After another bad dream I feel compelled to throw out to the world these fears and feelings that are haunting me as some means of trying to better come to terms with their strength and to resolve to combat them harder. Over the course of the last few years my post traumatic stress disorder has manifested itself the strongest it has ever done so in my whole life, brought on by the trigger of recent tragedies, I surmise. I wanted to share in case anyone is wondering just how PTSD can vary for different people and how they may come to define it. It is many things, so a short blog post will not really detail much but it is for me as though time is being unwound. When a flashback hits you it is as though you are living that moment again and again and again. My mood is intricately altered in various ways, my sleep is destroyed, my whole outlook on life is destroyed. You may have heard PTSD mentioned in connection with people returning from war zones and it is indeed sometimes people like that whom come to be diagnosed with PTSD. But we all can have our own wars and you need not be witnessing bombings and gunfire to be scared-pain is personal. A small cut on a child may make you breathe a sigh of relief but that cut to the child is their worst memory of pain to date. And that is just a simplistic, hypothetical situation; unfortunately children can experience as much pain as we can, like bombings, sexual abuse, fraud, deception, so anyone can be traumatised by what they experience in life. In the beginning, I was simply given diagnoses of severe depression, anxiety disorders, you know the kind of thing. Over the years I realised that these labels were not nearly enough and did not touch upon the things I had not been able to confide in staff during a lengthy stay in hospital. In part this is due to labels being an outdated and simplistic system which should only really, in my opinion, serve as a reference. A word to have one conjure up certain images and ideas but as a beginning and not as an end. I have depression but that does not define my behaviour-two people can suffer quite differently and yet- depression is depression. One would not expect either to be smiling deep inside.

Some random thoughts. I will post like this for now.

If you wish to share any mental health stories, please email me at barrystu@hotmail.com. Thank you :)