Freud and Me

Every disease I’ve ever had has ended; even HIV has evolved into nothing more for me than taking a daily pill. And like HIV, asthma has, for me, evolved to nothing more than two deep inhales on my puffer each day; I never have asthma attacks any more. But this PTSD is relentless.

I became a mini-festival of symptoms when I arrived at Crystal’s on Sunday. I went early to be with the family and left when the birthday party guests arrived. I settled down after about ten or fifteen minutes but it’s a relentless condition.

Perhaps I’m in the “fed up with it” stage; I’m tired of stuttering, jerking and explaining what I can barely explain.

Back home, in sunshine and with Leon, with good food and chocolate cake … I returned to feeling myself. I love people but Beth was right to anticipate going to Crystal’s would drain me. Beth stayed home too last night, resting in the same sunset on Bruce’s couch and fighting a cold.

We postponed the dinner we were to have together to tonight and I’m having lunch with Chris and Frani, my friends from Whistler. Tomorrow, Beth goes to Tofino for a couple of days and I go back to working on my script and dresses.

There’s no sun today but the week doesn’t look bad at all. The endless rain seems to be over and we are in an alternating pattern now.

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I watched a documentary about Sigmund Freud that had a scene in it that rocked me. After he set up his practice in Vienna, when he was still unknown and his theories were not being accepted, he established his reputation by recognizing shell shock for what it was. It was Freud who determined that the origins of the physical disabilities afflicting so many surviving soldiers were in their brains. It was Freud who recognized that they had psychological damage and the symptoms that convinced him were speech “interruptions and distortions” and myoclonic movements — exactly my symptoms.