It took me 510 days to write this next instillation of this story.

The thing about PTSD is that it never fully goes away. In a sense, it’s in the name. From the first moment after It happens, your life will be post trauma. The impact of that Trauma, the reaching, twisted fingers that scratch and twist your experiences, can be bound but the scars it leaves behind are permanent. And, like skin, scars, when flexed, will forever be stressed – better with time and never the same. And so, it follows that the expected order of life will be disrupted in uncountable ways, large and small. It’s unfair. It’s maddening. It’s terrifying. Without any guidance, regaining control of life is insurmountable. Ezra Koenig put it best, “I don’t want to live like this but I don’t want to die.”

In the common discussion of wrestling with one’s life, an often used phrase is “it will [BLANK] if you let it.” Your job will wear you down if you let it. The stress will pull you under if you let it. Your dream will carry you away if you let it. PTSD doesn’t need your permission or cooperation. You don’t let it take over your whole life, because the source of trauma isn’t something you had power over in the first place. It isn’t something you did, something you were responsible for, something you let happen. It simply, rudely fucked everything up and left you hurt. To get control back of your life you have to fight for it. Wrest, rage, weed.

Alright. Cool. Thanks. How do I do this impossible thing then?

PTSD can happen when a traumatic event twists the way you perceive the world and/or yourself. Things you may have taken for granted before are suddenly in question. A person will go their whole life feeling confident when walking out and about but a random act of violence or a mugging can cut that perspective and leave a scar that whispers “I’m no longer safe in public.” This is called a Stuck Point.

After writing my trauma account, Lance helped me identify three stuck points that the trauma had left me with.

1. I didn’t do enough to help Jas
2. I have no inherent value and my only purpose is to avoid causing anyone strife
3. I’m a weak person for not wanting to have dirty hands.

Once identified, the goal is to peel back the layers of each stuck point to get at the heart of them. The negative emotions that stuck points inflict have positive traits behind them. In a sense, they’re as if the volume of the positive traits is turned up too high so that they become distorted and overwhelming.

To use one of mine as an example: a person whom I cherished more than nearly all others died young and horribly while I watched. I couldn’t help her feel better or even peaceful in her final moments, something I had been able to do up until that point. And even afterwards, I could do nothing to ease the pain of my family. The only thing I could think to do was, at the very least, make sure I didn’t cause any further sadness. The second scar meant “I care about those I love” became “I prioritise others before myself” became “other people’s needs must always come before mine” became “I have no inherent value and my only purpose is to avoid causing anyone strife.”

This left me in a constant state of fear. Not for myself, but for the impact the loss of me might have on my family. Sickness terrified me. I felt unsafe in public. I distanced myself from everyone. I was not allowed to come to harm, not because I cared if my body was healthy, but because my family had already dealt with enough grief.

And, of course, in harmony to this was the guilt of wanting to feel better. I cared so much and the loss hurt so badly that the idea of wanting to have improved mental health felt like a betrayal. Shouldn’t this loss affect me as harshly as possible? If I allowed it to lessen, would that mean I never truly cared about Jas?

The answer is no.

Working on stuck points did not mean I was letting go of all of my feelings about Jas. I still love her, miss her, regret some of the choices I’ve made, appreciate the time I had, cherish her memory, etc. Those are all positive emotions that were hidden behind the deafening noise of trauma. My goal was to reduce the distortion of high volume and be left with peaceful sorrow for the loss of my sister and best friend. In that, I could better live my life. The way Jas would want me to. It took me a long, long, time to come to terms with this and even longer to uncover the first two stuck points. I thought I was being sensible in working on them in order of hardest point to “easiest.”

I was incorrect. The problem of my hands was so so much bigger than I realised. But that’s for next time.

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If you sympathise with any of this, I urge you to talk to a doctor or a clinical psychologist about your experiences. I'm absolutely not an authority on mental health diagnoses. There are many different types of treatment for PTSD and what worked for me may not be the best approach for you. Only a qualified medical professional can say for certain whether or not you have PTSD and what the best path forward may be.