PTSD Shrunk My Amygdala

**TRIGGER WARNING** I address traumatic events in this entry so please proceed with caution and keep your own mental health in mind while reading this post!

This is a cause that touches my life in so many ways.  Both my husband and I live with PTSD {Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder}.  It's always lurking in the shadows; ready to pounce at any moment.  Triggers take us both by surprise causing a lot of turmoil for us and our family.  I have so much to say on this topic that I'm having a hard time organizing my thoughts.

Why don't we start by learning what PTSD actually is and what it does to a person:

"PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) is essentially an anxiety disorder. It develops in response to traumatic or life-threatening experiences such as war, sexual assault, accidents, or natural disasters.

Some symptoms of PTSD include:

• Emotional Symptoms: anxiety, anger, depression, irritability, sadness
• Physical Symptoms: tiredness, increased perspiration, high or low blood pressure, trouble digesting food

Stress affects our autonomic nervous system, endocrine system, and immune system; these physical systems are all interdependent on each other. How we perceive stress plays an important role in how our bodies respond physically to stress.

High amounts of inflammatory hormones are dumped into our systems in response to stressful or traumatic situations, but these hormones are released even at the memory of trauma. So PTSD can be thought of as an emotional stress overload.

In fact, the latest research shows that PTSD actually causes a part of the brain called the amygdala to shrink. The amygdala is the part of the brain that processes emotions and fear. Researchers believe that when the amygdala is smaller, it makes it more difficult for people to process their anxiety resulting from trauma." (http://www.ptsdalliance.org/about-ptsd/)

Take a minute to think about everything that trauma does to the human body; it's incredible.  Clearly a person diagnosed with PTSD cannot easily control their symptoms.  Please stop telling people with PTSD (or any mental illness for that matter) that they can just decide to stop having an illness.  It's irrational and, frankly, damaging to the person you're spouting off to.

You're probably wondering what caused my PTSD.  Honestly, I don't know which event in my life officially shrank my amygdala; but I'm a survivor of childhood sexual and physical abuse, sexual assault, rape and domestic violence.  It's likely that I got PTSD as a child but was further traumatized as an adult. 

One thing that is very upsetting to me is the misuse of the word "trigger" in the land of politics.  Triggers are a very real and often terrifying experience for people living with PTSD and this abuse of the word minimizes this. So, if you're some one who misuses the word "trigger" please stop because you're actually part of the problem with our society not taking mental illness seriously.

What exactly is a trigger?

"When faced with danger, your body gets ready to fight, flee, or freeze. Your heart beats faster. Your senses go on high alert. Your brain stops some of its normal functions to deal with the threat. This includes your short-term memory. With PTSD, your brain doesn’t process the trauma the right way. It doesn’t file the memory of the event as being in the past. The result: You feel stressed and frightened even when you know you’re safe.

The brain attaches details, like sights or smells, to that memory. These become triggers. They act like buttons that turn on your body’s alarm system. When one of them is pushed, your brain switches to danger mode. This may cause you to become frightened and your heart to start racing. The sights, sounds, and feelings of the trauma may come rushing back. This is called a flashback." (https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-are-ptsd-triggers#1)

Notice that this does not say that a trigger is something that a person just doesn't like hearing or seeing?  That's because that's NOT what a trigger is.  I truly hope this educates at least one person and helps them decide to stop misusing this term.  I know it's a long shot but I am the Hopelessly Hopeful Housewife after all.

Maybe in honor on PTSD Awareness Month I will write some in depth entries on some of the traumatic events in my life and the triggers that I have as a result.  I'll need to mentally prepare myself to unpack those boxes though so please be patient with me!

I'm off to hang out with the family and pick up some of my anti-anxiety meds from CVS so I'm out for now!

Stay wonderful followers 😀

My Complicated Parentage

What's new in my life:

I started working at a local coffee shop chain this week.  I'm an opener so I have to be to work at 4:15 am.  I have to get up at 3:15 am to get to work on time.  I'm a zombie ha ha.  It's only part-time so I'm managing OK.  I haven't worked outside the home since I was a week away from delivering my 4 year old!  I've worked from home for the last two years and honestly being out in the world again is nice.  I feel like a functioning adult again 😃

My life is never simple.  My parentage is, of course, complicated.  My mother was in an abusive relationship as a teenager which resulted in ME lol.  I was born with bruises in a home for unwed mothers.  Those places don't even exist anymore!  I was around 2 years old when my mother left this abusive partner and started a new life with my adopted father.  I was legally adopted me and raised by this man.  He is also the man who sexually abused me as young girl but I digress.  To make things more complicated my biological father was adopted as an infant and it was a closed adoption.  He and his immediate adopted family are all deceased.  I have no adoption records and no way to obtain his records. Since he is not listed on my birth certificate (and never was as he was not present at my birth and did not sign my birth certificate) I am not able to legally access his adoption records.  I have found relatives of my biological father's adopted family and they are wonderful.  I have now done the Ancestry DNA kit and I'm hoping to find biological relatives from my bio father's side.  It's my last ditch effort to hopefully find some of my relatives and maybe form a relationship with them.  One half of my DNA is a complete mystery to me and it's always been a question is the back of my mind.  Hopefully this will give me at least some of the answers I crave.

I am concerned with finding my biological family though and explaining that my biological father was not a good person and that he died alone of AIDS in 1992.  He was in and out of jail, he was an addict, and he was an abuser.  He did love and cherish me though; that's his one redeeming quality.  How do I tell his biological family all of this?  I'm open to advice on this if you have some!

I'm also worried that I'm going to find people that won't want a relationship with me or that will try and take advantage of me somehow.

This could be my anxiety running rampant and filling me with unnecessary worry.  Sometimes it's really difficult to distinguish what's my anxiety and what is a valid concern.  Oh the joys of mental illness: not knowing if your mind is playing tricks on you or not,

In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month I'm linking the Massachusetts Association of Mental Health donation page:  Donate to MAMH

Alright, back to reality.  Thank you for visiting my blog ❤❤

Who Am I? What's Wrong With Me And Why Am I Babbling On About Stuff?

Where should I start?

I guess I should introduce myself and give some background info, right?  I don't know what I'm doing here, if you can't tell.  My name is Nicki; I'm a 34 year old wife and mother of 4 beautiful children.  I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, rape, miscarriage, homelessness and domestic violence.  I live with PTSD, post-partum depression and anxiety and regular depression and anxiety; most likely as a result from the traumas in my life but honestly, who knows, genetics are a possibility too.  I've contracted Lyme Disease twice and as a result I now have chronic Lyme Disease.  I have endometriosis and a hormone imbalance.  I'm the mother of a child with ADHD, ODD anxiety and conduct disorder.  I'm the wife of a USMC veteran who has a TBI and PTSD.  As a result of all this craziness I'm a fighter and I want to use what little voice I have to bring attention to some overlooked issues, help de-stigmatize some of these issues and start conversations about these topics.

So, that brings us to May being Mental Health Awareness Month so I think I will focus on this cause for the time being.  Unfortunately, this is something I know a lot about since I live with it.  I juggle a husband and FOUR kids while still trying to actually stay sane, for real.  It's a challenge for not just me but my entire family and I suffer a lot of guilt over this.  My husband chose me but my children didn't and I frequently struggle with the burden I am to them.  I worry that I'm destroying them in some irreparable way.  I constantly think that they deserve a better mother than me.  Then I remind myself that I can teach them life lessons that they wouldn't learn from anyone else.  I can empathize with them in ways others cannot and as a result I'm uniquely qualified to be their mother.  I'm a fighter and I fight for them even harder than I fight for myself.  My anxiety will lie to me and tell me that I'm not enough and that I do more harm than good.  Then I take my meds and step out of the fog of lies into the clear light of a healthy mind and I remember all the strengths I possess.

Speaking of medication; can we please stop making people feel shameful for needing medication to treat their illness?  Would we shame a diabetic for taking insulin? No because that would be heartless and unreasonable, right?  Well that's exactly what we (society as a whole) are doing to people who suffer from mental illness!  Medications have literally saved my life TWICE so far.  I am so grateful for modern medicine because I have access to proper treatment for my illness.  This is a wonderful thing that needs to be celebrated not shamed.  Can we all just agree that treating mental illness is actually a really great and necessary for our society to function normally?  Wonderful, I'm so glad you agree!

On that note, I need to start thinking about feeding my rugrats dinner.

Have a fantastic day and stay golden Pony Boy or whatever.