A little Wiki this evening.

Complext Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD)

Child/Adolescent Cluster

1. Attachment - "problems with relationship boundaries, lack of trust, social isolation, difficulty perceiving and responding to other’s emotional states, and lack of empathy"

2. Biology - "sensory-motor developmental dysfunction, sensory-integration difficulties, somatization, and increased medical problems"

3. Affect or emotional regulation - "poor affect regulation, difficulty identifying and expressing emotions and internal states, and difficulties communicating needs, wants, and wishes"

4. Dissociation - "amnesia, depersonalization, discrete states of consciousness with discrete memories, affect, and functioning, and impaired memory for state-based events"

5. Behavioural control - "problems with impulse control, aggression, pathological self-soothing, and sleep problems"

6. Cognition - "difficulty regulating attention, problems with a variety of “executive functions” such as planning, judgement, initiation, use of materials, and self- monitoring, difficulty processing new information, difficulty focusing and completing tasks, poor object constancy, problems with “cause-effect” thinking, and language developmental problems such as a gap between receptive and expressive communication abilities."

7. Self-concept -"fragmented and disconnected autobiographical narrative, disturbed body image, low self-esteem, excessive shame, and negative internal working models of self"

Adult Cluster:

• Difficulties regulating emotions, including symptoms such as persistent sadness, suicidal thoughts, explosive anger, or covert anger

• Variations in consciousness, such as forgetting traumatic events, reliving traumatic events, or having episodes of dissociation (during which one feels detached from one's mental processes or body)

• Changes in self-perception, such as a sense of helplessness, shame, guilt, stigma, and a sense of being completely different from other human beings

• Varied changes in the perception of the perpetrator, such as attributing total power to the perpetrator or becoming preoccupied with the relationship to the perpetrator, including a preoccupation with revenge

• Alterations in relations with others, including isolation, distrust, or a repeated search for a rescuer.

• Loss of, or changes in, one's system of meanings, which may include a loss of sustaining faith or a sense of hopelessness and despair

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

A. Exposure to a traumatic event

B. Persistent reexperience (e.g. flashbacks, nightmares)

C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma (e.g. inability to talk about things even related to the experience, avoidance of things and discussions that trigger flashbacks and reexperiencing symptoms fear of losing control)

D. Persistent symptoms of increased arousal (e.g. difficulty falling or staying asleep, anger and hypervigilance)

E. Duration of symptoms more than 1 month

F. Significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning (e.g. problems with work and relationships.)

Just small, bulleted portions of a Wikipedia article I've been reading while listening to bit of Brideshead Revisited soundtrack. I felt rather compelled this evening.

Really, I'll be honest, I'm trying to convince myself that I really do have a right to feel the way I do sometimes. That it isn't something so completely abnormal. Lately its been a consistent roller coaster, where I can almost put a clock to when I'll start feeling poorly. It doesn't really help that I have PMDD either, but I'm not going to listen the symptoms for that.

The point is is that as much as I want to portray myself as a normal, sane human being, when it comes right down to it, I'm really not. I want to be, most certainly, but on the other hand I'm happy with what I have. I can't be happy with what I have all the time, but even for little bits, its nice.

Another reason for posting it is because I feel that some people don't really get it. That they haven' taken the time to actually understand that the steps I've made are phenomenal. If they do understand, I certainly haven't seen it.

To the technical, I was technically diagnosed with late onset PTSD, not C-PTSD, though I relate to the adult cluster greatly. At least lately I've been relating to to it. I can read those lines and go Yes, I do feel that way. Someone did find words for it, for me and anyone else who can't find the right words for it.

I can't fix myself. I can get better over time, but I can't wave a wand and make it all better. I can't force it either. Sure, at work, I can fake it, but once I get home I fall into such horrible fits. I have people at work that like me for what I could be and what I can show that I can be, when I try. I don't want them to see that I can't always be that. I have friends who have known me longer and seen the parts that are underlying, and I can't stand that they've seen it sometimes. I have family that can tell me exactly how I was years ago, and it makes me sick to my stomach that I was worse than I am now, though happy that I'm better.

But back then I didn't care how bad I was. Now I do, and I think thats worse. I'm more aware of everything. I can feel things properly, though I can't process them all that well. I ramble and babble, and make stupid comments that I have to back track and correct. I'm still a chronic lier, though I don't mean to be. I just don't think I'm all that interesting of a person. I savor times inside a car because I can just rant and vent and make myself feel better for a little while, but I can't always be in a car. I can't always rely on my mom, and have already had it proven to me that I can't rely on my brother. Of course, that makes me more clingy to my mom.

Its not to say that I haven't found people to rely on. I have friends at work who helped me when my grandpa died, and I have friends scattered all over that do what they can to make me feel a little more human and a little more normal. I feel more comfortable meeting new people, and I'm learning to control what I say. I'm learning that I can say things that are funny, and people do enjoy my company, even if I'm a little weird.

Despite having those connections, I find that I enjoy being shallow. I like talking about movies and books, and discussing things, but its all still shallow. I like people at their proper distance, because any deeper and they can see that I'm not right. I'm disconnected, and that makes me happy. I'm safe, with my very tiny circle of people I've let in. I'm easily slighted, and I hold those grudges because I need to be safe more than I need to have a friend. Its not fair to other people, but I'm a selfish person. I'm so selfish that I feel entitled to being selfish. I'm actually rather arrogant as well. Arrogant, haughty, selfish, and self centered.

My distance needs to be maintained, until a natural flow can occur. My closest friends are the ones who've allowed me to do things on my own time, in my own way. Ones who don't push and prod and pick me apart. I need that, more than anything. I need people to allow me to be shallow and frivilous, and never talk about anything of importance unless I really want to. Unless it occurs naturally. I can't handle people reminding me of the important topics when I'm trying to pull the reins in my head and bring everything back into its corrals.

Most of all, I need to be left alone. Left alone to my own devices. I get so angry that I scream and rant and snap over the tiniest things, but its better for me to do it that way than let it build until I explode and fall apart. I get bristly and closed off, wanting nothing to do with anyone for awhile, to the point where I'll yell at my own monitor even though they can't hear me. Those are times I need to be left alone. I'll come out of my hole sooner or later, and be better for it.

Just stop rushing me.