14 Feb 2018 Today in my life

Real talk time. Let’s talk about my day today. It should be if nothing else, ordinary, but because it is Valentine’s Day, it should be that extra bit to let my 2 kids know they are loved.

So I wake to news that there is a school shooting in my state, but not at my child’s school. Anxiety goes through the rough, trying to protect one child from the news so that child’s anxiety doesn’t skyrocket setting off an autistic moment and never ending worry. Other child is still at school and has no idea. Full blown panic attack cycle starts.

Now, for those that don’t understand this, let me explain. Once my anxiety gets started, I start having full blown panic attacks that leave me completely debilitated. But it doesn’t stop there, as one panic attack comes to an end, another begins the cycle again. Each increasing in their already brutal intensity.

Now, let’s add in my other conditions, PTSD, I have been held at gun point. I have routinely been threatened with guns, forced to stand next to someone shooting a gun all the while they were explaining exactly how they would kill myself and the rest of my family (prior to me having children). Add in all of the news feeds showing the terrified children, who look so much like I felt as a child and teen. Enter the videos from inside and outside the scene, with the sound of bullets flying, screaming terrified teens and adults.

Then comes the vicious flashbacks, the never ending terror, the absolute need to run to somewhere safe (mind you I’m safe in my home, but my brain doesn’t care one little bit, because that threat is now real for me.) Welcome to PTSD. Pick your worst nightmare, make it real and unending. That fight or flight you hear about, they forget to mention the freeze part. And yes, I’m one of the lucky ones who gets the freeze part.

Now, let’s add in the Autism part. Oh, did I forget to mention that’s a new diagnosis? So, now I’m in fully cycling panic attacks, with flashbacks, and full on frozen terror, and the autism kicks in. So, then its read all the things you can find on what is going on. Try to puzzle out the real truth from the 100’s of sources.

And then the anger comes. The terrified, panic stricken anger that even 1 person, child or adult, is 1 too many for this to happen to. Outrage at the politicians and idiots that say now is not the time to talk about gun control. Outrage that this happened at all. Outrage that in a few days or weeks, this will be just another statistic add to the list and nothing will be done.

I can’t help how I grew up. I can’t help that one of my parents who was a drug addict, psychotic in a killer kind of way, alcoholic, and pedophile was given access to an arsenal and allowed to not only buy more and ammo for them, but also made ammo in the basement while again, explaining exactly how each would feel as it riped through my body or the body of another in my family. I can’t help my reactions to stories like today’s, in which the terror of those teens I too have felt, and feel today thanks to flashbacks.

Can we please, as a country, do just a few things? 1) Common sense gun control. Some people should never be allowed to own a weapon period. 2) It’s coming and we all know it. This is not a MENTAL HEALTH ISSUE. This is evil. Period. I don’t care how much this person was abused, bullied etc. Trust me, I have been there. And I have the mental health issues to prove it. But, I’m not out shooting people, raping my kids, holding others hostage in their own home, nor any of the other horrific things I have and some that I still do live through/with. “Oh they were mentally ill” is bullshit, and we all know it. But its much more convienent to stigmatize those with mental health issues, rather than actually deal with the problem.

We are a 1st world country. We are a world power. And yet only we as Americans deal with this level of domestic terrorism encouraged by the NRA, and politicians who refuse to take a common sense approach and fix this. These are OUR children who are dying.

As for my day, I’m back in hell. I wasn’t there no. But this is my life. This is what its like to have multiple issues that all combine during “stress”. As for sleep tonight, not going to happen. I can’t face the night terrors, and yes that is the correct term for they are not nightmares they go far beyond that. Maybe in a day or 2 the panic cycle will slow. Maybe in the next week or 2 the anxiety level will go back to my normal of 10ish panic attacks a day, with 7–15 flashbacks, and nightmares that wake me every 45 minutes while I try to sleep.

Several notes: To start, my children are well cared for and not in any danger. Thoughts and prayers don’t help anyone. My hope is that those that survived get help as soon as possible to deal with their trauma. That the families of those who were taken (not lost, they were taken) get the help they need to process their grief and trauma. My hope is that all persons in that school and their families someday heal as much as possible from this preventable tragedy. I hope that each and every politician that has ignored the pleas of the majority of Americans begging for common sense gun legislation lives with the knowledge that every one of these deaths from every one of these shootings (mass or otherwise) is in part their fault.