I'm, well, as my user name says, I'm confused. A lot of things I see as just being, y'know, normal, being well, me... I was talking to someone recently, and they mentioned their PTSD and how hard it was dealing with it and did so in a manner that indicated they thought I had it as well. What confused me was that this was mentioned after I had all these "oh yeah, and you know how sometimes.." moments with this person about some things. I just, that can't be it can it? I'm just north of 30 and I've been the way I am since I was a teenager, so, I couldn't have had PTSD all this time could I? Someone would have noticed? The myriad of doctors who diagnosed my sensory related disability would surely have noticed right? Except I don't know, I've tried reading about it, and at what severity/numbers do individual components add up to this?

To me a lot of those things are normal. Bad dreams more often than not, yeah, that's normal to me. I'm not even sure what a nightmare is, people make it sound like nightmares are such horrible dreams you only have them occasionally. So by that definition, I have very few nightmares. I get agitated if I can't see the entrances/exits or have to sit in public places with my back exposed (need to have a wall behind me). Isn't everyone like that? I just assumed they were and were being really nice in giving up their seats at the walls to me.

I don't like being around people. I can't fully relax, not even around friends. I can barely relax around my closest family. Even then, some members of my family are not to be trusted, or can't handle me having any feelings other than fuzzy happy ones. I don't really show other feelings than anger and happiness, those two are ok, they're safe to show around other people. When I have in the past shown others the results have always been, well people have told me that I was not really supposed to feel any of those things and I should just cut it out.

I often times wake up just as I'm on the cusp of falling asleep with this feeling of intense dread - it's not just fear, there's a difference. It's the feeling I know from experience comes from absolutely believing someone is about to kill you RIGHT NOW! It obviously makes falling asleep again a tad... difficult. I sleep little and sporadically, and falling asleep is hard. Sudden noises will bring me to being wide awake, especially sounds of people, like noises from the street. Some people or groups that remind me of the people from school - loud groups of young men, they really, I get tense, my hand goes for any weapon I can find, my eyes look for escape routes and I know my body language must change, because once I feel this they usually turn aggressive in some way even if they weren't before. I change routes to avoid going past schools, gyms or swimming pools if they would otherwise take me past there. If I have no choice I try not to look and turn my mp3 player up. Doing that bothers me a little, if I'm listening to the music that loudly I can't hear if someone's behind me.

I don't really like to go out, not in daylight, most certainly not in crowds, and absolutely not without some means of protection. If I've had a really bad day and gone back to all the bad days I won't even leave it in the jacket. I'll carry with me even in my home, making sure whatever I'm using at the time (it changes depending on how safe I feel) is within reach when I go to bed. It's silly, I know it's silly, but it's like my head's stuck in security mode. I look at an open window in my home and I'm not thinking "Hm, some fresh air will be nice", I'm thinking "I need a better lock, someone could force that open". My family laughs at this, but I can't help it - it must be so much nicer to see all of these things the way they do. It seems like they are so much more relaxed, aren't tired all the time and don't get furious over something that in retrospect isn't a big deal.

Ok, have had some not terribly good times in my life. Getting bullied was certainly no picnic - although everyone's assured me it wasn't anything serious. Didn't break any bones or anything. I don't really remember. I mean, I remember a few fragments. The rest, I know it happened and other people remember it but it's like there's this fog covering all the other specific memories. All I have is these 5 or so fragments of specific incidents. And when I try to remember I find it hard to breath, and if I keep going after that my hands start to shake and my mind just sort of.. freezes I guess is the word? I have this one memory that's a good one, someone who was kind to me when I didn't expect it. For some reason I can't think of that memory without tears and I do not cry easily, that this one does it makes no sense to me. And that and some others pop up pretty regularly in my head. I wish the fog would take those memories too sometimes so they'd go away. Still, PTSD's just for more serious stuff right? Abuse, assault, war, natural disasters and major accidents? That's what it's always made to sound like, not something you get from just a few death threats, punches and getting run into traffic a few times.

Does any of what I write sound even remotely like PTSD to someone who knows more about it than I do? This not so long conversation I had with that guy kind of shook me up a bit. I figured someone here might know more about it as doctors of any kind are very hard to get appointments with where I live, takes forever and I have... poor experiences when it comes to discretion. So I'd rather not bring up something if I'm just gonna get laughed out of there, be told I'm crazy and imagining things and risk that information being spread around.