This blog is to share my experience of living with PTSD due to Military Sexual Trauma, my service dog, and the support of my wife as I try to help others find ways to get through the pain of being raped by fellow service members.
This is such a FANTASTIC conversation! I wish I'd been there. And I wish you all could have heard me yelling at my screen as I watched it! Mostly shouting "OMG YES!!!!"
"You don't get to know what's really happening..."
YES.
I totally get that fear of being locked up. I try to be very careful about how I phrase things.
I live with that fear constantly. Not on ok-ish days, but on difficult days, especially very bad days... I go into hiding. I am terrified of someone noticing that I'm not ok, not being able to advocate for myself effectively at those times, and getting locked away for "being crazy." It doesn't matter that I'm not psychotic or a danger to anyone. If I can't make eye contact, and I'm having trouble communicating, I can't convey that. I just look... autistic.
One of the more recent things that compounded my PTSD was something that happened during a "bad day" and I couldn't go to the police. Because the perpetrator was going to seem normal, and I was NOT ok, and I was certain I'd be locked up - in a psych ward, not precinct! So I ran and kept running for months. Still never reported them. It wasn't just that I was in bad shape and didn't think I'd be believed. I had no witnesses, and I was on disability for a "mental disorder." (PTSD et al). So, who would be believed. The "normal person" or the one with a "mental disorder." I can make a case for why that might have made someone more sympathetic to what I had to say and possibly made it more likely they'd believe me, but that's not a risk I was going to take. There was no way to get help. Just run. "Getting help" would have backfired. I'm sure of it still.
I loved your "Nooooo... I wouldn't do anything like that. That's TERRIBLE!"
Cracked me up!
And "Are you sure?" One of my favorites.
But "Can you contact some of these guys that did things to you?" *headdesk* I can't even describe my reaction to that.
I'm so sorry you've ever had to deal with that level of ineptitude.
Robyn is hilarious! I didn't realize she was so funny. "He set me up for life!"
I have to say... I loved working. When I imagine "Wellness" for myself I imagine working again. Because that's what I want, and what I always wanted to do. Getting disability is a different kind of "gift" for me. I don't feel like I'm "set up for life" and have a good gig. But I am SO grateful that there is a system that thinks I should still be alive. And allows me to have a roof over my head. And reduced transportation fares... Because I know that if I tried to explain my situation to most people, or my family, they'd tell me to suck it up or die. So I'm amazed that there's some kind of system in place (made of strangers), that thinks I still have some rights, and value, and is paying for me to live. That's still hard for me to wrap my mind around. But given the choice between "not having to work/not having to worry about money" (which I do anyway) and being disabled, vs being well enough to work and working at my old profession again? - I'd rather work. I loved my job. It was my life.
I wish I could have heard the rest of your conversation. I relate to so much of that.
I really want to thank you again, for sharing stuff like this. I wrote this in another comment already, but I've honestly never seen anyone with so many similarities to me. And just knowing that I'm not the only person in the world like this, and seeing it, in a video... I can't describe how helpful that is to me. So thank you, again.
This is such a FANTASTIC conversation! I wish I'd been there. And I wish you all could have heard me yelling at my screen as I watched it! Mostly shouting "OMG YES!!!!"
ReplyDelete"You don't get to know what's really happening..."
YES.
I totally get that fear of being locked up. I try to be very careful about how I phrase things.
I live with that fear constantly. Not on ok-ish days, but on difficult days, especially very bad days... I go into hiding. I am terrified of someone noticing that I'm not ok, not being able to advocate for myself effectively at those times, and getting locked away for "being crazy." It doesn't matter that I'm not psychotic or a danger to anyone. If I can't make eye contact, and I'm having trouble communicating, I can't convey that. I just look... autistic.
One of the more recent things that compounded my PTSD was something that happened during a "bad day" and I couldn't go to the police. Because the perpetrator was going to seem normal, and I was NOT ok, and I was certain I'd be locked up - in a psych ward, not precinct! So I ran and kept running for months. Still never reported them. It wasn't just that I was in bad shape and didn't think I'd be believed. I had no witnesses, and I was on disability for a "mental disorder." (PTSD et al). So, who would be believed. The "normal person" or the one with a "mental disorder." I can make a case for why that might have made someone more sympathetic to what I had to say and possibly made it more likely they'd believe me, but that's not a risk I was going to take. There was no way to get help. Just run. "Getting help" would have backfired. I'm sure of it still.
I loved your "Nooooo... I wouldn't do anything like that. That's TERRIBLE!"
Cracked me up!
And "Are you sure?" One of my favorites.
But "Can you contact some of these guys that did things to you?" *headdesk* I can't even describe my reaction to that.
I'm so sorry you've ever had to deal with that level of ineptitude.
Robyn is hilarious! I didn't realize she was so funny. "He set me up for life!"
I have to say... I loved working. When I imagine "Wellness" for myself I imagine working again. Because that's what I want, and what I always wanted to do. Getting disability is a different kind of "gift" for me. I don't feel like I'm "set up for life" and have a good gig. But I am SO grateful that there is a system that thinks I should still be alive. And allows me to have a roof over my head. And reduced transportation fares... Because I know that if I tried to explain my situation to most people, or my family, they'd tell me to suck it up or die. So I'm amazed that there's some kind of system in place (made of strangers), that thinks I still have some rights, and value, and is paying for me to live. That's still hard for me to wrap my mind around. But given the choice between "not having to work/not having to worry about money" (which I do anyway) and being disabled, vs being well enough to work and working at my old profession again? - I'd rather work. I loved my job. It was my life.
I wish I could have heard the rest of your conversation. I relate to so much of that.
I really want to thank you again, for sharing stuff like this. I wrote this in another comment already, but I've honestly never seen anyone with so many similarities to me. And just knowing that I'm not the only person in the world like this, and seeing it, in a video... I can't describe how helpful that is to me. So thank you, again.