What is Trauma?

I woke up, for the second time this morning, with dialog for this running through my head.  Okay, that is what we will discuss. 

PTSD and CPTSD (Complex) are different for everyone.  I cannot stress that or say that enough. Yes, the military men and women come back with obvious trauma that ignites PTSD, they come back with not visible trauma that ignites PTSD.  Many can have the same incident that set off the PTSD for all of them or it is simply piggy backing on something traumatic that person has already faced and now they are worse.  Complex PTSD usually happens in childhood, many of its recipients have been abused; either physically, mentally, or emotionally.  CPTSD can take years to show up, some of those that suffer from it have buried it or have a type of amnesia in regards to their trauma.

The first thing when anyone hears I have PTSD, they always ask me, "from what?!" or "what are your triggers?".  The person I once was, was a really good actress.  I took drama in High School, took region one year; little did the teachers, the judges, or myself know that everything I did each day was a performance of an award winning variety.  I knew I was depressed in High School, I knew it in Middle School, and when I was a Senior and I needed a community project for Sterling Scholar, I tried to start T.A.F.F.E.O..  Ha, yes I know it probably didn't get off the ground simply because of the name. :)  Teenagers of America Fighting For Each Other.  I went to drug and alcohol seminars on weekends, I did confidential surveys of my school mates.  I only have about three memories left from that time and one is a question that was asked; "What would you know of Anxiety or Depression?".  It was asked by a neighbor that I had lived by for 10 years.  He felt, as they all did since it was a small town, that he knew me.  My reply was simple; "Don't judge a book by its cover" and I walked away.

Trauma, what a scary thing.  Those that don't have it are scared of it, and those that do, know exactly how scary it is.  What do you do when you are scared of something?  One of two things, you will either 1.  learn everything there is because knowledge is power, or 2.  you will hide from it, make fun of it, blame it and ridicule it due to non-understanding.  I understand why people ask me "from what?!?!".  However, they need to understand that  IT. IS. TRAUMA.  It is bad enough that my brain cannot process it fully while awake, that my subconscious tries all night, most nights.  Why would I want to give words to that and trigger myself?  You are asking to either understand it better or to be able to say to yourself, "pfft, that's not trauma, you just ant attention" and either way, you feel better, walk off and forget it.  I'm sorry, it may seem short or rude but my trauma is not yours to judge and I will not place myself deliberately back in a state of mind/place just so that you can feel better about it or judge me.

PTSD/CPTSD takes a lot of courage and strength.  Two things you really don't feel like you possess while fighting the demons of it.  If you have memories that you've blocked or have slight amnesia with, you really don't understand what is going on and it makes it more terrifying.  Sometimes it ratchets the anxiety part up beyond being able to function as a normal person.  These take a lot of soul searching, in the places of your soul and mind where, literally, demons live.  Facing those, hopefully with help or alone, takes an amazing amount of self respect and acceptance.  What you face and see in there usually isn't something you want to admit to yourself you are or could be.  Acknowledging pain and learning the why's, what for's, and where to have it live "healthy" in you is an amazing feat that sometimes takes years.

The thought process that we can just "get over it", "pull ourselves up by our bootstraps", "you must be doing therapy wrong" if it isn't fixed within a short amount of time;  are all horribly wrong.  I am an Army Brat, I was raised to get over it, pull myself, try harder if it didn't happen immediately.  I don't blame my dad for his ways, it is what he was taught and what he knew.  He survived two wars and was a green beret, I never understood a lot of what he did or said, until I got PTSD myself.  He served three tours in 'Nam, once honorably released, he would never mention anything military related again.  One small glimpse of the hell those men went through in "Nam was the Hollywood movie Green Berets.  My father used to watch movies to criticize, wrong sound track, blah blah lol.  He never said a word during that movie, he and I watched it together, no one else.  I looked at him and his only response was, "Yes, that's really close to the truth". 

I just saw one of those meme's that stated:  "Every test in your life makes you bitter or better, every problem makes you or breaks you, it is up to you whether you become victor or victim".  Can I express how much anger that fills me with?  Yes, I understand that everything that has happened to me has been a test, I understand that I am not pulling A's, but they aren't your problems or your tests.  You don't live inside my body or have my experiences to judge by, you don't get to say whether I tried my hardest to be a victor but ended up a victim.  I understand these meme's, I really do.  There are a set of people out there that can seriously not handle what they call "downers".  People who are depressed, anxious, have a negative sense of humor, bring them down and they can't handle it.  I worked with someone this way and my point of view now says she is slightly delusional and egotistical but I understand that she has a problem also.  Everyone does.  No one makes it through this life unscathed.  Some can truly "fake it til they make it" or they forget, while others have placed themselves in a bubble and require that all around them respect it and change themselves to help them.  That was this co-worker.  She pulled my employee in, made her cry, as she explained that she was too negative and needed to shape up and fix it or it would be her job.  When I went to her boss to get a reason and declare that it was not her call, all I received in explanation was that "she has a hard time being around negative people, I agree it is difficult".  Now days that would be considered harrassment.  My employee was not a negative Nelly where everything was doom and gloom and thunderstorms - I have a sister that way, that was not my employee.  My employee was simply a glass half empty and she cracked jokes about.  Each dealt with their own pain, the first by not allowing anyone around her to remind her of negativity and the second by laughing.  You get to a point where you either laugh or cry, she made everyone else in the company besides the first employee  and her boss, laugh.

If my pain, stress, and anxiety through my life has led me to anything, it is to acknowledge that pain exists and it exists on a different level for everyone.  Your level of pain is not mine, your experiences (even if the EVENT was shared) are not mine, and your processing and recovery time have nothing to do with me and mine.  Why do we judge?  Are we hurting so much and covering it up that we HAVE to make someone else feel smaller and therefore justify ourselves?  What happened to love, charity, hope, and above all else, patience and understanding? 

Wow... amazement.

I realize that when you don't get sleep for extended periods of time, like consistently for over 2 yrs that you start to lose memory.  I came back to the blogging world, thinking to pick back up on my regular family blog, adding some of the PTSD to that.  However, when I had reset my password (yep forgot that) I realized in shock that I had a PTSD blog that I had quit and restarted multiple times but that I no longer knew existed.  The last long in around December of 2013 was when I was down to the wire to get my oldest son ready to serve a 2 yr LDS mission.  It was traumatic for me, I will do a totally different post in relation to that at another time.  Needless to say, I had 2 months to get him ready to leave for 2 yrs with little means and little time.  Many wonderful things occurred, and my blog, seems it slipped my mind completely and never came back.  Things like this always make me wonder what else I have forgotten in my life and whether it was important or not.