I am using water as an example of how this hits me, when it hits me. Since psychologically a calm place for me involves still water, you’ll see how easily that calm turns into a nightmare. Incidentally I am absolutely fine right now, it’s just I was asked to describe how it feels, so here it is. I endured the worst of this over five years, when the aftermath of rage and anger from trauma was hitting me at regular intervals.
You’re sitting calmly in what centres you. Everything is still, you might be working on something, or reading, or just breathing. Nothing is really going to bother you like that, right?
WRONG. Psychological damage from trauma makes things…interesting. I could go into detail but no, the point here is to try and convey the sheer level of violence CPTSD inflicts on your body. It starts in your mind, but it chews you up and spits you out, and leaves your cracked bones in a pile on the floor.
I’m floating in a body of still water under a dimming sun and everything is serene and then..
..a shockwave punches through, my entire form jolts violently and the water turns to hard and crashing waves that smash me against the cliffs that just appeared out of nowhere. My body goes into survival mode, adrenaline and anger hissing through my veins, burning and ripping any sense of calm I had to utter shreds. Images flash through my mind, I instinctively try and cover my eyes but that doesn’t stop anything, they’re still flashing at me, faster and faster, hitting me psychologically like being slapped in rapid succession.
I can’t breathe.
Why did this hit me now? What was I doing..waitwhat?
The answer is nothing. You don’t get to decide when this demon comes at you, and he always comes fast and hard. You can’t outrun it, I’ve tried that.
It’s raining so hard the water feels like angry bolts clawing at my skin, and it’s almost as if they’re going to pierce through at any moment. My skin actually reddens as if this was really happening; it’s not but that change in skin colour is a stress response. In the real world outside my head, I’m probably gripping the side of a counter, white knuckled and snarling towards the floor. My dog will run to my side and paw at me, coax me away somewhere softer because he can smell this happening, the change in my body, the change in my mental state, the fact that I’m breathing so raggedly that I’m probably going to keel over.
Every. Inch. Of. My. Body is shaking and I’m covered in a cold sweat sheen that feels like ice creeping over me, poisonous needling fingers scratching me, grabbing me around the throat, clenching the life out of me, snapping every part of me slowly. If my dog did his job right (and he does, gods love him) I’m horizontal or curled up in the tightest ball you could ever put yourself into and then…I’m at the mercy of the inside of my head.
Close your eyes.
It’s dark now, the sun isn’t anywhere to be found. The cliffs are cold and dark and merciless. The water foams and collides viciously against them, but that water isn’t just water. It’s looking for me, and it twists and turns through the air in great liquid coils that stab through the increasing onslaught from the sky. it’s loud, so f*cking loud, but my dog is curled around my back with his head on my neck to ground me.
Take a deep breath. Hold it. Close your eyes. All that anger and trauma is circling around me, shockwave after shockwave knocks me around to different points on the water, but I don’t sink down into it, I am standing on it, the skin on my battered bones rippling with each impact. I can never outrun this, but does that mean I’m not going to fight it? F*ck no. F*CK. NO. Stand firm.
People ask me, how you minimise this, how do you make it stop as quickly as it started? Here’s the thing; you don’t. I never do. I let it wash over me and feel everything it’s trying to make me feel. That doesn’t mean I’ll bend easily though.
Stand firm. When the next coil comes at me, ride it. Get on board and let it wash over you, I tell myself. I let it tear at me, I let it rend me apart until it settles down and disappears. I do the same with the next one. I raise my hand, my arm outstretched so I can connect with it, and PUSH. If it makes me sob until I vomit, then so be it. If it makes me faint, then I’ll wake up later. If it makes me scream myself hoarse, then I will do that until all you’ll hear is breathless rasping. This level of trauma, rage, and gutwrenching fear can make your mind crumble and crush itself to dust. You can be laid there like a hollowed out carcass, cleft like the inside of an ocean battered cave. You will be reduced to base animalism, strewn across the destruction of your own mind and body to be pulled back together, slowly.
..and only when you’ve hit this head on every single time it lays waste to you, only then can you breathe out and drift off. This kind of attack turns you into a flesh covered bag of bones, beyond exhausted and numb. Only when you get to that point can you sleep, and hope it doesn’t come for you again when you’re dreaming.
And so there I am, I come round and I’m laid on a black sand beach, soaked to the core and heavy like lead. I can feel the water lapping at my toes, reaching up over my body to pull me back out into the still water under a dimming sun, which is where the calm place is until the rage hits.
It’s incredibly cyclical, and unless you have access to some hardcore drugs and regular therapy, you’re on your own. Turns you into one strong f*cking human though, I can tell you that.
