My Damned Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

PTSD is a monster. PTSD is a cage. PTSD distorts my self. It keeps me away from people I love. It keeps me from doing things that I love.

My traumas are caused by the inescapable agony of my Central Pain Syndrome.  Here are two videos I made about the horror of my CPS:
Message from Hell #1: How Are You?
Message from Hell ##: How Am I?

My PTSD is sometimes a blunt instrument to my psyche, brutally knocking me down when pain hits my limit. Usually my PTSD subtly handicaps me, chains me in ways that I can’t fathom nor address, much less battle or finesse.

Because I live in the midst of constant trauma, my trauma isn’t in the past–it’s in the past, present, and future. PTSD that develops “in response to prolonged, repeated experience of interpersonal trauma in a context in which the individual has little or no chance of escape” is called Complex PTSD (See Wikipedia article), sometimes called DESNOS or Disorders of Extreme Stress Not Otherwise Specified.

The primary trigger my CPS agony is animated conversations with bright, creative people. The trauma is interpersonal because the pain is caused by conversing. The person I talk to doesn’t (usually) mean to traumatize me, but the reptilian complex of my brain classifies the trauma as an interpersonal attack.