I'm Okay With PTSD

It seems odd to say and read it, but I am starting to see PTSD as a glass half full. I realize that life with a bad stutter and “episodes” (as I have now renamed my infrequent and short-lasting experiences with loss of muscular control) has its advantages:

• I live in a kinder world. Perceived as “disabled,” I trigger empathy in many clerks, managers and administrators.
• I positively thrive on solitude and that’s a good thing for someone who is alone a lot and for whom solitude was formerly anathema.
• I have a heightened sense of attachment to friends; I am less affected my loss.
• Having a psychiatrist whom I trust and respect completely is unexpectedly wonderful. Her presence in my life is a little bit coach, a little bit “sisterly” (familial) due to nature of what we discuss. It’s wonderful to have such an insightful and brilliant mind at my disposal — and for my betterment — for an hour every week. I don’t have to ask my friends for their advice; I can just enjoy their company.
• Intolerance aside, my symptoms have provided highly interesting and provocative topics for many discussions with Dwight and Bruce.  Things like being able, for a while, to count to twenty out loud very easily but it was impossible for me to say eleven no matter how hard I tried or practiced. Same thing for the days of the week: I could say all of them out loud except Saturday. The variety and aspects of all my symptoms have intrigued us.
• My physiotherapy is focused on the muscles in my neck, diaphragm and back that tense then relax with every stutter. The incessant tension/release cycle makes my muscles ache. Christopher has spent twenty hours working intimately on my body—me, a guy whom no one touches and who’s uncomfortable with touch. His empathetic character, the touching, the talent of his touch and the healing I experience from it, plus the fact that we talk while he works on me has made me like him like a friend. It’s very nice and I see him every week.
• I used to love to read and sometimes, for the right program, watch TV but both activities are intolerable to me since the onset of PTSD symptoms. I’m too restless to tolerate the stillness. But writing can calm and settle me.  I am writing more, better and enjoying it more than at any time in my past.

So life with PTSD ain’t all bad.

Walking, Chocolate and PTSD Reactions

Yesterday, I was on the seawall bright and early. It was truly lovely to have all ten kilometres almost to myself. Later in the day I walked to my physiotherapist's and for a long walk along the west side beaches. All in all, I walked twenty kilometres. It was 24°; a perfect summer day.

During my walk, I passed a chocolatier quite close to my house. They import chocolate and chocolate products from all over the world. The charming staff person who was there gave me quite an education — I was there only customer at the time.

I was stunned by the variety of flavours the chocolate develops when grown in differing locations. I was really enthused by the flavour of Ethiopian chocolate. I bought two different bars, 75% chocolate and not terribly sweet and have become a daily chocolate eater. I also bought a bag of "nibs." 

Nibs are tiny roasted pieces of broken cacao bean shells. They have a chocolate taste but they are not as sweet as chocolate and their flavour. And they have a lovely fruity/nutty flour and, as with chocolate, the flavour varies depending on their growing conditions, how much they are roasted.

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I am getting used to being a bad stutterer and a person who has seizures, as are my friends. Yesterday brought me a rather unique experience. I was walking along the beach with an "inappropriate" friend. He's inappropriate because he has mental health issues that he exacerbates with drugs and alcohol. 

When I picked him up, I knew he'd been drinking. He'd been at a nooner; a Canadians mid-day baseball game. And while walking, we came on two women friends of his who wanted him to join them. I stayed at a distance and when he came to ask that I join them I was resistant because they were strangers and I'd stutter very badly.

He wanted me to sit and wait for him for half an hour but I didn't want to; there was no shade nearby. My friend got angry, unfortunately, and it was like having a lovers' fight. I am not at all used to conflict with a friend, so all I wanted to do was just take off but I couldn't because all his stuff was in my car.

It ended well, but I've added the experience to a lengthening list of responses to my PTSD or to the choices I make to prevent symptoms from overwhelming me and bringing on a seizure. I've been laughed at, caused people to call 911, overheard an acquaintance say how much she hated talking to someone like me and mistaken for drunk. However, most people treat me with kindness and patience.

It's Dull But It's Life

I walked the seawall for the second time this week. It feels good to get back to one of my favourite traditions. Each time, I have at least one epiphany-like moment — not of insight, but of glory, of union, of being part of the eternal story. I think I feel what you are supposed to feel at communion. The Catholic Church was not my path to spiritual satisfaction; I found it in the natural world.

I think as I walk. I think about what I see, I recall and review recent experiences and conversations, I anticipate my future and, most practically, I have always used my time walking to plan my writing and craft projects.

And speaking of projects…

My untitled collection of conversations progresses slowly—very slowly. But then it’s summer time and so I give in to my passion for walking. Come fall, however, I expect I’ll be more diligent.

My past scripts used chronology as the thread through a true story very heavy on plot. This one is different. Nothing happens. I’m hoping to engage the interest of readers with the ideas tackled and the language in which they are expressed.

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I have never liked football; I couldn’t bear to watch a game. And soccer has never engaged me either, but oh my God, the ruby sevens in Rio are arresting. I find it the most elegant of contact field games. You can see everything; the scrum and the line is such a beautiful sight when executed by teams like New Zealand and Fiji. I am totally hooked.

But please: Could we lose golf? And could we talk about the costuming. And honestly, the make up and costumes of the female gymnasts and the beach volleyball players is deeply off-putting when compared to what the men wear in the same sport.

Mark Tewksbury: Shut up and go home; your criticism of Michael Phelps was inappropriate. Go back to the shadows and take the CBC analyst for rowing with you.

Olympic commentary: Stating the obvious with clichés and lots of repeats, repetition, recapitulation, reiteration and recurrence.

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I spent yesterday and this morning alone. At around 1:00, I decided to have lunch at a park outlet. By then, I’d been up and “talking to myself” in my thoughts for eight hours, so when I went to order my food and stuttered badly, I was shocked. I forget I have a speech impediment after a couple of days not speaking.

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Last night I went to my friend Nicola’s and then to Pastis for dinner. We drank champagne before we went to the restaurant and she served me some of her crab bisque cappuccino. She is a bit of a miracle. She moved here to care for her father and met a man and so it was easy for me to fit into her new life as she built it here on the other side of the continent from her former home in Nova Scotia. We have a priceless level of compatibility; it’s a rare and wonderful to make a new friend in my seventh decade.

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And now we have great weather for the next two weeks. Yay!

Fuckin' Eh!