Why, may I ask, do I come after myself with a tag team of personal terror? The characters in this tag team go by the names Shame and Self-pity. The team does have quite a bit of material to work with; we all face challenges and problems in this life, and we fail more often than we would like in new situations. The problem as it relates to PTSD begins when I bring up those past failures, beat myself with a little recalled guilt, feel shame all over again, and then inject a good dose of self-pity that I am ashamed of something long past. Guilt begets shame, and shame is what starts the fear cycle of public humiliation. If I see something shameful about myself, surely everyone else can see how worthless and weak I am as well. This kind of thinking is neither honest nor accurate, but I do it all too often.
PTSD ends in disorder for a good reason. Now, I realize there is a suggestion on the psychological table to eliminate the word 'disorder' so that someone is not offended, but I think it should remain. Letting shame and self-pity beat me down, keep me from enjoying a good meal in a restaurant with friends, or thumping me into a panic attack is a disorder of the mind, and let's call the moose a moose. We can't really change the name to Post-traumatic Lack of Happy Feelings When I Really Want to Feel Good, can we? Think of the horror of PTLOHFWIRWTFG. That's like some sort of texting nightmare. All right, I've gone right off the deep end now.
Shame and self-pity are a couple of things we just don't need to add to PTSD. The past haunts us enough as it is with combat flashbacks, accident anxieties, and other such dreadful thoughts. To bring up every mistake, faux pas, and social gaffe from the days of yore, wallow in the embarrassing memory for a while, and feel shame all over again just hurts too much. It is time we learn to forgive others of course, but also to forgive me and you, the person hurting the self with all those bad memories.
So you stomped on that girl's foot at the sophomore dance, let it go. Of course if it were just tame little memories like that few of us would have any real problem. What we tend to bring up again are those times that we really hurt someone. The events that suddenly come to mind during a dark night and we wince in shame asking, "Why did I do that? The memory may include a crime or something that got a person fired from a job. The fact that you paid the price according to the law does not mean that memory or shame go away quite so easily. With PTSD, that kind of thing just makes it all the worse. We must find a way to gain forgiveness, from the one hurt if possible, but especially from that one doing the accusing. His or her name is usually Me or I, or however you want to refer to yourself at 0300 when the thoughts won't let you sleep.
PTSD is enough of a problem without making myself miserable through shaming and self-pitying. All of us have good qualities and bad, times we performed poorly and times when we did well. What we must not do is constantly rehearse the times we fell flat on our social noses or hurt someone, and begin to look at what we can do now, today, to help others. One of the best therapies is to give. Time, money, effort, or whatever, give and seek no return for yourself. The first time you attempt something, even in helping out or volunteering, you may screw it up. Things often happen that way in a new job or task. Go at it again though; we are not trying to build up more memories for shame and self-pity to beat us with. Give and give some more, selflessly and with a good effort. Who cares what the world may say; we work to build up some good memories. Memories of good works that we can sleep on.
God bless,Bucky
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