It's a High Triggering Content Day

Triggering stuff is everywhere. Screen everything. Fight symptoms and don't let your guard down so you'll slip and dissociate. It'll just make pain worse.

Stay safe.

Let's Focus

Hi. Sorry to be away for a while. The past week's been really long and hectic. 5 job interviews and struggling to balance that with symptoms. How do you focus and not cry in the middle of a job interview?

It seems like triggering stuff is everywhere. Can you trust anybody or anything? Much of the time I feel like I'm about six steps ahead of everybody else. Am I the only person that sees that this isn't normal? Am I the only one that sees that this needs to stop? Yet, it goes on because that's how the "real world" works?

Not always, but at times despair and feeling abandoned are there. You don't want to hurt yourself or anybody else. Despite that, it feels like all the pain and frustration of being a rape survivor is hitting all at once. How do you not feel abandoned? How do you fight back so it doesn't feel like everyone who laughed at you and treated you like dirt is trying to beat you down so you'll just shut up? You didn't ask for this. But that doesn't matter?

Body pain and violent dissociating still happen. You go out, drive somewhere and feel like you're in downtown Kabul. Is everything and everyone a threat? Is the person walking in front of you carrying a semi-automatic and will kill you? Is the person next to you a psycho rapist that will go down on you, cut your throat, rape you and then laugh about it? Will anybody listen to you or help you? What do you do when you feel like nobody will listen?

When you try to ground yourself and you can't, what does that do to your system? How are you supposed to function when your feel totally wiped out all the time?

Meditation and other things can help in different combinations. Then again, what happens when they don't? The fear and despair is there. If everyone says just shut the f**k up and go away, what do you do then?

You can't control what others do and say. On the other hand, being a normal human being with emotions, you're not a light switch. Just turn all of this off and it magically goes away?

How do you cope when you literally can't move? Either because you're exhausted from trying not to black out. Or, from despair?

I could go around the corner to a liquor store and get almost anything I want. What good would that do?

Protect yourself as best you can. If something feels bad, it probably is. Therefore, trust that and do something else.

I know I'm not "weird" in any way. I'm not psycotic, deranged and I don't have any type of disability. I just want to be able to have some sense of balance and not feel under attack all the time.

Now, how do you do that when it feels like 99% of the world just doesn't care?

The Long Term Effects of PTSD (Contains potentially triggering content. Read at your own risk)

As all regular readers know, here we only post potentially triggering content if it's necessary to help talk about something important. Never to intentionally hurt anybody. Just the opposite. That being said, if this is a problem for you, stop reading now. If not, keep going and hope this helps.

Like a lot of people, I'm really struggling with protecting my health (both physical and mental) after the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings on Friday. Everything from the mere fact that it happened to the MSM hype factor in this. It's the "Connecticut Shooting". What the hell does THAT mean? Isn't that slightly insulting to the memory of those killed and everyone in the entire area? Endlessly running interviews with obviously traumatized kids and others. On top of that, we have politicians from Obama to Bloomberg who keep speaking in coded soundbites. We must take "meaningful action" to deal with gun violence. Right. Why not just say we need gun control. Obama needs to declare a National Emergency. Instead of an actual and rational discussion of gun control, once again it's a propaganda battle. It's almost like you can turn the sound down on your TV and lip read the NRA approved talking points that all the think tank experts and politicians are putting out.

Since Columbine, there have been roughly 30 shootings all over the country. Now, Congress is going on their Christmas break. People are dying , the fiscal cliff is coming. But screw that. I need my holiday?

Tell that to the people that died. Tell that to the people who lost their kids, friends and others.

Right now, Obama, Bloomberg and all the rest are terrified of the NRA and losing campaign money. Bloomberg says that the NRA can destroy a politician's career is a "myth"? Okay. Then why won't you specifically say we need gun control? Because you're a terrified hypocrite, that's why.

The budget cuts to mental health services continue nationally (insert local amount cut in your area here). Not all but many still believe that only vets get PTSD. Not true. Ten percent of the population has some form of it. All of the students and others have to deal with it. If it's not properly treated, what happens?

You feel like it'll never go away.
Do I have to now cure myself (because of something that's not my fault)?
How is a little kid supposed to deal with potentially everything from dissociating to adrenalin surges to nightmares?

I was raped by two pedophiles. I still have to fight PTSD symptoms every day. I've only had two therapists that actually paid attention to facts and took me seriously. I know I have a problem. I'm actively doing everything I can to face this head on as best I can.

Yet, the truth is nobody protected me. When I told the truth to people that I thought would help me, nobody did anything.

Now, try and tell me that the same thing potentially couldn't happen to one of these kids.

Am I angry? Yes I am.