Living, learning and growing through post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been a benchmark of my life. When the PTSD attacks first started happening, I was 16. It had been less than seven weeks since my mom died. I was the one to discover her body. When they first started happening, I would seek solace in the bathroom where I could drown out the noise with music and the sound of the running shower so I wouldn’t alarm my siblings. When they first started happening, I thought I was dreaming a nightmare that was never ending. When they first started happening, I thought something was wrong with me. I thought I was hallucinating. When will they stop?
When they continued happening, my high school teacher discreetly slipped a note on my desk during class, telling me to head to the therapist’s office in the library. When they continued happening, I met with him once every other week to describe the inexplicable dreams — the ones that felt like it was happening all over again — and how they took over my senses. When they continued happening, they made me feel like I was back in that moment experiencing everything for the first time. When they continued happening, I began to withdraw from my hobbies and my friends, feeling isolated in a never-ending nightmare. When they continued happening, I graduated from high school and sobbed on the floor of the football stadium bathroom, clutching my chest so it wouldn’t explode through my skin. Who am I now?
When they progressively got worse, I woke up covered in sweat and couldn’t attend my classes at UCLA the next morning. When they progressively got worse, I failed a midterm because I felt one coming on and had to get up and leave. When they progressively got worse, the bus driver consoled me as I sobbed in the fetal position on the back of the bus for 10 minutes. When they progressively got worse, my roommates found me on the bathroom floor screaming in terror and suggested I seek support at the mental health facility on campus. What is mental health?
When I began to understand them, I had been receiving cognitive behavioral therapy services for eight months. When I began to understand them, I equipped myself with tools in my toolkit to prepare myself for them happening anytime, anywhere. When I began to understand them, I communicated to my friends and my family that I carry around a mango squishy in case the PTSD attacks ever pay me a visit and to immediately give it to me if it was out of my reach. When I began to understand them, I smoked copious amounts of marijuana daily to reduce the chance of them coming and to allow me to get a full night of rest. When I began to understand them, I was adamant that they would not control my life. Why did this have to happen to me?
When I accepted them, I began to smile again. When I accepted them, I began to incorporate them as a part of me, but not all of me. When I accepted them, I learned how to breathe properly, especially in moments when I knew my breath was all I had. When I accepted them, I started to teach my brain how to work with my body, allowing it to remember that the memory was not present-day. When I accepted them, I started to become more social, having fun in crowded gatherings and late-night bars. When I accepted them, I created space for my world to open, processing the grief through art and poetry. When I accepted them, I accepted myself. Where do I go from here?
PTSD has propelled me into areas of change that I never thought possible while simultaneously plummeting me into tunnels of darkness that left me without a visible way out. My PTSD attacks stole moments of joy, cheated me out of meaningful experiences, and ransacked the little bit of hope that remained in my heart. Therapy, patience, and time have been my only friends on the journey to co-existing with this diagnosis. For nine years, I have been on the battlefield, fighting daily with my own mind. Although it has taken so much out of me, it has produced a warrior who will never give up.
