What does it look like to live with trauma?
Is there any hope that it'll ever get better?
I’ve lived with PTSD for approximately 21 years.
For 18 of those years, it directly influenced every decision I made.
It told me that the world is hostile, and dangerous, and that I can’t trust anybody (not even my own family). It told me that every person I meet is a threat. That anyone of them could harm me at any moment — so I better always be prepared for confrontation.
It made me question my own judgment. It told me I was never good enough, and all of my ideas were wrong. It told me that everyone else knew that I was always wrong, and they were judging me for every little thing.
It made me anxious all the time. I couldn’t walk out my front door without having a panic attack. I had to hide in my bedroom for years because I was so afraid… and even that didn’t feel “safe;” it only felt less dangerous than going out and interacting with the world.
It made me give up on all of my goals and aspirations. Everything was so hard! And my trauma told me that I can’t do hard things… so any time I ran into a challenge I couldn’t immediately overcome, I just quit. After all, why struggle if you know from the beginning that you’re just going to fail? Better to save yourself all the pain, and just not start.
It made me only see problems, never solutions.
Trauma makes you believe your life will NEVER get better
Solutions didn’t exist for me… those were only available to good people… people who weren’t like me…
The worst part of it was it made me believe all those things were true — and that I was powerless to do anything about it all.
Sometimes, today, I still feel that way. But the good news is that today, I only feel that way sometimes. I used to feel that way all the time, before I sought help.
And I used to think it was all my fault. I thought those were just character flaws that I possessed, that made me weak, and afraid, and anxious. I thought if I was different, I wouldn’t be having flashbacks, and nightmares, and panic attacks, and I wouldn’t be incapable of rejoining society, and going back to work, and making a difference in the lives of others. (Spoiler: I am making a difference, and probably have been all along, but for a long time, I couldn’t see it.)
I thought I was a bad person, that I was “broken,” that I wasn’t brave enough to face the trauma I’d gone through, and that was the reason why I “couldn’t handle life” anymore.
Trauma is something that happens TO you
It took me 18 years to discover that my trauma was not my fault. That it wasn’t something I did to myself — it was something that was done to me, that happened to me and to a lot of other Sailors on my ship, who were every bit as brave, loyal, and true, as I was… and who, like me, simply endured something that the human mind isn’t equipped to endure.
I still struggle, though. I still think if I had been braver, things would be different. I don’t always understand that I was brave, and I got PTSD in spite of it.
But I’m learning, little by little.
Trauma is not a life sentence
I still live with my trauma, every day of my life. But today, it’s easier to live with, it’s more manageable, and more recognizable — and more treatable — than ever before. So, there is hope. Maybe it all goes away someday, but maybe it doesn’t. But either way… there is hope.
I’m still afraid of a lot of things that other people don’t even think twice about. I still struggle with self-worth. I still get panic attacks (but I know how to get through them a lot easier now).
What is trauma, anyway? And how do you know if you’ve got it?
Trauma affects people in different ways, and that can make it hard to know if you’re experiencing trauma, or if it’s just garden-variety fear, anxiety, panic, or depression.
I think part of what separates the two is that trauma doesn’t go away. It stays with you, throughout your life. And it manifests itself in a myriad of different ways.
This video from the Scottish Recovery Network sheds light on how trauma might show up in the life of a trauma survivor.
I’m still affected by my PTSD, but the thing is, I’m no longer trapped by it. I’m learning to navigate life, and do the things I want to do, and live with severe trauma that still makes me doubt myself, and still makes me afraid of other people sometimes…
And I’m living a better life than I’ve allowed myself to live in 21 years.
And you can too.
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