I have a good life…

(Written in October 2010)
I have a really good life. I live in a beautiful place, I have meaningful work, I don’t need to have my life be any different before I can enjoy it. I got a taste of what that felt like earlier this year. For several months I was comfortable in my body and in my life. Then, some time in August, I lost it. My ability to enjoy my life is dependent on brain chemistry, and although I’m on medication that was working brilliantly, it’s not working right now. One of the things that’s very confusing is that my brain chemistry is rooted in PTSD, and that means I can be triggered into despair and/or terror, at the drop of a hat. Sometimes I know what triggered me but often I don’t, it’s usually something so tiny I don’t even notice it. And even knowing what it is doesn’t always help. I hate being so vulnerable. It makes what could be a good life an endless struggle. I have to work very hard to manage my vulnerable, highly sensitive self. Most of the time it feels like a tiresome chore that I just have to keep doing. Occasionally there are moments when I feel wonderful, it’s great to be alive. But most of the time, especially when something goes wrong — like finding out I have no safe container to carry the water I need to keep drinking — I just feel like I can’t move again. What’s the point? I just want to lay down and be done with it. If Death showed up in front of me and said “It’s your time” I’d say “thank god” and fall into his arms.
Eleanor told me she had been listening to a book on tape, about a Black boy who committed a crime but was sent to an alternate program, and what his life was like and how hopeless it is when the decks are stacked against you. She also talked about people in disasters, earthquakes, or hurricanes. I said the difference with those situations is all the people around you have gone through it too, they know what you’ve experienced because they’ve been there. The trouble with being me or Eleanor, struggling with invisible internal demons, is that most people around us have no idea what we’re going through. They often say things that are hurtful, that trigger old wounds, they hurt us badly without even meaning to. Sometimes the things they say that hurt are how they are trying to help us.