I am very, very tired, so I apologize in advance if this is just idiotic rambling. But here we go:
When the layman hears the term "PTSD", assuming he isn't ass-deep in Cheetohs and Candy Crush he would probably think of veterans, and rightly so; PTSD was first widely recognized in veterans under the moniker of "Shell Shock" and continues to be a significant issue facing our armed forces today.
However, as us-all-people know all too well, PTSD can come from other sources too; pick your poison, pick your trauma, multiply that by 1000 and you have a typical Aspie childhood. Nearly every single Aspie I have ever met shows obvious outward signs of having PTSD, and I only use the qualifier "nearly" because I've met one single exception.
This man, about the same age as me, had been diagnosed as a young child, grew up in an affluent and loving home, and must've been sheltered something fierce because he was shockingly naive about the ways of the world relative to his status in the global Autism community (for that reason, we'll skip the name).
But even though he was essentially a wet dish rag, he was fascinating to me. He was always smiling. His eyes were bright, and he had a sort of "glow" about him; he didn't look beaten-down, tired, and old like so many Aspies in their 20s that I've met.
And he loved people; he loved being around them. That's what screwed with me the most; we walked through the busy city streets to a loud, crowded restaurant and throughout the whole ordeal he showed no fear. No darting glances this way and that, no thousand-yard-stares, even his posture was good and he never lost that damn smile.
And thanks to a WW2 vet, I think I know why he was that way:
The vet said that after the war, the soldiers usually stuck together in the civilian world, because they figured out real quick that if you were traumatized as such, you HAD to be around people, "else [if you're alone] you get to thinking..." and then the man burst into tears, still haunted by memories from the 1940s.
But here's where things get complicated for us-people: the general sentiment I've gathered from the community, and that which I share myself, is that we have a need to be alone a great deal of the time. However, nearly all of us have PTSD, and I say that with total confidence.
Enter the conundrum: the way to remain grounded in the moment and not just reliving flashback after flashback is to be around people, and be engaged with them. Yet, because of our autism, we cannot tolerate being around people for extended periods of time. And so, we spend time alone, either literally alone or socially isolated in a crowd and thus are alone for all intents-and-purposes; and so we "get to thinking..." and spend a lot of time in our own personal Hells, haunted by the memories that constitute the timeline of our lives.
That's our conundrum. We are water, and the cure is fire. We are yin, and the cure is yang.
But I've learned from that vet who shared his story. I think from now on, I'll seek out the company of people rather than isolating myself from them when I'm feeling down. A tedious interaction about some nonsense might be just what the doctor ordered to cure those daymares.
When the layman hears the term "PTSD", assuming he isn't ass-deep in Cheetohs and Candy Crush he would probably think of veterans, and rightly so; PTSD was first widely recognized in veterans under the moniker of "Shell Shock" and continues to be a significant issue facing our armed forces today.
However, as us-all-people know all too well, PTSD can come from other sources too; pick your poison, pick your trauma, multiply that by 1000 and you have a typical Aspie childhood. Nearly every single Aspie I have ever met shows obvious outward signs of having PTSD, and I only use the qualifier "nearly" because I've met one single exception.
This man, about the same age as me, had been diagnosed as a young child, grew up in an affluent and loving home, and must've been sheltered something fierce because he was shockingly naive about the ways of the world relative to his status in the global Autism community (for that reason, we'll skip the name).
But even though he was essentially a wet dish rag, he was fascinating to me. He was always smiling. His eyes were bright, and he had a sort of "glow" about him; he didn't look beaten-down, tired, and old like so many Aspies in their 20s that I've met.
And he loved people; he loved being around them. That's what screwed with me the most; we walked through the busy city streets to a loud, crowded restaurant and throughout the whole ordeal he showed no fear. No darting glances this way and that, no thousand-yard-stares, even his posture was good and he never lost that damn smile.
And thanks to a WW2 vet, I think I know why he was that way:
The vet said that after the war, the soldiers usually stuck together in the civilian world, because they figured out real quick that if you were traumatized as such, you HAD to be around people, "else [if you're alone] you get to thinking..." and then the man burst into tears, still haunted by memories from the 1940s.
But here's where things get complicated for us-people: the general sentiment I've gathered from the community, and that which I share myself, is that we have a need to be alone a great deal of the time. However, nearly all of us have PTSD, and I say that with total confidence.
Enter the conundrum: the way to remain grounded in the moment and not just reliving flashback after flashback is to be around people, and be engaged with them. Yet, because of our autism, we cannot tolerate being around people for extended periods of time. And so, we spend time alone, either literally alone or socially isolated in a crowd and thus are alone for all intents-and-purposes; and so we "get to thinking..." and spend a lot of time in our own personal Hells, haunted by the memories that constitute the timeline of our lives.
That's our conundrum. We are water, and the cure is fire. We are yin, and the cure is yang.
But I've learned from that vet who shared his story. I think from now on, I'll seek out the company of people rather than isolating myself from them when I'm feeling down. A tedious interaction about some nonsense might be just what the doctor ordered to cure those daymares.
