PTSD. A Battle I Couldn't Win By Myself

Depression. What does that conjure up inside your mind? Someone who feels under the weather? How about things have gone bad this week so I feel a little bit depressed this weekend? Or the walls are closing in, I can’t stop digging this black hole and when I look upwards, outwards and sideways all I see are walls covered in woe, gloom, and the inability to do anything right. I don’t feel like doing anything as it will only be a disaster and that those people who are still your friends laugh behind you’re back.

Well I feel those thoughts and more, sometimes for days or weeks on end. For 11 years I have suffered from something that first came to prominence back in 2000. Then I just shrugged it off after nearly losing my job, twice. Sure I sought help from my doctor who put me on “happy pills” but after a while I stopped taking them. Big mistake. It continued to slowly creep up on me like a tiger tracking it’s prey. It uses the bushes and grass to hide itself from it’s unsuspecting prey then as it draws near pounces and kills the prey in one movement. Well that’s what happened to me, this black plague slowly crept up on me inside my head until it was strong enough, then it pounced. As it ravished my brain and sent my good thoughts scurrying it kicked me up and down hill and dale leaving me battered, bruised and badly injured. I lost everything from a stable home, woman of 18 years, money, everything including my sanity.

As I sat there in a tiny one bedroom flat one Saturday I cried, cried and cried some more. Everything and everyone it seemed had deserted me and I was alone. I sat on the kitchen floor, took the pills and drew deep lines in my arm to release the pressure. This black death that had ambushed me and my brain was just too powerful for me to beat, as the last of my sanity was flung into the deepest, darkest corner of my now misfiring brain I popped more pills.

Leaving hospital I made myself a promise. A promise that I would fight this horrible thing inside my head to the death. For three years I fought back. Sometimes my good self won battles, other times I lost but I never gave in. One thing this demon did to me was make me believe everything I said was ok and it deserved to be said. I released tons of abuse at a friend who had kindly taken me in when I had nowhere else to go. Time after time I would unleash verbal nonsense at them for the smallest of things, but each time they came back, sat me down and told me I was wrong. Deep down I knew I was wrong but just couldn’t help myself. At those times I really hated myself for what I had become but continued to fight. Little did I know that it wasn’t depression but PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You see I am an Army veteran with two tours of Northern Ireland under my belt, the last tour back in 1990 when the troubles where still going on.

Then in 2010 I couldn’t fight anymore. My mind and body had just lost all will to fight anymore. As I began to shut down, my mind or what was left of it, pleaded with me to seek help. Then it was over run by the forces of evil in a blitzkrieg so harsh and powerful it knocked me sideways. As I picked myself up I sought help. I am now having therapy which I look forward to every week, but there’s a downside. Inside my head “it” knows I am getting help and it’s doing all it can to make life difficult for me. The feeling’s of darkness, foreboding and uselessness have returned stronger than ever sucking me back towards that black pit I dug years ago. I cling to the edge by my fingernails desperate to hang on to the sanity which had slowly returned over the last few months, but it’s difficult. I have had days of tears, tiredness and abuse from a mind so filled with this black fog it’s difficult to see any goodness, but I fight it. I fight it and will continue to fight it until I win because I never give up, and I do not intend to give up on a fight now. All I needed was a little guidance as to which path to take in life and thanks to therapy I am beginning to see which path I should take. Writing everyday helps even if it’s only a couple of sentences, it helps to keep this demon away and my mind thinking positive thoughts. Yes I will win but it won’t be overnight and I may even lose the odd battle, but the war will be won eventually, by me and my good self.