Why Not?
I haven't posted to this blog in a very long time. My friends seemed to have lost steam on their blogs as well. I guess that goes with the territory. For me, it was just a lack of caring about anything. I didn't even play guitar for about a year, despite the fact that I played every day for 25 years. But life seems to be coming back.
In January, as you may or may not know, I came rather close to losing my life with a throat sickness that closed my airway. Some folks use that escape clause as a new lease on life. It didn't work that way with me. With a series of deadlines facing me, I had to delve into my work, only in a couple of months to start experiencing signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It soon went rampant, and I've been dealing with it ever since. PTSD is insidious. Especially for someone like me, who doesn't think he is worthy of it. Leave it to the soldiers. The worst part of it is its unpredictability. I'll be feeling fine and then, BAM, there is something that will trigger it. For me, the bad days include a constant reliving of the moment I lost my breath, and any weird cough will start it. I have found my emotions to be on overdrive and unpredictable. I used to be quite stoic; now, I find myself sobbing at weird things. I also find myself lashing out in anger at times, usually to the pain of my family and especially my poor mother. My sleep habits are out the window. I find myself off balance at times, perhaps due to the hypoxia I had during my minutes of not breathing, but perhaps not. In general, there was a feeling of ennui and a lack of focus. I just couldn't concentrate on things very long. Which is not good for someone on his last legs trying to write a dissertation. I withdrew, became a recluse and developed a sense of agoraphobia. This still haunts me: last week, I had to leave the department Xmas party early because my agoraphobia reached a critical mass in the house and I started to kind of freak out. This didn't happen when I went with my mom to my dad's college reunion, and I'm still wondering why. Probably because it was less confined, more space.
Anyways, the days since that have been up and down, but the not-bad days are definitely getting more frequent than the bad days. And suddenly, I found myself writing again. I got my hopefully final draft of my prospectus in, and hope to work on my incomple chapter I started in March. So, I thought, why not the blog? Work through things, I thought. At least you can chronicle what PTSD is like and do something. So I'm going to try. That's all I can promise.
In January, as you may or may not know, I came rather close to losing my life with a throat sickness that closed my airway. Some folks use that escape clause as a new lease on life. It didn't work that way with me. With a series of deadlines facing me, I had to delve into my work, only in a couple of months to start experiencing signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It soon went rampant, and I've been dealing with it ever since. PTSD is insidious. Especially for someone like me, who doesn't think he is worthy of it. Leave it to the soldiers. The worst part of it is its unpredictability. I'll be feeling fine and then, BAM, there is something that will trigger it. For me, the bad days include a constant reliving of the moment I lost my breath, and any weird cough will start it. I have found my emotions to be on overdrive and unpredictable. I used to be quite stoic; now, I find myself sobbing at weird things. I also find myself lashing out in anger at times, usually to the pain of my family and especially my poor mother. My sleep habits are out the window. I find myself off balance at times, perhaps due to the hypoxia I had during my minutes of not breathing, but perhaps not. In general, there was a feeling of ennui and a lack of focus. I just couldn't concentrate on things very long. Which is not good for someone on his last legs trying to write a dissertation. I withdrew, became a recluse and developed a sense of agoraphobia. This still haunts me: last week, I had to leave the department Xmas party early because my agoraphobia reached a critical mass in the house and I started to kind of freak out. This didn't happen when I went with my mom to my dad's college reunion, and I'm still wondering why. Probably because it was less confined, more space.
Anyways, the days since that have been up and down, but the not-bad days are definitely getting more frequent than the bad days. And suddenly, I found myself writing again. I got my hopefully final draft of my prospectus in, and hope to work on my incomple chapter I started in March. So, I thought, why not the blog? Work through things, I thought. At least you can chronicle what PTSD is like and do something. So I'm going to try. That's all I can promise.
posted by cc at
1:56 AM
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