Shadows

I wake up, I check the bathroom.
Alex is still asleep on the floor.
I pick up the sheets that were thrown off my bed while I slept.
I put them back on my bed, like I do every morning after I wake up from a nightmare.

What I do everyday, I call life.
What I do everyday, they call PTSD.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I am the poster child of PTSD.
Almost every symptom listed on the Internet describes my life.
Every symptom briefly summarizes my day to day life.

I have flashbacks to days I don’t want to remember.
I have nightmares of blood on the floor.
I have sleep disturbances triggered by memory disturbances.
I have strong traits of avoidance and hyperarousal.
I have impaired functioning.
I have Agoraphobia, the fear of being outside.
I have slight Xenophobia, the fear of strangers.
I have Aphrasia, the inability to speak.

Doctors say a lot of things, they don’t always tell the truth.

A doctor gave me pills and said “These will help, take one twice a day.”
They didn’t help and I stopped taking them.

A doctor gave me a shot and said “This will make it better.”
It didn’t help and I stopped seeing that doctor.

A doctor gently squeeze my shoulder and said “I’m sorry. We lost her.”
He didn’t lose her. I lost her. Viv lost her. Dad lost her.

Doctors lie and they give out pills that don’t work.
My life is a giant pill that doesn’t work.

&&

“Carson, will you pass me the potatoes?”

It was sunny, it was an unusually warm day for November. I practically ran off the bus, tightly holding a folded paper containing the words my current crush had written down for me. I’m eleven, and I run from the bus stop all the way to the my front side walk.

“Carson?”

I jump up the front steps and burst through the door. Vivian’s not home yet, but she will be any second. I don’t want her to read my note. I run straight for the bathroom, oblivious to the silence in the house due to all of my excitement. I open the bathroom door bursting with anticipation, dying to know what he’d written on that folded piece of notebook paper.

“Carson? Are you okay?”

I stop, staring at the body hanging from a rope. My last scream echoes through the empty house.

I cannot control the way my body moves, I feel like I have no control over my thrashing.
I cannot stop the tears and I cannot stop myself from kicking and scratching.
I cannot control when I have flashbacks.

Dave struggles barely while he escorts me away from the dinner table.
The sound coming from the kitchen is so loud it’s almost deafening.
Silence, meaning all eyes on me.
Viv. Lily. Alex and his friend, Tyler.
All of them staring at poor unfortunate Carson.

&&

“So what was with dinner the other night?” Alex asks, sitting in the computer chair at my desk.

I sit on the floor with Lily, coloring a picture of Shrek with green crayon.
I shrug and continue my coloring.

“So you freak out for no reason at all?”

I hate the way Alex makes me want to tell him things.
I hate the way Alex makes me feel like I have to explain myself.
I nod my head ‘no’ and reach tear an uncolored page out of the coloring book.

'PTSD. Look it up.' I write and hand it to him.

Alex’s dull brown eyes stare at me, and then he faces my computer.
Typing.
Clicking.
Reading.
Scrolling.

I cannot help but feel nervous, Alex is the first person I’ve told.
I cannot help but wonder how he’ll react.
I cannot help but hope he’ll understand.

I can feel him looking at me, I look up.
Alex blinks twice in the time we stare at each other.
Alex snaps out of his stare when a horn sounds from outide.

“See you later, don’t let this party get out of control.” Alex laughs and walk out of my room, once again laughing at what my life is.

I spend Friday nights coloring with a three year old.
I spend every Friday night coloring with a three year old.

My life is sad.
My life is pathetic.
My life is PTSD, among other things.