Connecting Artists to the Community with Education, Therapy and Fun

Oh wow, what a weekend!  It’s been one of the best weekends--- ever. OK, do the emotional part first~ it feels so good to have friends, real friends- the ones who have your back that make you both laugh and cry. Honestly, I’ve been a loner from the start and really didn’t get out much~ which is why no one heard of my art, me or from me before a few years ago. Much of the isolation was from anxiety, more notably social phobias (the fear of people). But it feels sooooo good to have these people in my life. They got my back and I got theirs. The thought of having them around to support and just be with fills me with security and serenity.

Social phobias are hard to get past and one of the many *wonderful* facets people with chronic PTSD have to face. (Yes, I have had to deal with chronic PTSD from a tragic upbringing~ you could say “dysfunctional”, but that doesn’t even begin to describe it. But back to the conversation…). Interesting that there is now a gene found in those with the disorder that makes them more likely to develop the issue later in life. It explains why two people can experience the same thing at the same time and one develop debilitating symptoms and the other be “fine”.

For those of us with chronic PTSD, the first hurdle to cross is that it is: chronic. Most things chronic fail to exist in the mind of the one who has it is because it “feels” like any other trait. We get so used to the symptoms/feelings that we fail to see it as a separate entity from ourselves and our personalities.  Just like the loneliness… it felt like part of my disposition. It crept up on me, and after a while, showed itself more as bitterness and spitefullness~ people with happy family gatherings really ticked me off and if I had to put up with hearing it from the neighbors, I resented the hell out of it and I wished that they’d shut up and keep their crap hidden. (Irritability is a hallmark of PTSD... much of my traumas came from parties gone awry.) Inside, I was actually sad about not having the happiness they had, but had been that way for so long that it didn’t register consciously, either.

How can you not know you are lonely? Its easy when you have all of the above working against you and you’ve been taught that your feelings and needs inconvenience others, so its best not to acknowledge they exist. Either way, not only is the social phobia chronic, so is the lonliness. It’s a catch 22 cycle- you can’t do the things that fix it because you can’t tell it is happening. You get worse (more lonely and bitter) because you can’t fix it. Pretty soon, it weighs on your self esteem because you feel you don’t deserve being happy because of the bitterness~ its easy to become convinced that you are a bitter person rather than a person sad and isolated because of past abuse issues. Not only that, but irritability the disorder brings may not be known about, so the sufferer beats themselves up further for feeling the way they do.

But today? Social anxiety and PTSD will NOT hold me back because- while I realize the issues that got me there  wasn’t under my control--  my decision to do something about it is under my control. Thank God for the guts to grab ahold of opportunities to heal, medicine and supportive friends who understand.

Stephanie started talking to me about what it could be like if Stephen and I had a baby. She said that the child wouldn’t want for anything with all of them around to love him or her. The more I listened to her dream out loud about how they’d be there to hold and love our (dream) baby, the more I realized I couldn’t hold back the tears of gratitude for just holding the possibility of them- Stephanie, Tina, Lisa, Charlotte and Kelli- being there. For a long moment, the possibility that I wouldn’t have to be a new mom alone meant more to me than air. 

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