PTSD thoughts are like shadows
Featured Articles

Credit:
Β©amesto / Adobe Stock
PTSD thoughts are like shadows
PTSD thoughts are like shadows- a true story of PTSD, suppressed memories of childhood trauma, and learning to cope.
When I told my friends about the time my three or four-year-old sister locked herself in herΒ room, I paint them a picture. Rachel, stubborn and fearful, on one side of the door. My mother, onΒ the other hand, trying to explain that all she has to do is turn the handle. Iβm somewhere in theΒ background, the omniscient narrator, not quite two decades later.
Itβs a pretty picture, but it isnβt a real one. The truth is that my father was there, too,Β crouching in the hallway outside Rachelβs room, talking her through the panic that grips a childΒ when their guardian canβt be there to assuage their fears. Itβs a benign memory, and still, IΒ couldnβt quite paint the image of my father into the story I tell years after. I wouldnβt even giveΒ him a rough sketch.
PTSDΒ thoughts are like shadows. My PTSD is like a particularly violent shadow. Silent until it isnβt. Invisible in the darkness untilΒ someone shines a light. I feel that same panic Rachel must have felt behind the closed door in herΒ childhood bedroom. Unsafe in my own skin.
A quick diversion: I didnβt pay for college.Β Most of my tuition was covered byΒ scholarships, the rest by my father circa his 2006 divorce agreement with my mother, as was the apartment I livedΒ in senior year.
Once, a close friend joked I was renting on Daddyβs dime.Β We were sitting in my living room in my apartment, laptops open and overheating on ourΒ legs, and my coffee table piled with textbooks. When Leah mentioned my father, my blood ranΒ cold. I wasnβt in my overused armchair anymore, but buried in blurred emotions, heartΒ hammering, and blood suddenly cold. I shot her icy stares and bitter words until she left, lashingΒ out with the same rope I felt around my throat, ready to cut off my breathing.
I texted Leah later to apologize, but I didnβt know if I would have been able to forgiveΒ myself, had I been her. No one can see how PTSD makes you sick from the inside. ItΒ poisons theΒ inside of your thoughtsΒ and obscures your connection to reality. Iβm lucky sheβs more forgivingΒ than I am.
βPTSD is like a particularly violent shadow. Silent until it isnβt. Invisible in the darkness until someone shines a light.β
When my father told me he wanted to see me graduate, my brain short-circuited. When I think ofΒ him, Iβm nine again, or eight, or seven. Iβm not powerful. Iβm not grown-up with resources andΒ armed with knowledge I didnβt have before he left. I texted Leah, but this was out of both of ourΒ hands. She could only give me her support, and I clung to it like a life raft.
I ambushed two professors with personal trauma they werenβt prepared to handle. TheyΒ coached me through connecting with public safety. They asked me to call my mom. This was theΒ first time I spoke about my father with such fear. It didnβt end me. I spoke my worst fear out loudΒ and I still stood upright, breathing.
'PTSD thoughts are like shadows. My PTSD is like a particularly violent shadow. Silent until it isn't.'CLICK TO TWEET
My childhood home is a tour of my trauma. Here is where my father held me down andΒ screamed because I wouldnβt look at him, embarrassed that I couldnβt solve a math problem.Β There is where my father shook my mother when he came to pick up my sister and me, and a fewΒ feet away is where the police officers stood when I came home.
My mom moved a year after I graduated college. The house couldnβt hurt me, but it didΒ haunt me. My mother lives in a one-bedroom a town away now, and she told me how she, too,Β finally feels like she can breathe in her own space.
Iβve driven past the old house a few times since she moved. Itβs inhabited by anΒ inexplicably happy family of six. My mother says theyβve gutted the inside. Itβs a new start forΒ them, and for me, too.
I still canβt write about my father in detail. TheΒ PTSDΒ wonβt let me. The brushstrokes I paint are broad and indistinct. TheΒ canvas is rough-hewn and hard to hold. But Iβm painting him again. Iβm uncovering lost art, andΒ thatβs the start of something like a masterpiece.

Nicole Zelniker
Nicole Zelniker is an author of "Mixed," a non-fiction book about race and mixed-race families, and βLast Dance,β a collection of short stories.
Caption:
No one can see how PTSD makes you sick from the inside. It poisons the inside of your thoughts and obscures your connection to reality.