Power of podcasts: the PTSD monkey
I diagnosed myself with PTSD by a podcast. Later, because my health plan didn’t accept Max Linsky as an ‘expert’ by an actual psychologist. One day the Longform running in the background between snippets of Mac McClelland’s PTSD a Love Story and Max Linsky’s banter the dish water got cold. This was The Thing I’d been chasing for months.
Later in the therapist’s office I felt foolish. I told her about the three incidents that brought me to this couch. The voice in my head shouting “you don’t have this, you weren’t raped, you’re not a soldier, FFS nothing really happened to you”. This is the PTSD monkey.
I had a pretty typical Canadian upbringing, with the wrestling of polar bears, the building of igloos and the Eskimo kisses. Was more like monkey bars till the street lights came on, fighting with my siblings in the backseat of our Tercel and popcorn + Jean-Luc Picard with my grandpa after family dinner. My mom actively raised us ‘sheltered’. The first gun I’d seen was an antique shotgun in the back of my grandpa’s closet, I remember my brother and I speaking about it in hushed tones. As a kid, the WORST thing to happen to me was when my grandparents were robbed by a pack of teens. They had left the front door open (not like unlocked but like OPEN because Canada). Said teen hooligans ran in, grabbed whatever they could and out the backdoor. Crime and danger weren’t a part of my circle or my circles-circle or even to my knowledge my circles-circle-circle. Arriving in Cape Town I had absolutely no skills to comprehend the crime, violence and the fear those bring into the lives of South Africans.
Last year thing started to unravel in me. Slowly at first, then all of a sudden. It started when mid-sentence I would lose the word. The unable to read or comprehend anything written. I had tricks. First kill all the trees. Print out the volumes of the academic reading my job demands. Second, go to a silent room, no window? Even better. With a highlighter and notebook sit down and read the article 3–4 times. Make pages and pages of notes. Feel exhausted, give up, go home. Anyways, that where the real adrenaline rush was. Walking from work became a game of assessing threats. Like a video game, I would assess Every. Single. Person. within striking distance. Including once dealing with the abject terror of a very chatty boy on a bicycle.
When I moved to Cape Town in 2010, I was brazen. Outright refusing to accept the idea of a ‘dangerous’ Africa. Fearless after stamping my passport in over 10 African countries. I was unable to accept this thing who refuses to leave the house on Sundays to buy groceries.
Not to brag or anything but as a kid I won The Most Cheerful Award from grades 3–5. Suddenly I’m irritable at like, The World and certainly anyone who came across my, admittedly rarely placed, path. They should strip me of all those Smile Certificates. Refusing to unleash this beast on the world of shiny, happy faces, I retreated. It’s scary how simple it can be to refuse invitations until suddenly you’re off the map.
Isolation was easy. That winter isolating myself within a relationship that by its nature kept me glued to my phone, arms reach from the world and alone. Exhausted at the idea of sitting alone in an attic office, I isolated myself from work. Lost from my closest friendship that seemed to vanish overnight.
In The Psychopath Test the main character, Tony says ‘it’s a lot harder to convince people you’re sane than it is to convince them you’re crazy.’ I’d disagree. Convincing people I was fine was easy.
Protips: If anyone asks where you’ve been, plead busy, then be vague. Keep your facebook cheerful and well populated, same for twitter. For god sakes keep up your Instagram, shots of espresso from your local will work. Slowly, backstep from the world and they won’t even notice.
Somewhere in this, even I recognized that it couldn’t go on. Thankfully something began to scratch at the wall I’d so carefully built. Self-diagnoses is impossible. Maybe it’s my anxiety acting up. I’m suffering from exhaustion, who wouldn’t be after this year. You just need a holiday. The Xanax haze, the beta-blockers, the Norpramin dry mouth that all the sparkling water in the world can’t quench. South African GPs are only too happy to pull out the pad. Everything worked for a while until it didn’t. It wasn’t getting better it was getting bigger.
Until one day Mac McClelland. Until The Longform. Until people who did give an actual damn. Now I know The Thing is a Thing and I can’t wait to walk to work with my headphones on.
