Kaleidescope

I was asked if I hold on to things yesterday, funny about that, I do. I have something called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, and I tend to relive awful experiences over and over in flashbacks. I feel the same emotions from years ago today as if I am back in that moment when something painful or hurtful was happening. It’s a weird experience.
I was talking to another person with PTSD, actually a couple of them, and I kind of got this image that the rest of the world sees things straight on and clearly while we, the mentally ill, look at the world through a strange kaliedescope of emotions and confusion. Our vision of the world contains bits and pieces of every bad thing that has ever happened. The good things are harder for us to see. I think it’s different for people who don’t have mental health issues, but honestly, I wouldn’t know for sure, the world has always looked thins way to me. It’s as if it is impossible to let go of old hurts and stop reliving the bad stuff.
I wish for one day other people could see the world through my eyes, feel my feelings, experience my experiences, but that cannot happen.
I have been accused of attention seeking, and perhaps that is true. I know that parts of me want attention, but I think the attention seeking is still a call for help. I have a need for help. I have trouble making sense of the world sometimes from where I sit. Therapy helps, especially my new therapist, and meds help, but friendships help a lot too. When I am with my friends I can feel normal for long periods. It hurts to have friends pull away because they don’t understand what all of this mess in my head is. It’s ok not to understand, or believe, or want to know about it. I just need people to care about me as they have done in the past.
In a perfect world no one would have mixed up heads. No one would have to try to sort out what is happening now from what happened in the past. In a perfect world even if there were people like me, friends, wouldn’t care, they would just love and accept us for who and what we are, like being gay or lesbian. I didn’t choose to be a lesbian, and I didn’t choose to be “damaged goods” either.
In a perfect world pot would be a legal substance like beer, controlled, taxed, etc. but would be available to people who need it. It wouldn’t keep you from being employed, it wouldn’t be any worse than caffeine or nicotine.
I also have this damn problem with OCD, now it’s getting better because I am working at it. I have panic and anxiety issues, I am also working on those and they are getting better. I know I can be manipulative, so I work on keeping friends I cannot manipulate and try to avoid manipulating those that I can. I am not a bad person, or a crazy person. I am a sick person trying to get well.
I wonder often what it’s like to be “normal” and not relive every painful moment, be afraid of raised voices, be afraid of males touching me, or be afraid of so many other things, but the thing is I have no idea what it’s like in a “normal” mind because I have never had a normal mind.
I am writing this wth the idea that people who do not know what mental illness is like will read it, but where do I put it so that friends and family can see it? I am a very tired of trying to make people understand because honestly no one can know unless they live it. And living this is something I would never wish on anyone; a glimpse maybe, but not to truly live like this. The world in my head is unfun at times, and funny as hell at others. Darkness and anxiety follow me all of the time like a deep dark cloud.