PTSD

The PTSD chain

The chain tightens around my neck once more. Sometimes, it sits so loose and I am so used to its weight I almost forget that it’s there, until it clasps back around my throat and I am gasping for breath. It can be the smallest things that wrench upon the end, capturing me in my noose, an act of violence on the television, an unusual smell, a taste, and suddenly I am overwhelmed. I might not even realise it’s tightened sometimes as I stare blankly, sweltering my own feelings trying not to let them show whilst my heart hammers against my rib cage “They can hear it, surely they can hear it!”.

On my own, I can fight against the chain. I prise my fingers between the cold and my skin, but the more I wriggle and fight, the tighter the chain gets. 

 I long to put this chain down so much. 

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Do you remember the wounds?

It makes physical sense that a scar won’t look the same as the wound, nor the skin before. The tissue, damaged then inflamed seeks to heal and creates a substitute tissue to stand in the originals place. Thick and non-functioning, it fills a void. Do you remember the wounds before them? Remember the wounds your scars replaced, what they stand for? Do you remember the pain of them, how they came about? Do you even remember the story they tell?

Many scars tell a good story, but many more tell a horrible one. 

And what of the emotional scars, the ‘psychological’ ones? Do we remember what stood before them? Do we remember ourselves before that trauma? Our emotions, our thoughts, thick and hardened through the hands of abuse not dissimilar to the scars on our skin. The bodies inate, desperate mechanisms to heal and heal quickly. To survive. 

Can we change them? Can we soften the scar tissue in anyway? Can it be treated? Can we remember what was there before, can we remember the wounds? Would it help to?

What is it like to be covered in scars you don’t remember receiving, wounds that have healed behind your back without your knowing? Perhaps that is unanswerable. 

Talking out

It is not often I see the pros of ‘talking out’, of telling or sharing my story. I am all to easily silenced by myself or others, but a recent blog post has made me think a little more. 

When you have a thought or memory endlessly cycling in yor head it can be near impossible to get it out. If you picture it physically, you can almost see it there inside your skull bouncing of the walls trying desperately to get out, but with your mouth tight shut it has no where to go, no escape. By opening your mouth you allow it out. You create a tangent for your memory to spin off and finally end its repititive circling. Or you can cry it out, I suppose. If you know how. 

That is all.