Thread by @SarahGarlits, Oh, but I seem ok, right?I'm not. I still hide most of [...]

Oh, but I seem ok, right?

I'm not. I still hide most of what I suffer through. I have hallucinations/flashbacks-audio and visual every day that make it difficult to function.

That's why it took me so long to do things yesterday.

#cptsd #ptsd #trauma

I also dont sleep well so I'm groggy, have a hard time keeping on a routine for hygiene, cant drive due to the hallucinations, and I lose time.

I come back to myself and I've been doing things I can't remember doing.

Just a few minutes ago I came back and I had been googling

No memory of googling anything but there it was.

Like snapping your fingers and all the sudden you fade back into life but you aren't doing the same thing.

It can be really scary. My body reacts to this with panic and anxiety attacks.

Night terrors seem to be coming back. I had them for years but they subsided after a round of EMDR treatment. Now I wake up yelling and drenched in sweat.

Almost everything about regular home life triggers intrusive memories/thoughts. I hear whispers, voices, a woman scream

This is everyday life that I cope with all the cptsd symptoms.

I also get paranoid and start believing outlandish things that are very strange. I work hard to stay in reality.

Many days for a period of time I dont feel real. This world doesn't seem real. My dreams seem more real. It can be difficult to parse my reality from my dreams.

I feel like I have a round table of people discussing things in my head.

There are young, old, all genders, some genderless, babies, children, and a dead toddler. She just lays there but I feel her and can kind if see her.

Sometimes they argue and it Is very loud. One is very abusive but I locked him in the cage I used to keep the angry gorilla in.

I used to think I had to hide all of this stuff but I don't care anymore.

I have been hallucinating since I was very young, riding my big wheel on the sidewalk, maybe before that.

I see people in the windows at night. Like in the reflections or standing outside the windows. Shadows both black, mist, white, some of them lunge at me. Some stand over me ominously and whisper.

I see bugs a lot that aren't there. When I was 14 I have a period of 3 days that I couldn't sleep and I saw giant ants crawling in the walls. Like that of a medium sized dog.

Now I see beetles crawling. Some out of the corner of my vision. Other times in front of me.

For years I was functional and I coped. I was able to hide it all and no one k ew I was going through life with all this also going on.

There are days I can do things like everyone else for a couple hours. Most days not. I wish I was better.

I dont get a break very often. Maybe 30 minutes here or there.

It feels like someone is standing behind me a lot. They whisper I my ear. I can't make out what they say most of the time.

They dont tell me to hurt people just myself.

I can usually contain those in the cage I made in my head. Some days I can't and they terrorize me.

I put this stuff out of my mind and live in sort of a denial so I can function and not break down.

It's worse than I have told doctors/therapists. I am just now telling them about seeing things after like 37+ years of dealing with it on my own.

It's a daily struggle. I'm hypervigilant mist of the time. Every detail, every sound, all taken in and analyzed for realness.

There is a lot that happenned to me as a very young child/baby that I don't remember yet but I get bits and pieces.

I still live. I still fight. I'm still here.

I am stronger than the abuse and its effects. I got this. I just need some help now so I can heal.

That's why I dedicated my life to healing and not committing suicide(not trying again).

I am safe now, with my loved ones, away from abuser, getting treatment, therapy, and building a support structure to assist me. I learn everyday how to help myself survive. It is a constant.

And I still minimized it here for everyone, for myself, in this thread but that's all the detail I'm willing to go into.

I was also punished for sharing, having emotions, for being anything but pleasant, content, and agreeable to whatever pain/rape/abuse that was happening.

It is very difficult to break free from that conditioning and brainwashing, to be myself.

I am defiant/willful though and that helps a lot to willfully go against my programming and change it ever so slightly day by day.

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