I can remember the exact moment I shattered. For anyone who has never dealt with PTSD before, that may seem like a strange choice of words, but I assure you it is not. There is no other way to describe it. Like a glass dropped from a ten-storey building I shattered. The component parts of my life, my very identity, flung away like so much sharp detritus; scattered to the winds, to continue slicing raw wounds at every unwary step.
I don't have a lot of memories of the twelve months preceding my break. I have even fewer of the twelve months afterwards. I do recall descending in to the sort of movie-realm fractures of reality in the three days after my break. The desperate struggling to reconcile to myself that "no, I'm OK. I just need another hour to get this under control." The inability to eat, and when I did eat the inability to keep anything down. The inability to sleep more than twenty or forty minutes at a time. The inability to stop crying. The inability to stop seeing death, everywhere I looked. The overlay on reality of visceral horror.
I recall thinking that this couldn't be happening to me. I refused to countenance the idea for nearly three days. After three days I conceded defeat and was admitted to an inpatient psychiatric facility. That was nearly two years ago.
Still, on a daily basis, I feel guilt. I feel guilt over what I've put my family through. I feel guilt over the type of father my kids are going to grow up with. I feel guilt over the things I can't do, even when I desperately want to. I feel like I've failed - everyone from myself to the organisation I used to work for. Worse, I feel like a failure. I didn't take what life tried to throw at me. I couldn't take it.
I don't say these things to garner sympathy. The fact is I can write fairly well, and that enables to me say what I want to say. I say these things because I have come to realise that these feelings aren't unique for people who have PTSD. I say these things because I can say them, and I hope that in doing so it enables those with PTSD to realise they're not alone. I also hope it provides a bit of insight for those without PTSD.
I've been dealing with this for nearly two years now. Most every day has been a struggle of some description, but I honestly believe that things are getting better. I don't think I'll ever be the person I was before, and that does make me sad, but I do believe that I can do more now than I could a year ago.
This blog is not going to be particularly structured. Its hopefully going to act as a public outlet for my thoughts and experiences and, with a bit of luck, myself and others will gain some insight in to this whole condition. I hope is that, over the course of writing this, I'll come to see myself as something other than broken. I suppose we'll wait and see!
