Would that it were...

I like to think the PTSD is better.  It is.  But it is also not.  Take, for instance, the near melt-down in Lowe's, the melt-down at the surgeon's office, the panic at the sight of the armed officers on my back porch, and the melt-down after being touched at the symphony.

"No, really, I'm better," I insist.

Tomorrow is counseling and fetching of prescriptions.  By my newly recommitted vow of not overdoing it, I should just do one of those things, but I have been putting off picking up prescriptions for over a week.  I need them.  Getting dressed is at least half the battle, so I am going to Target either fore or aft my appointment.  Maybe fore would be best.

I was thinking about the exam and procedure I have on Friday ... the one I've been dreading for ... well ... two years now??  I just am not the sort of person who can tolerate things inside her.  My homework for my next counseling session has been to identify what I am feeling at such times.  I don't know.  I really don't ... apart from abject and overwhelming shame.  The only word off the feelings chart that seems remotely a possibility is: revulsion.  SIGH.

I was thinking about my appointment because I was thinking about how afraid I am whenever the counselor gets near me.  I thought I was hiding it, but when I mentioned how ... distracting ... it was for me when she leans forward in her chair, she called my bluff and told me she knows I am afraid of her.

Last week, I dropped something.  Automatically, she reached down to pick it up so I wouldn't have to do so, given how dizzy that would make me.  I recoiled as she drew near.  Then, I sat in shame for being so weak as to be afraid of someone I actually like and the absolute BEST counselor I have ever seen.

Shame paralyzes me.
Shame clings to me.
Shame colors everything else in my life.

Fear does, too.  The hyper-vigilance I try to hide.  My utter love for the airing porch because up there I can be outside and feel safe.  Fear of being touched is really fear of my reaction, of being felled by shame.

Gosh, I really, really, really do not like who I am.  Would that it were I could be better.

I can be.  Or at least I hope.  That is why I decided to gird my loins enough to try counseling again, even knowing that free counseling means a revolving door of counselors, which makes it rather difficult to establish the relationship needed for healing.

But in another way I will not be better.  I will always be ill (excepting a miracle).  The PTSD will always be there.  And the past cannot be changed.

Would that it were there existed a medication for shame, a procedure for its excision as you would with a tumor.