Smiles

Since the beginning of my experience with PTSD, I have had difficulty making decisions. Even trivial decisions make me freeze up. I become overwhelmed with doubts, uncertainties, and sometimes even panic. I tend to abdicate any decision making to others. Or I make decisions at random without thinking about them or consulting others.

I spend quite a bit of time carrying on internal monologues to myself. I have to remind myself constantly to acknowledge my feelings but not to react to irrational thoughts or feelings. Some days it feels like I spend the whole day in one never-ending pep talk. It is exhausting. Therapy sucks. I work hard at being non-critical of myself. My life is so self-centric it is kind of ridiculous. I watch others working so hard to take care of me, and it makes me sad.

There are very few people who can grasp the magnitude of what I am going through, and I'm lucky to have people in my life who try so hard to help. I feel like I should be helping those wonderful people in my life more, but I always end up frozen in panic when I try to crawl out of myself long enough to make those kinds of decisions. If I commit to doing something and then fail to accomplish my goals, I end up punishing myself for that failure, which leads to days of withdrawal, depression, and fear of further failure. I have become a Master in the art of ambiguity. Everything is maybe. If I don't make a commitment then I can't fail. How is that for a defense mechanism? Reflexive ambiguity. Oh how the mighty have fallen! Ha! There I go again, time for an hour long internal lecture on the importance of being non-critical of myself, and not punishing myself for things I can't control.

I am being unnecessarily morbid about all of this. Unfortunately this is just how it is now, and I will eventually learn how to deal with it. No room for self-pity, and no taking any crap from judgmental internal voices. I will strive for objective neutrality in all things. I will fake optimism until the fake part falls away. Rah, rah, rah, go Team Me!