post for invisible illness week

[goddessfarmer]

This is the face of PTSD. I know there are others among my usual readership. For a long, long time I was diagnosed with depression and told to 'snap out of it'. Even my favorite shrink in college, who did a lot towards getting me functional again after my hospitalization, failed to see the PTSD. Hence, I've been in and out of near-suicidal depression since I was in 8th grade. In the summer of 2006, I almost gave up hope. To those of you who prevented that, I thank you. You know who you are. I am blessed to have the resources to be getting high-quality treatment, but it is a slow process, and there is no "cure". There is only management. I never know when I will be in a triggering situation that causes my brain to cease to function and sends me running away. And I will never be free of that. The best I can hope for is to be able to recognize those situations before they trigger me and walk away. But there are still going to be times when it's not possible to walk away. For those times, there is medication, if I can see it coming. But when I loose - I loose all rational thought and behavior. I return to a state something like a toddler having a temper tantrum or crying fit. Once that happens, there is really nothing I can do except to ride it through until the storm wears itself out. It's embarrassing. It takes a lot of my energy away. I am usually a day or more recovering. My other 'invisible' illness, asthma, is much less disruptive to my life, and predictable in it's management, but still needs to be accounted for EVERY day by remembering and counting medication and diet.