Living with PTSD

Living with PTSD is challenging. The experience is individual. Some have flashbacks, some suffer from poor sleeping, others have anxiety, depression and a whole host of underlying ailments. A friend of mine had once a boyfriend with PTSD and described his ailments. She sent me a poem that I would like to pass on to you who read this. In the hope that it touches you as much as it touched me.

My brain and

heart divorced

a decade ago

over who was

to blame about

how big of a mess

I have become

eventually,

they couldn’t be

in the same room

with each other

now my head and heart

share custody of me

I stay with my brain

during the week

and my heart

gets me on weekends

they never speak to one another

– instead, they give me

the same note to pass

to each other every week

and their notes they

send to one another always

say the same thing:

“This is all your fault”

on Sundays

my heart complains

about how my

head has let me down

in the past

and on Wednesday

my head lists all

of the times my

heart has screwed

things up for me

in the future

they blame each

other for the

state of my life

there’s been a lot

of yelling – and crying

so,

lately, I’ve been

spending a lot of

time with my gut

who serves as my

unofficial therapist

most nights, I sneak out of the

window in my ribcage

and slide down my spine

and collapse on my

gut’s plush leather chair

that’s always open for me

~ and I just sit sit sit sit

until the sun comes up

last evening,

my gut asked me

if I was having a hard

time being caught

between my heart

and my head

I nodded

I said I didn’t know

if I could live with

either of them anymore

“my heart is always sad about

something that happened yesterday

while my head is always worried

about something that may happen tomorrow,”

I lamented

my gut squeezed my hand

“I just can’t live with

my mistakes of the past

or my anxiety about the future,”

I sighed

my gut smiled and said:

“in that case,

you should

go stay with your

lungs for a while,”

I was confused

– the look on my face gave it away

“if you are exhausted about

your heart’s obsession with

the fixed past and your mind’s focus

on the uncertain future

your lungs are the perfect place for you

there is no yesterday in your lungs

there is no tomorrow there either

there is only now

there is only inhale

there is only exhale

there is only this moment

there is only breath

and in that breath

you can rest while your

heart and head work

their relationship out.”

this morning,

while my brain

was busy reading

tea leaves

and while my

heart was staring

at old photographs

I packed a little

bag and walked

to the door of

my lungs

before I could even knock

she opened the door

with a smile and as

a gust of air embraced me

she said

“what took you so long?”

~ John Roedel (johnroedel.com)

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