THREAD

For @DrKarlynB

As a lifetime veteran of PTSD dating back to the age of four, I'll just tell you my story.

Not meant to be anything except storytelling.

You said that being forced out onto the street at night alone in an unknown city was terrifying, and you keep having attacks of shaking and fits of crying.

My PTSD manifests itself as homicidal rage.

I've come close to committing murder only twice.

Once was in San Francisco in 1992.

A woman stopped her pickup under a huge "NO LEFT TURN" sign.

She was holding us al up. When I tapped my horn, she shot me the finger.

I got out and went to her open window.

(Just a warning: I have dysgraphia, and when I talk about stuff like this it gets much worse. Let loose the typos!)

"Look, I'm sorry but you're--" was all I managed to get out before she screamed in my face.

"GET BACK IN YOUR F8CKING CAR, YOU F8CKING ASSHOLE, BEFORE I BEAT THE SH8T OUT OF YOU!"

Without knowing I was going to do it, I launched the hardest punch I've ever thrown. Right at her face.

Time slowed down to a stop, and clear as a bell in my head, a voice spoke:

"Do you really want to do this?"

No. I didn't.

The punch would've killed her. I inherited my father's apelike strength.

So I veered the punch past her face.

Didn't even touch her.

Then I got back in my car, quit my job the next day, and moved to Los Angeles.

Just6 yesterday, I was at a 7-Eleven, and they were demanding only exact change.

A guy was holding up the whole line arguing with the clerk, so I went up to give him what he needed.

"LET ME HANDLE IT!" he shouted. "BACK THE F*CK UP OR I'L KNOCK YOU THE F*CK OUT!"

I didn't say another word, and I backed the f*ck up.

He then dug out a giant wad of cash and threw a twenty at the clerk to pay for his two dollars' worth of purchases.

He was raving the whole time, staring at me.

"Anyone disrespect ME, I knock 'em the f*ck out."

After he finished paying, he stood there a full minute, threatening to come over and knock me the f*ck out.

THEN he went outside, took off his back back, and waited for me.

He periodically hitched up his pants, which means he WAS going to assault me.

I waited in the store behind shelves, where he couldn't see me but I could see him.

Finally his impatience got the best of him, and he left.

BUT.

I'm still thinking about it.

I was diagnosed with the worst PTSD the psychiatrist had even seen. I was 48 at the time.

I honestly had no idea that I had PTSD.

Where and when I grew up was my normality, which is what the psychiatrist said.

Every single thing I thought was normal was so ABNORMAL that I'm essentially a one-man species.

Not quite human, but almost.

I feel every emotion except for romantic love.

All the women I "loved" were merciless predators who stayed with me because they were game players, and I was the biggest, fattest patsy they'd ever met.

I was a gorilla who would under no circumstances ever hurt THEM.

This is because I didn't know that what they were doing to me was sick beyond comprehension.

But I comprehended it.

See, going to talk therapy was agony. I'd never in my life spoken about anything intimate.

Since I knew it would be horrible, I told the doc that he had to hit me as hard as he could, because it was all the same to me.

When I was four, my father shot a man in the head at my open window.

His head exploded, and his eyeball flew into my mouth.

I'd had nightmares of murder my entire life.

Nothing a psychiatrist could say would freak me out.

So I told the doc to use his best judgement and be absolutely merciless.

He did, but not in a sadistic way.

I had to find out why I was such a disaster.

He explained in savage terms the rewards I got from choosing to CONTINUE certain behaviors.

He said I saw myself as a romantic here in a 19th century Brönte novel, standing on a cliff, looking down into a foggy valley as the breeze ruffled my cape and my blond hair.

He stopped and asked me, "How you doing?"

"Keep going," I said.

The sweat was pouring off me.

When I went bankrupt, he cut his fee by two-thirds.

And after 18 months, he said he'd done all he could.

(Remember: I'm talking only about ME.)

I was too damaged. The best I could hope for was to see more quickly that I'd repeated my pattern. Then I could extricate myself more quickly.

My last relationship was with a lovely hippie girl.

Smart, education, funny as hell.

SHE sought ME out.

She was a dancer who looked just like Audrey Hepburn but with blue eyes and frizzy blonde hair.

I was extra-careful vetting her. We courted for 18 months.

Nothing but talking.

When she invited me to her home in another state, she pulled the most sadistic bait-and-switch of my life.

I'll spare you the details, but think Kim Novak at the end of Satan's Triangle.

It was the mother of all setups.

So I became a hermit.

It's the only way I've achieved peace of mind.

Despite the infrequency of my outings, predators STILL find me, like the guy in the 7-Eleven.

It ruined my day, but what's a day in a ruined life?

What gets me about these people is that they're so INNOCENT.

I always mentally choreograph what I'm going to do, whenever I go anywhere.

If he'd come over to me, threatening to knock me the f*ck out, he'd be in the hospital tonight.

I'm 58 years old, with severe osteoarthritis.

These kids have a totally ritualized way of fighting.

They get in your face, call you a bitch, hike up their pants, and take a swing at your head.

I wouldn't have said a word.

When he got close enough, I would've hit him in the solar plexus as hard as I could.

No warning.

I can't back up, because I can't run anymore. His plan was to sucker punch me, and when I fell down, he'd kick me in the head.

In Portland, rioters put a man in the hospital for trying to save a trans woman from being beaten.

The attack on him went on after he drove away.

He crashed his truck in panic, so they pulled him out and beat and kicked him unconscious.

He was trying to reason with them.

Although I own several firearms, I would never use them except on home intruders.

THIS guy is my hero. Held off an entire mob for 40 minutes.

All by himself.

St. Michael the Archangel was fighting beside him.

Michael is a warrior.

My own view is that I have nothing to lose.

And now that I can't run away, my philosophy is that of the actor Michael Caine, an infantry combat veteran of the Korean War.

I never got to do ANYTHING I wanted to do.

BUT.

In my 58th year, I've achieved peace of mind.

I fear nothing and nobody.

Some of us know EXACTLY what you're going through, so we don't need apologies or explanations.

Be well, because THE WORLD is about to become well.

I'm damn glad I lived to see it.

END