1/ Medical Definition of PTSD

(PTSD) is a mental health condition that's triggered by a terrifying event — either experiencing it or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event.

2/ The terrifying event in CO anyway, must have been near-death, expected death, or to have witnessed death. No exceptions.

* I never knew mine began at 15 when my father was killed in a car accident. That changed the entire trajectory of my life internally and externally.

3/ Its when the never ending turmoil began, and after some experimentation discovered as many do that pot actually helped me. This was the Reagan years though, so WAR ON DRUGS

* 6 months later my mother's BF (parents divorced three years before) died when his plane crashed.

4/ *** Three years later in Pheonix,

1. 1st guy I met there that I liked was killed by a car that very night.

2. I made friends with a woman who had really been abused. She was off and on suicidal. She lived below us one level in a courtyard apt. I hear d00dz shouting one day,

5/ I come out... A gang of them were at her door taunting her to commit suicide. I chased them off, but I never saw her again.

3. I know druggies won't like this, and I'M NOT DISCUSSING IT, but I took some acid 3 days before I left AZ with a guy who'd been doing it for days.

6/ I have no idea how he slept, but he slept...

And I went nuts. Clinically. I know now. The combo was just not good. The PTSD was exacerbated several times over, and the acid induced severe, paralyzing panic attacks that plagued me off and on until I found the right meds.

7/ 3. My last day in Phoenix the ringleader from #2 got in a fight with his girlfriend who booted him out. He later shot himself in the chest in an effort to gain sympathy. He nicked his heart and died minutes later.

It was too much by that point and the panic attacks were

8/ unstoppable.

* I dated a guy off and on back then. He was cool. He was killed in a car accident about 10 years after my dad. He died trying to convince his drunk gf to stop driving. She killed him for it.

I never received treatment for any of it. I never knew how to explain

9/ what panic attacks felt like to other people (Its like falling through space) which also became a phobia, weird as that sounds.

The other traumas I lived through were long and numerous, but didn't involve terror per se. They contribute to Complex PTSD but aren't causes

10/ Unmedicated PTSD is too much for me now, shock and trauma having gone through the roof last year. Tbh within 6 wks I would become hopelessly suicidal.

Sucks to know that.

Medicated PTSD is bearable, even happy but there are what I'd call "active" and "passive symptoms"

11/ That persist

Passive: (many are ADD-like)

*Persistent Insomnia
*Cant Complete tasks
*Cant concentrate, makes reading difficult
*Disorientation, lost time. (I miss appointments, come in on off days. I End up late after getting ready for two hours, etc)
* Swelling in bladder

12/ * Random emotional triggers that lead to active symptoms.
* Then there is the "PT" in PTSD. Post Traumatic. When a new trauma happens you feel nothing at all. Your brain kicks into 10th gear, while the world slows to a crawl. This can be a super power during the event

13/ but becomes a major liability soon after as that stored emotion comes back times twenty, usually leading to active symptoms. Without meds this can trigger months long depression as well.

*Surreal moments in your head. I can't explain this. Sometimes the world feels bendy

14/ *shrugs*

* Constantly losing things, then panicking and stressing out to the point of emotional breakdown.

This creates its own special trauma loop as you become paranoid and anxious over continually losing things. I can't possibly relate what this feels like. Mostly like

15/ you're just crazy.

Active symptoms after a trigger:

* shakes
* Intense fear of dying. Especially while sleeping fuels insomnia.
* Massive paranoia, paralytic fear, mental paralysis, isolation, complete embarrassment, humiliation, self-loathing, triggers and exacerbates

16/ existing phobias x10

* Suicide begins to feel better than enduring the flood of unstoppable emotions.
* Flashbacks to the point of reliving them even knowing they aren't actually real. They just don't stop so you don't stop responding to them.
* Emotions go haywire. Anger,

17/ sadness, deep depression are all over or under expressed, and are completely overwhelming. I usually cry, shake, and hide in strange, isolated places.

Medical pot also really does help. I often cry a lot when I smoke it for relief, but I also end up processing

18/ emotions I can't without it.

I take two other 'script meds that make life livable.

Thanks! Be well.

PTSD still sucks