Oh, let me tell you. First, I'll start off by saying that after not having a panic attack for months, I finally had one after tonight's episode of SVU and reading people's questions on IMDB about whether Olivia's portrayal of PTSD was overblown since
| she didn't really get raped when she was undercover last season, "just attacked." |
But oh, that's not all. At the time, I'd been talking with a guy on AOL who, like me, was a BGC fan. A few months after the shooting he came out to visit for a few weeks, then asked if he could move in with me and family, "to help out with Dad and be closer to me." Silly me, I said yes. Almost immediately after he moved in, which was four months after the shootings, three years of him more or less molesting me commenced.
In July 2003 I started experiencing tremors in my hands, which ended up spreading to my feet. I got an MRI done, an EEG done, and after all that the docs could find no physical cause, so they were chalked up to PTSD. And mind you, at this time I'd had pretty much no therapy (actually, I STILL haven't really had any real therapy), and since it'd been four years since the shooting, based on them observing me they couldn't really diagnose me with PTSD, just panic disorder. WTH?
I still have the tremors, but just in my hands. They're pretty much constant.
2004 was when the old relatives in the family started dying. Ones I weren't close to, but still it was sad. The end of '04 saw my great-grandpa dying, and '05 saw Dad's death, after many many health crises since his illness and paralysis, three months before my college graduation. Needless to say I don't remember a lot from that last semester, especially class-wise. In '06 Grandpa died from diabetes complications, and two months later I fell ill with pleurisy. I'll just say I wouldn't wish pleurisy on my worst enemy. Ok, maybe I would, and with no Vicodin.
September '06 saw a hostage situation at a high school in the next county over from where I lived, and I saw it go down live on TV. It was sad. And when VTech happened in April '07, I regressed almost completely. I went back to wanting to hide under my bed covers and just not be around anybody. That was a bad week to be around me.
And in September '07, my older brother hung himself. And that was when something inside me finally broke. I finally thought to myself, I am jaded. Nothing worse can possibly happen to me now.
And now of course, my cat is dying of cancer, which you all know about.
So yeah, recently I came to the conclusion that I am probably going to end up a bitter old woman, barking at kids that they can't complain about what's going on in their lives when I myself have probably gone through enough for my next three lifetimes. Emotionally, on the inside, I am pretty much dead. I still enjoy some things, and find disgust in some things, and most of the time I just fake it. People tell me their woes and I say the appropriate things, but in my mind it's just blank. I'm not thinking a darn thing. Even with the Finland shooting today, I just thought "Oh, look, another Eric-and-Dylan worshipper."
And apparently, judging from tonight, I'm still capable of having a panic attack, so I suppose I'm not totally dead. PTSD/panic disorder/whatever you wanna call it is still alive in me, much to my chagrin. So what am I going to do? I'm just gonna keep rolling with the punches, I guess. Part of the reason I'm still sane (sort of) is 'cause I just can't help but believe that things will get better. They HAVE to get better sometime.
It's been almost ten years. Things WILL get better, right?
(End rant.)
Despite me having more ideas.
