. Of course one can read up in the literature about how PTSD affects the brain, changing the structure and functioning of entire sections. But that doesn't tell one what it is like to experience it, or how to deal with it.
Is PTSD a threat? No, it's your brain having been remodelled to fit a high-threat environment. Forever. That's why it'll happily send your mind careening from one perceived threat to another, helpfully assisted by a society which has not the faintest inkling of how full of easily-perceived-as-one threats it is. From sudden noises, to poorly communicated messages, to aggressively formulated bureaucratic communications. You're aware of this, and manage to eventually down regulate the resulting 'something is going to try and kill me in a second' reflex. Usually. There are still the jitters that can persist for hours or days.
PTSD basically makes you very poor at dealing with stress and lots of environmental triggers. But that's what it does. Not what it is.
The shape which I feel matches PTSD the closest is that of loss and the associated grieving process. The thing that has been lost is oneself: the 'you' that existed before the trauma, the trauma the death sentence and subsequent execution. As one's self (personality) is built up out of a mosaic of one's memories and experiences, the traumatic event(s) has the result of essentially destroying this mosaic, killing the personality of the person in question.
To deal with PTSD, then, is to work towards accepting this loss. Accept the loss and essentially the death of oneself. Of this previous incarnation.
Though I never got to know the five-year old me before they were killed in the traumatic event that would follow, I do know from things which my mother and others have told me what that child was like. An energetic, open and always cheerful child, who'd be friends with everyone and loved life. I think I would have liked this person. Yet I have to accept that I'll never be that person. This child was killed. I only have the fragmented memories of that child.
I do remember the child and teenager who grew up after this child's death. None of the openness, energy and cheerfulness. Withdrawn, uncertain about others and themselves. Questioning everything about life and the point of being alive in the first place. Then the death of that person over many years, through countless torture and interrogation sessions, physical and sexual abuse. That person is dead now, too.
Accepting these deaths feels right to me. This child and the other person tried their best, but sometimes your best isn't good enough. So you are killed. It's not their fault. It's not my fault. I don't have to feel guilty about their deaths. Though I still feel angry about what happened to them, the only thing that I can do is to try my best to live, learn from their experiences.
Only through acceptance can one move on.
Maya
2 comments:
When I read thoughts like these, they make me really hope you can complete your autobiography some day.
I read your blog with a great deal of empathy, as I have been there as well. Yes, it feels like I have survived a war, and bear the emotional scars to prove that. As far as who I was before...it was as if it were another incarnation, and one that helped me become who I am now, and survive the trauma. I cannot disconnect from the pain of that time, but seek to find some moments of happiness to remember through all of that. There are a few, and I treasure those. They are precious. The best I can do now is to recognize that I survived all of that amidst the loss, and grief. You either cry, or become numb and feel nothing. For years the numbness was a protection against the tidal wave of grief that was on the other side of that, and it was to be avoided. I faced it not too long ago, and came out the other side intact. Not many can say that. Then there is the anger to deal with--anger over being violated, being treated as non-human, less than a being of intelligence and compassion. Both the anger and grief are still there, and will be for some time, perhaps forever. Forgiveness for me can only go so far. I am not there yet, as far as total forgiveness. There is no survivor guilt, and no feeling of satisfaction. That part is perhaps different from being in a war. All I can say is that I came this far, and can continue to exist with the help of friends that care about who I am, and what I am. Out of all the loss, and pain, that is perhaps the most important thing of all.
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