CPTSD Diaries #1: A late start
I wanted to start this blog many months ago, but life got in the way (as it always does) and It never got off the ground.
Since then, life has continued to get harder, just when I think I’ve hit rock bottom I discover that rock bottom has a basement.
It’s now reached the point where I don’t know what’s happening any more.
Unsure whether I’m coming or going.
I have to deal with multiple triggers every day, a body that is always in pain and exhausted with nary a speck of dopamine to spare.
I live a sort of half life, I’ve gotten practiced at living this way so it doesn’t feel that out of the ordinary, but in moments of clarity, or comparison to others, I can see that I haven’t got much going for me.
I don’t really have goals in life any more, its hard to when you wake up feeling miserable, only to spend all day feeding, fighting, and fueling my body to feel awake and present, except by the time I’ve achieved that, it’s time to go to bed.
I hold out for some time off, time to myself, but when I have it, I don’t know what to do with it.
Sure I can fill the time with hobbies and distractions, but no relaxing happens, my mind and body is elsewhere, and so I don’t get a break.
I feel constantly exhausted.
I don’t particularly have a horrible life either, I’ve got friends, family, and alright job, and a great partner.
It’s just that I’m not living that life, I’m going through the motions unable to connect with it, feel it, enjoy it.
All because my mind is so practiced at protecting me and distracting me it takes over and I feel like I’m watching me live my life from afar.
I feel like I’ve tried everything, I’ve done yoga, meditation, cold bath, exercise, books, journalling, therapy, diets, changing my behavior, and the list goes on.
None of it works fast enough for my brain to take any of it seriously, I’ll either stop doing it out of lack of results, or straight up forget that I was going to meditate twice a week, starting five weeks ago.
My brain is too locked in, it’s too used to running at a million miles an hour, it’s effectively the strongest muscle in my body.
To start something new, no matter how good it is for me, requires my brain, to beat my brain.
It feels like the cards are stacked against me and it’s really wearing me down.
I’ve got next to no self control, and having a dodgy memory means I’m just as likely to fail at something new out of forgetfulness than a weakness in character.
I worry that it’s slowly killing me. I have a muscular condition they can’t diagnose and a dodgy liver that’s getting worse despite not being a drinker.
New medical research has linked trauma sufferers with early death, citing that terminal illness arising in the forties and fifties could be caused by trauma building up in the body and wearing it down.
I don’t want to die young because I couldn’t recover from a trauma filled life, that feels so unfair.
Why should I be the victim twice?
I started writing because I need some other way to process what is happening to me. I see a therapist, but that’s an hour every fortnight and sometimes I’m not in the right headspace to get any value from the session.
I’m impatient, I know what is happening to me, but not how to deal with it.
Every doctor and therapist says slow down, focus on relaxing, focus on slowing down and the rest will follow, but I can’t even do that.
It’s been a year since my diagnosis and I don’t feel like I’ve made any significant progress, I feel like life is passing me by, and as much as I try to relax, it doesn’t seem to be helping.
So I wanted to try and throw writing into the mix, maybe it will help, maybe it won’t.
But it’s worth a try.