Just arrived here after quite a bit of half-asleep pointing and clicking around the net and thought I'd dip a toe in the water.

A bit about myself to start: I've danced around various areas of the madness-brilliance continuum all my life.  Brilliance?  Well, I don't pretend to be the sharpest crayon in the box - it's a big box and it's hard to stay sharp with all that friction, after all - but I have a range of gifts, abilities, and interests that seems pretty broad to most folks and I think I'm doing okay for myself.  Madness?  Mm, that one I'm a little more sure of.  My life's been teeming with it for as long as I can remember.

I was attracted to this site because I have been told I suffer from PTSD.  If you're going to engage with labels this is probably one of the more accurate cases of doing so.  Breaking down the acronym bit by bit, it's a fit from the start.  Post-Traumatic -  I have definitely been through enough trauma for several people already and I'm pretty young, which makes the whole thing that much more incredible and damaging.  Stress - yes, I've had a great deal of that too, thank you.  Disorder - I am practically an expert at disorder.  So yes, the label works well as a descriptor.

What I dislike about it is that it carries with it a lot of expectations, including an expectation that one will never fully heal.  Folks, I am very young and people in my family tend to live a very long time.  I have no intention whatsoever of spending the next 70 years with this monkey on my back.  I reject the notion that I cannot be free of this.  I have seen too much in my lifetime to believe this is impossible; in fact I dare say this is a very small thing to ask compared to the awe of the everyday processes of growth and healing that most of us take for granted.  Moreover I'm a strong spiritual believer and I don't believe anything is beyond God's power.  I have asked Him for much and He has given me much.  I place no limits on His power or grace.

Another expectation that people have regarding PTSD is that there must be "something I can take for it."  I'm never sure whether they suggest this because they wish to see me stop suffering or whether they simply wish to stop seeing me suffer - do they wish for a pharmaceutical way out so that my lot will improve or simply because they're tired of the sometimes troubled and disturbing view when they're around me?  In either case, I reject the notion that medication is an appropriate way out for me.

Now, part of the reason why I am here is because I've written on boards previously where the medical model was so entrenched that it seemed you couldn't be hip unless you were on at least 2 psychoactive meds, and people at times really stepped on my autonomy because I don't take medication.  To be clear on this:  if you take medication, that is fine - I recognize that for some people it is a tremendous source of relief and for some it is the only means they are aware of by which they can function.  You have a right to take care of yourself with pharmaceutical drugs, and I don't wish for you to stop unless you wish to stop.  You are captain of your own ship and without even knowing you personally, I have every faith that you are making the best decision for your life path.  I am only against medication for myself, because after much soul-searching and discussion with both good friends and trained professionals, I have come to believe it is not an appropriate choice for me personally.  Sadly the last place I blogged about my adventures in being a hurting human, people could not respect my choice...so I left.

On the whole I'm feeling good these days.  Some sad and frustrating things have happened - I just lost a pretty major 3D community, the man I loved abandoned me, a good friend died recently, I'm recovering from a minor but very disruptive problem with a pinched thoracic nerve - and yet because I am committed to facing my difficulties head-on, no matter how painful they are, I have arrived at a stronger place than ever psychologically.  In this place, as much as I may hurt sometimes, I am very, very tough to disable.  The wound around losing my community is fresh and bloody but I am already looking for a new place to go for support and inspiration.  I still cry over my friend who died but I hear his voice echoing through my mind every day, and I hope I do until I join him.  I wonder why I ever bothered with the man I loved - looking back, he had a lot of good qualities but he had some awful ones too - but I don't kick myself or him too hard.  We both have problems.  And as much as 2 weeks with very little use of one arm set me back in terms of schedule, heck, at least I live in a country where that means I go to the chiropractor rather than helplessly watching myself get slowly worse. I'll be okay.

I think I'll stop there for tonight.  Thank you for reading...and perhaps this new connection will turn into the beginning of something grand.