An Important Thing

Hello friends,

I've been thinking about making a little post thing to give you a little update on myself, so here goes!

I may have mentioned it at some point but I doubt you'll remember, but when I was 11 years old I was really sick.

Basically what happened was, my appendix burst, and I got lots of infections and something called gangrene. (Which is disgusting, by the way, never google it.) Gangrene is where a large amount of cells die, causing tissue loss. It's pretty much where your skin/muscle starts to rot.

Then after I was initially released from hospital, the doctors found out I had a collapsed lung. So I was sent back into hospital to have a drain put into my lung to get rid of the fluid.

Now I'm gonna talk about the main reason I wanted to make this post; PTSD.

In the aftermath of my time in hospital, my parents started to notice I had become more angry, I tried to separate myself from friends from school and family members, and I had violent flashbacks of the time I spent in intensive care.

I was sent to a psychologist, where I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It's pretty much what it says on the tin.

A lot of people assume PTSD is only diagnosed in war veterans and soldiers, but this is far from true. Sexual abuse, child abuse and even car accidents can cause someone to develop PTSD, because everyone has different reactions to different life events.

I had a form of treatment called EMDR, which is a form of hypnotism to try and stop the association between a trigger and a flashback. It worked for the most part, I stopped having nightmares and flashbacks.

But 5 years on, I still often get triggered by certain things. Needles and thin tubes, people touching my ribs and sides, and sharp objects are my triggers, with needles being the worst. Even now as I'm typing this I had to stop and give myself 5 minutes because I could feel myself beginning to panic and shake even though I'm only typing it out.

I guess the point of me writing this was to try get people to understand more about PTSD, and maybe explain why I may go off and you don't hear from me for a week or so. I still have bad days where I feel helpless and scared of everything, but then I have good days where I may not react to anything (which are a godsend!).

I may even in the future involve PTSD in some writing, because I have done before, and it made me feel so much better. It made me feel a lot stronger, mentally. I think that it's a good idea that someone understands what is going through the mind of someone with PTSD, to raise awareness.

On a slightly less serious note, I got 3 university offers and I won a massive bar of chocolate at college today.

YEEHAW