Notes on PTSD

Notes on PTSD

I was asked “How has PTSD changed my views about myself”?

How indeed? In the beginnings I learned to trust less, doubt more, and hide from trouble and confusion.

I became less confident in my choices, in my abilities, my art, and my love.

I learned to be stronger in myself over time, until the next trauma knocked me down again.

Pulling myself back up time after time, dusting myself back off (frayed around the edges and missing pieces of my heart), putting one proverbial and physical foot in front of the other, I search continuously for the “right” way to go, and the “rightness” of new choices.

Some days I feel like a wise old sage… Others days are spent teetering on the edge of a dark abyss. Life is full of history, mystery, and presents.

I feel lazy, like a slug, a couch potato, and yet I feel too busy to think. I am the calm eye in the center of the storm, while also being the circling howling frantic winds of the hurricane.

I am strong and capable…

I am weak and hopeless…

I fear nothing, and yet stand shaking with terror.

My thoughts swirl in a metaphorical whirlpool, disappear into nothingness, and become calm and empty.

And then, add all this to the diagnosis of ADD, and sometimes it is hard to take a step forward out of fear,

but then I barge ahead like a bull in a china closet knocking over anything in my path.

Am I coming or going, or simply standing still? I’ve always been on the move jumping from subject to subject and place to place, until recently.

In the here and now, I find myself in this new place of holding still, being quiet, waiting for the winds of Heaven to dance through my soul and show me a path. 

I am Human. I am Woman.