Documenting my journey through the mental health system

I’ve been reading a book popular in psychology circles and recommended to me by numerous doctors and therapists. The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel Van Der Kolk. It’s thick and complicated and right up my alley.

Triggering, too. He’s talking about the patients in psych wards and hospitals in which he’s worked. Talking about people like me, people hurting themselves and trying to kill themselves, hearing voices, distressed, and even their bodies were slower and less coordinated. They all had a common denominator – trauma. And it leaves its mark on the body. The fear part of our brain, unable to differentiate from now and the past, absolutely reliving the trauma, the physiology responding in kind. It is horrible, these flashbacks.

I’m plagued with them, and memories, and the physical reminders in my body of the psychological scars left behind by traumatic events that never seem to truly heal. Stuck in the past, wallowing in the pain, and all just because of invasive thoughts and memories. With a flashback it’s different….I’m transported back there and away and feel all the pain and anger and despair.

I’m really trying to fight it. I plan on calling my doctor in the morning. Haven’t talked to anyone about this. I don’t even care if I gotta take another pill. I’m only coping because of the handful of pills I currently take every day, the several meds that force me to sleep a few hours, and a lot of work…I work and I work to distract from the flashbacks and the memories and even the paranoia…I don’t know why I have such paranoia. I don’t even want to go into it.

So I cope by working two jobs and focusing on that as much as I can. If I work myself to exhaustion, it is harder to be distressed.

I tell myself I’m as stable as I can be. That this is as good as it gets.