PTSD & ME

When my therapist did the phyco-test on me to check me out for PTSD, I completed it and watched his expression as he looked over my sheet and calculated my scores! hhhhmmm...

So up to a score of 24 you are borderline in terms of having PTSD. Over this score up to 40 you have PTSD and anything over this is worrying...Guess what?

Being the over-achiever that I am and I have a compulsion to get a higher score than anyone and I did approx 77 to be precise!

On a serious note though, having Childhood trauma and PTSD combined has been so difficult.

I often feel overwhelmed by it and if it was not for the support of my wonderful wife, I know I would be dead long before now.

The most difficult thing I finding taking about PTSD is the "Total" lack of understanding surrounding it. When I have spoken to people about it, they ask? Oh, where did you serve? Then I have to explain that, its not just a soldiers illness, that I have it after coming through Covid, hearing that some of my online friends, whom I relied upon to keep me mentally stable have actually died as a result of this Covid disease and combined with the "HELL" of now reliving childhood trauma have now found myself having PTSD as a consequence of it all.

PTSD is so debilitating for me and all who suffer from it as it impact every aspect of your daily existence, from your waking hour to your final moments where your head hits the pillow and your exhaustion knocks you out into the oblivion known as sleep. Until you re-awaken sometime or several times through the nocturnal hours with nightmares that Stephen King would be proud of directing.

During the day with PTSD a spoon dropped on a stone floor becomes an atomic bomb to your hearing, a knock at the door becomes a reverberation akin to a base drum being played next to your head.

One or two simple questions from a loved one...like would you like a cup of tea? - suddenly becomes a Spanish inquisition like interrogation of questions coming at me with lightening speed for which you have an inability to answer, due to the fact that your PTSD brain has not the processing capability it once had, due to the "FOG" that is PTSD.

So, I guess you could say I understand PTSD from within and I offer my sincere condolences to anyone who suffers from it and hope that we all can "ONE DAY!" be free of it

Rgds

Rob