Nightmare.

I've been having nightmares and night terrors again.

They are nothing that you would think was scary.  No monsters.  No horrible acts. Rarely any chasing. Usually, it's just breathing and blood.   Last night, it was white golf pants with their familiar white belt.

I'm so used to the nightmares that I rarely wake up.  With a racing heart, I sleep through them like a visit from an old friend.  I wake, dripping in sweat, only if D. wakes me or if the alarm goes off.

Then I spend the day in a kind of nightmare hangover - exhausted but too frightened to go to bed again.  Not sleeping only makes it worse.

The beta blockers help but only if I know I'm agitated  and can take them when I go to bed.  They won't help tonight.

There's no comfort for me.  Only reprieve and remission until the nightmares return like they have for the last 42 years.

Why am I telling you this?

Because I live with complex PTSD and have since I was a very small child.  The media makes PTSD folks out to be complete wackos.  There's so much misinformation that I get tempted to write volumes on the topic.  It's my professional expertise, and my personal experience.

Yes, I've been to therapy.  Yes, I've had every treatment known to human kind.  And I, like most PTSD patients, lied to my treatment professionals and said my PTSD was gone.

Turns out that's biologically impossible.  There's only reprieve and remission.

I suffer a natural, logical consequences of some super shitty experiences. Does that make me crazy?

Don't be stupid.

This is my life.

This is a part of me like my brown eyes or the cleft in my chin.

But tonight?

I only wish I could sleep.

-----