PTSD Archive

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  • PTSD is mental illness characterized by reactions to a traumatic event (or multiple traumatic events) that interfere with one’s life. The person can continually re-experience the traumatic event(s). Common symptoms include insomnia, anxiety, flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, irritability, and anger.

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    My Experience with PTSD (Hanners)



Group Therapy – Panic and Anxiety, Session 1

Trigger Warning: mention of rape, sexual assault

This is the first of an 8 week series reviewing panic and anxiety from a group therapy point of view. It is based on the group therapy services available through Langley Memorial Hospital. Feel free to follow along and answer the questions posted in each section.

Session 1: Exploring Anxiety Disorders

Today, Like So Many Others, Is A Great Day

Editor’s note: This story mentions some severe triggers. Please be careful about reading this story if you are easily triggered by the topics mentioned in our trigger warning.

Trigger warnings: Abuse, including torture and child sexual assault, forced confinement, rape, violence, bullying, and hate crimes.

Yesterday/today was/is a great day. A day to celebrate. Any day that slaps me upside my head and and asks, “WTF you bitching about?” is always a great day!

Devotion

I would like to welcome the newest member of our writing team, Reba Overkill. In its first post with us, it speaks through poetry to recall its struggle with being heard by the people who matter. Thanks for sharing with us, Reba!

Trigger Warning: allusions to sexual abuse, self-injury & suicide attempts.

it all came together a few nights ago, weak and bent
in your lap, feeling lost, feeling like it was years ago when
i was never anything like the me that you know. i was
someone who was trying to speak, nobody listened and i didn’t
understand because i can hear so fucking well, i listened and
i heard sirens, and songs that i would sing with people who i did
not end up loving very kindly. i heard calm assertions by
people in authority that left cracks in parts of me. i heard
the breath i took in when i woke up and was not dead, even
for all my trying. i heard people leaving hints for their departure,
inclining heads towards one-way tickets to not existing.

“We Have a Process” or one TG/Intersexed/Lesbian/Decorated Veteran’s experience with the VHA

I would like to welcome the newest member of our writing team, Lisa O’Connor. In her first post with us, she tells us her story of dealing with the bureaucracy of the Veteran’s Health Administration. Thanks for sharing with us, Lisa!

New VA motto: “In VHA, Nos Pedicabo tu Cruda.” or “In the VHA, We Will Fuck You Raw.”
Very appropriate motto. Not necessarily needed, as anyone who has dealt with the VHA will attest, but it is kinda cool, almost akin to, “Spes, omnes qui ibi intra, – “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” (TY Dante)

Hyperacusis: the Shade Garden

the problem is there is no ethical answer.

one hello­­––from a stranger
: a cannon shot.

how are you––from a friend
: a packed audience
in a 360 degree stadium,
looking at me with a magnifying glass,
an echo chamber
hung on my reply.

my kitchen smells like food & i hate the smell of food

nothing fits.
what makes sense is not what i know.
i can’t function.
i am a crazy person.
there is a bird in my throat trying to sing.
why can’t it sing?