people with PTSD and cPTSD who appear calm and relaxed right now - what you're seeing isn't "smugness". we're not enjoying this - it's just that finally, for a few days or weeks, the endless choir of voices saying "everything is okay and we are all safe" have gone silent.

for a few weeks or months, no one is shushing us or glaring at us for talking about being anxious or appearing tense or afraid. no one is telling us that we're overreacting. no one is pushing us to stop expressing or showing our tension and fear, because it's "understood" for now

And so suddenly, a massive amount of pressure and stress have fallen away from all of us. I don't think most untraumatized people are even aware of how hard y'all are constantly pushing on the traumatized, because you can't handle the discomfort of seeing & experiencing our pain.

I don't think y'all folks w/out PTSD have any idea how hard you, and all of society, are *constantly* pushing us, in a million small and large ways, to perform "okayness" for you, to smile and pretend as if we think everything is okay and we're all safe. It's exhausting.

None of us are able to escape awareness that, as traumatized people, as survivors of abuse or other disaster, we are living reminders to everyone else of unpleasant parts of reality, parts they resent having to think or be aware of.