Trauma - makes you think so differently

 I haven't wrote a blog since finishing therapy in September.

Someone said to me today people who haven't experienced trauma won't understand your thought process, feelings, emotions etc.

I get frustrated when i feel like some go through so much yet they seem so normal about everything and able to go on ok. I envy, but despise that its not me able to do that.

Since finishing with veterans complex treatment service I've had one private therapy session with Carolyn which I felt I needed a little while after surgery.

I don't know if its because of surgery, not working at the moment, christmas etc but at the moment I just started to feel meh.....like I need a therapy session, yet I will then talk to myself to say god get a grip, I would just talk about the same shit/trauma thats popping up that the therapist already knows about to then think I would be judged to get over it, more on, don'tbe daft etc..... yet I know that would never be the case but my brain doesn't accept that.

December 2013 I left Kabul to come home on RNR for Christmas and I was tired but felt ok. I was more concerned about my replacement being ok as I was aware of how difficult it was trying to be in 20 places at once, on your own during the most manic time of the year. (On my return his words were "god knows how the hell you do all this, I'm broken")

I remember the rush I felt getting into Brize. The kids thinking they were meeting a friend to get their presents from mummy yet I was there. The joy, the emotions and many tears were shed but all was good, lovely, amazing to be home during a special time of the year.

I was sad to be going back once RNR was over but it was the last push only 3 and a half months to go and its over. Little did I know I would suffer a massive breakdown, be aeromeded to Bastion to see my first therapist, suffer with a severe case of vertigo and go home a broken person. At times still am that broken individual yet at that time in 2013 I just thought I was wiped out.

I still to this day despise when I say the word PTSD or trigger like its disgusting, my skin crawls, and I fill with anger and shame. I feel more like a failure, like more should have happened for me to have been diagnosed with CPTSD but it didn't.

At the moment I struggle to get off to sleep, then I toss and turn a lot, then struggle to get up. The other night I began re-running the departure from Kabul and coming home for RNR. I seemed to be searching for clues at what point could I have stopped this happening to me, to then feel daft for thinking it.

March is the worst month for me and I'm not sure if this is the beginning of the build up to all the memories, the whats ifs, the anger, the feeling of abandonment and much more. Or is it the fact this year coming I'm not in therapy, I haven't got that weekly go to, to off load the anniversary dates, the memories, feelings or emotions..

At times I stupidly wish I was back in kabul to re run it all, or something substantial to happen, or to be stuck that I have to remain there its weird/hard to explain yet i think its because when you have come so far from a full mental breakdown to a stint in a mental hospital to finding you again and all the personal growth I have done, there is so much pressure to never not be ok, to not break down, to fight every single day and on some days its extremely hard, tiring and you just wanna curl up in a ball and vanish in your quilt for a little while. 

Emotions, feelings, everything that goes with CPTSD is at times so exhausting, confusing, and difficult to explain that you feel the most stupid person around. I think hence why I've wrote it down to try and see, understand myself that these blips no matter how longer after you have finished therapy are going to happen but you will be ok.

Be kind to yourself, reach out to someone, don't suffer alone or sit feeling confused that it spirals to disconnect from your normal connections.

Mental health is so complex 😪 

Thanks for reading 📚 take care and remember your not alone.