Triggers

I hate having PTSD, I truly do. Depression and anxiety are my daily companions, PTSD just lurks in the background until something triggers a recall and it comes out to take me by the hand. I had that recall last Tuesday.

Some of you will know that I was in a minor fender bender Tuesday as I was leaving work for the day. A truck tried to blow through the intersection as I was driving through it and before I consciously saw it I was standing on my brake pedal but I hit it anyway. The truck then took off, fleeing the scene, and I had to chase it down and call the police. They finally caught us up and we all pulled off to the side for the accident report.

When I got out of my car to survey the damage, I made the mistake of saying the word “fucking” when I said it was new and hadn’t been there before the encounter with the truck. The officer became extremely agitated and exclaimed that I had to settle down or he wouldn’t be able to help me out. The feeling that surfaced, the fear and the need to placate him so that he would stay on my side, came straight from the court martials 28 years ago this spring. I could dig out my newspaper clippings for the exact dates, but it was spring when the first court martial was done and the second was pending. We had to wait until after Christmas to get started because one of the witnesses had to be allowed to go home for the holidays, and it was all done by the end of May.

That fear, though, really set me back on my heels, metaphorically. He calmed down and finished the report, was kind to me when he gave me the report number and let us go, but I was shaking and I thought it was the shock from the accident but that doesn’t make sense for how I’ve been since it happened. I can’t make any decisions! Well, I can until someone starts questioning or offering me options and then I collapse like a wet paper bag. I was talking to insurance today and she gave me too many choices for getting my car fixed and I had to tell her that I couldn’t decide today. Yesterday I called the VA about seeing a doctor for the pain in my leg and she kept asking me if I was sure I needed to see one, and I caved in and said it could wait until next week. It couldn’t, and I went to a walk in clinic where they stayed on track and gave me prescriptions to treat a strained muscle. I’ve never taken methylprednisolone before, I’m curious to see how it affects me.

My head is killing me from the stress, my blood pressure yesterday was 164/98, and I feel fragile. It’s an awful place to be. I guess it’s good to know that this can happen, I’m just not enjoying the experience. I’m falling apart tonight, the trigger for that was reading that Dorien Grey had died. You all need to quit dying, I can’t take it anymore.

I made art today. It helped.