PTSD | Bethany Bassett

Tag: PTSD

I Want to be Well

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 8 Comments

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]

20Sep

Sockanalysis

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

These last two weeks… well, I’m not easily finding the words to describe them. Finding out so suddenly that I’m neither alone nor a [complete] nut-job has flipped my perception of life on its head, and I’m still trying to sort up from down. Coming out of a culture specifically designed to make its victims its staunchest defendants, I feel a bit star-struck around other escapees; I had no idea until two weeks ago that there were others. The conversations I’ve been having and articles I’ve been reading have been a form of intense psychoanalysis for me. Oh, so that’s why I can’t decide so much as what socks to wear some days. You mean my discomfort around all things emotional is to be expected? So it’s not some glitch in my system that makes me revert back to a bitter misotheist every few months? My so-very-unwelcome perfectionism, paranoia, skepticism, criticism, defensiveness, insecurity, and proclivity for burnout are natural side effects of that lifestyle; who knew?

I can’t really express (see above re: emotional ineptitude) just what it does to me to realize I’m not alone in this. Up until now, I have literally felt like the only woman in the world suffering under a unique brand of memories. The unshakeable weight of shame was all the more stifling because I was the only one who knew how it felt. But now… to hear that I’m not alone? To discover that my many neuroses are not proof I’m defective but are rather the stamp of mistreatment? To peek ahead into other people’s journeys and see increasing happiness and healing? It’s making my soul feel practically weightless.

My fervent thanks to those of you who braved that hopeful darkness and brought your own painful stories to light, to those of you who wrote me and shared your hearts, to those of you who offered encouragement and love, and to those of you who simply read what I had to say. Almost right could never have inspired this kind of community, and I would love the chance to meet up with each of you face-to-face (let me know next time you’re coming through Italy!). I’ll be the star-struck one wearing seven pairs of socks.

9Sep

Optimism at its Stabbiest

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 1 Comment

Sometime last week, I tripped into a pothole—a deceptively deep one, maybe a rabbit hole in disguise—and it’s still too murky to see which direction is out. I’ve spent nearly every afternoon opening a blank document on my computer, staring at it, closing it, opening it again, cranking up Muse on my headphones, and thinking stabby thoughts. I’m hoping this is a sign of impending genius rather than just a depressingly generic slump. The one positive aspect of my creative mojo being replaced by a violent slug is that I can finally recognize this as temporary.

There was a day earlier this year so mindwrenchingly awful that I still can’t bring myself to write about it. It was the culmination of a jagged-edged winter colored with a sense of abandoment so vivid I couldn’t see anything else, and I lost my capacity to understand temporary. That was the line across which dying seemed less painful than living. Once deep became bottomless… well, it was hard to see the point in treading anymore.

So right now, despite an afternoon [unsuccessfully] stalking my creative energy with a garlic press and thinking in ferocious guitar riffs, I know it’s only a phase. This is what we here in Brain of Bethany call an accomplishment a miracle.

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