Good example JD of awareness and what that might mean. When I think of your original question Ygrec23 and how I feel today to the depths of me and that so many times in my life I have been so invalidated and I can now see that I have struggled with PTSD in many ways for many years just not knowing what it truely was.

When I think about your initial question, what I really think about is that my neighbors are very ignorant and no matter what I do, go, stay away, they are not truely going to understand how I feel. And even if I did go and stand up, they could very easily join together and defend their ignorance and deem me crazy in someway. It could end up very much like that school bus so many years ago where I would climb those steps and into an experience of watching a small boy who had a psychological disablity endure being picked on and verbally abused the whole way to school. I had no way of understanding the cruelty of that situation and I was truely frightened in so many ways. And how I had to endure the backlash of that in terrible ways that will forever be burned into my brain.

And in PC amongst those that struggle with different disorders or issues I hear the whispers of how difficult it is for them at work or in a relationship or dealing with family members and they have been needlessly hurt and they truely did not deserve it. To the depths of me all those messages truely resinate with me as I DO know those emotions and fears and feelings of being separate in a hiding that many will never understand.

But, I can also see what happens when those conditions are brought out in the open where others just may be informed in what it really means and how to think about these people who experience these struggles. Will some or even many continue to ignore that information? Yes I would imagine so and I too have experienced that. However, I also see that when significant voices finally speak and shed some light on that personal struggle and what it means, there can be true VALIDATION for that struggle and can lead to RESPECT AND MINDFULLNESS OF THAT STRUGGLE. And yes Madisgram, "the boy called it" one desire to stand and voice a truth.

And as I think of my desire to be able to go and stand among those people and point out how each of them has disrespected me and truely hurt me and what that means inside my mind and body, unless it was VALIDATED by another presence, it would be a cry in the dark, something all those who suffer know, OUTSIDE PC.

And I do know and have witnessed that when a struggle is presented by an individual that finds the strenth to actually do what I feel I would like to do, there can be an awareness amongst the many and VALIDATION and RESPECT can be accomplished.

So, your question in the beginning of this thread Yrgec23, was a good question a true desire to find a way for a VALIDATION and TRUE RESPECT and REAL SUPPORT to take place.

Open Eyes