Trauma afterlife
HOW IT FEELS TO LIVE WITH PTSD
By Sara Atiyeh
(Nathan Dumlao / Unsplash)
A door opens and a door closes every day. Which one is it going to be today?
A flow of sadness or a flow of happiness, or maybe a mix of both is usually how my days go.
See, I’ve never wanted that. I want to be stable.
How can you be stable with a mind that’s constantly on the run?
A mind that can’t let go of what it has seen and what it went through.
A mind that has seen a life, where in a blink of an eye everything was shattered.
Shattered pieces spread so far from each other that fixing them together seemed impossible.
I’ve never wanted this; you were forced into my life.
I guess I was just living in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I can’t let go of these screaming voices in my head, they’re my friends now.
PTSD is my new friend.
Now let me tell you a little story of how my day-to-day life has been impacted with PTSD. I don’t remember a single memory from my childhood, but from pictures and stories my parents showed me, I know that it was a good one. I’ve never been able to figure out why I can't remember a single memory from my childhood, but I have learned to live with it.
And then when I was 12, the war started in Syria. Eight years of my life were spent during a war, which at that time felt like the hardest and most challenging period of my life. Most of my friends and family fled the country due to the war, and I was left having to start everything all over again.
I had to make new friendships, which were toxic, adapt to a stressful life, constantly wondering if “I was normal” because I didn’t fit in with the only friends that I was able to make. I was constantly anxious and worried. What if that was the last time I see my family? What if I die today? Being different from everyone else, being constantly anxious and worried, being in toxic friendships made my life feel like a mess, but what no one told me is what comes after.
Four years have passed since I moved away from my city, four years have passed since I moved away from a warzone, and yet these four years have been the hardest.
You would see me and think that I have my life together, a 21-year-old that goes to university, has A grades, works a part time job, is financially independent; what could possibly be wrong with her? Well guess what? I'm far from being fine.
My days have been a constant battle with myself and the people around me. I blame my overthinking for that. Overthinking has been my shadow for 12 years now, it is engraved in me, and no matter how hard I try, it’s always going to be my shadow.
I don’t know where to start in explaining how my days go, because they’re an absolute mess and especially an emotional mess. I usually have a great start to my day, where I am happy and feeling productive, and then all of a sudden, I get a wave of sadness and anxiety, where I worry about the most irrelevant things and everything goes downward from there.
I have specific thoughts that run through my mind everyday. Some of them are: “What if someone breaks into my house?” “What if everyone hates me?” “What if I lose my family or what if I die?” And let me tell you how hard that has been, because I talk to my family daily and if I forget someone I stay awake until I’m able to talk to them before I go to bed, in case something bad happens before I wake up.
Lately, my anxiety has lessened around my family back in Syria. I know that they’re hopefully okay, but on the other hand, I have been feeling purposeless and empty.
PTSD has been my friend for a couple of years, and will still be with me for the rest of my life. Even if sometimes things seem fine for a couple of days, or hours, I always know that PTSD is there, my anxiety and overthinking are waiting for me just behind the door that I’m gonna pick. Living with PTSD has been the hardest and most challenging part of my life, and I know that it’s going to be there for a long time. No matter what causes the PTSD, it always has the same daunting effect on humans.
I hope that this helps you understand PTSD emotions and know that if you have PTSD that you’re not in this alone.
This piece was written and shared during the IDONTMIND Writing Workshop. Learn more about our free, nine-week course and be the first to know about the next workshop here. Visit Mental Health Connecticut’s YouTube channel for a video version of Sara’s story.
Sara grew up in Syria and lived there most of her life. At the lowest point of her life, she found writing and ever since, writing has been a passion of hers. Her love writing about mental health and realistic fiction.
