From Freeze to Forward Motion: Notes from the Edge

The Week My Nervous System Said “Nope”

I remember so clearly the moment a psychiatrist looked at me and said, “And you have PTSD.”

It wasn’t a question. More of an observation. And she’d figured it out after talking to me for only 30 minutes.

I stumbled over my words…

“Yeah, probably,” I said, “Not officially. Actually, it’s probably C-PTSD, not that that’s in the DSM. But anyway…” And I carried on.

But I was a bit taken aback. I thought I was pretty good at masking. That I came off a bit rattled or scattered when I was struggling, but you know, I mostly kept it all together.

I thought I was fooling people.

And while I’d known that I had PTSD, there was something about a professional confirming it so casually that had me rushing home to disappear down a Google rabbit hole.

That was a few years ago.