Sometimes PTSD steals my breath out from underneath and suspends me midair like a hooked fish, gasping for the oxygen that chokes me.
Sometimes PTSD steals into my dreams on tiptoe, so softly that I don’t realize I can ever wake up again.
Sometimes PTSD steals a conversation away from its original intent and plunges it headfirst into dark water—bottomless, surfaceless, directionless, hopeless.
Sometimes PTSD steals with bone-sharp fingers the joy from happy moments and plants new sets of memories with old pain.
Sometimes PTSD steals away for a week or a month, maybe even a few at a time, to let me get back to living in present-tense, but it often returns when I’m least prepared.
Sometimes PTSD steals glances at the liquor shelf or the medicine cabinet; they’re only brief glances, but I catch them all the same.
Sometimes PTSD steals over my body and paralyzes me from the waist down, the shoulders down, the brain down.
Sometimes PTSD steals a march on my logic and arrives at conclusions that circumvent reality now in favor of reality then.
Sometimes PTSD steals my heart from the ones who cherish it the most.
Always, PTSD steals.
~~~
[Impolite-but-apt vocabulary warning]
You’re strong, Bethany. Strong enough to conquer. Strong enough to see the truth.
I’m sorry.
Naming something has great power to diminish its control over us. Keep looking it in the eye and calling it out. You get stronger every time.
I pray you will get there ~
God Bless
<3
This is so true.
PTSD steals, but we know the Giver and He is able to give new life, new dreams, new breath, new happy moments, even if it takes all of eternity, which we have.
You are loved, even if by ones who do not understand but love your bravery.
Well written , young friend.
love you.
Praying you find relief and comfort. You are so strong. Your present and future is bright, beautiful, spilling over with love and grace, grace, sweet grace…
Thank you all. Truly.