We Must Go On

Once a week I travel several miles away, at a cost of $10 round-trip, to see a therapist who is working to help me to deal with PTSD, which comes from both childhood sexual abuse, and military sexual trauma. It is turning out to be a very long road.

I actually started this journey about 30 years ago, while my life was constantly under the influence of alcohol, which wreaked havoc with me. Education choices were pushed to the wayside, to make room for the alcohol. Career choices were doomed due to the alcohol and the emergence of mental illness.

Back then I was diagnosed with depression, and was in and out of psych units for many, many years, sometimes for two or three months at a time. I was medicated to the point of over-medicated, experienced ECT, and had four auto accidents in two months time.

Unable to hold down a job, more medication than I thought possible, I was put on disability. It was two years later that I had my last drink, found new housing, and tried to build a new life for myself. I tried working part-time jobs, but due to hospitalizations, was still unable to hold down a job.

It is now, more than ten years later, that I have some sense of normalcy, as long as I continue with therapy once a week. If I have to go longer than that, abandonment issues, and anxiety start to rear their ugly heads.

This blog is serving to open new doors for me, people to meet who understand where I am, whom I understand as well. Almost eight years ago, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Add Borderline Personality Disorder, Schizo-effective disorder, and the PTSD, and my medication list got longer. It is so long, I can’t possibly remember everything I take, and have to carry a list around with me, or attach to medical paperwork that asks for medications being taken.

Today, I’m living my life alone, with no family but two brothers and a host of cousins around, but I have a life that extends past my apartment door, but not through the doors of a psych unit.

Along the way, I also found God, which, in the last six years, has turned my life around. With an understanding of my physical and mental health issues, and God in my life, I’m starting to spread out. I’ve made new friends, have turned others who turned away from me, back in my direction.

I’ve learned to accept the way things are today, to thank God for these days, and to go on, living a life that I never dreamed was possible. I learned not to quit, and no matter what life throws at me, I MUST GO ON!

Tick, Tick, Tick….

Ticktock (novel) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I sit here listening to the raindrops hitting the panes and sill; the only other thing I hear is the symphony of battery-powered clocks. It would not be so annoying if they ticked in unison, or they did not tick as loud. With each tick, another second has come and gone, a missed chance for something profound to come out of my head. Tick, tick, tick, nothing to do but listen.

~ van ~