Dance Through Trauma

March 25, 2021

I haven't written much about what caused my PTSD, but what caused it was the many years of school bullying that I had to go through in elementary and middle school. I wrote some about my PTSD in my book called 'Youthful Blossom' that I completed on February 19, 2021. It's an autobiography book that is about my life from 2012 to 2021. I don't remember much about what I went through in elementary school as it was long ago, but I do remember the judgemental kids at school and some good family memories. All the bullying that I went through as a child affected the way my brain developed throughout my childhood and adolescence, so I think that my PTSD will never go away. It can become mild in the future, but as of now, it is very severe. I wonder what my life would have been like if I didn't have PTSD. For sure, I would have had OCD and Bipolar Disorder Type 1 anyway, so PTSD or no PTSD, I would still be mentally ill. My OCD and BD isn't that bad as of now though. I've had pretty mild symptoms from them. However, my PTSD has been crazy awful. It's been that awful for years, and it never improves. It's always the same way of thinking that my subconscious or Steven has. What I mean by that is that Steven is basically my subconscious while Xander (aka me) is my consciousness. That's how I like to see it. Xander is an entity with no emotion. Steven is a traumatized, mentally ill guy who happens to live in a world full of neurotypicals that never accepted his neurodivergence, especially during his childhood. And thanks to all the trauma, I live in fear everyday just by thinking about the very existence of humans. Last year (2020), I was having so much trouble trying to accept the fact that I live on the same planet as human beings. I just wanted to live alone in a spaceship in outer space, not on a planet of human wars. But, I knew that wasn't going to happen, so I wanted to have my amygdala removed. The amygdala is the part of the brain that is responsible for fear. So, I thought that removing that part of my brain would eliminate my fear of people and therefore, I would live peacefully. However, that was never going to happen. That removal requires a surgery that most doctors won't agree to do, so finding one that would agree to the surgery would be hard. I don't know if they would even be allowed to do so. But, I wanted this surgery or just go to outer space. This all occurred between January and early April 2020. By mid April 2020, I was starting to think that the only solution to be free of this PTSD would be suicide. Because hey, at least I would be free from any emotional pain. But, I obviously didn't commit suicide, so instead, I started to accept my PTSD and also my OCD because not only was I afraid of people but I was also afraid of anxiety, especially the kind that comes from OCD. I did very well with my acceptance, but unfortunately, my PTSD never improved. The symptoms are very mild when I'm not around people or even thinking about people (unless I'm listening to music or watching a movie that doesn't showcase the life of a person), but when there's people whether it is face-to-face or just a thought about people, then my PTSD starts to set itself on fire. And when I say "people," I mean people with harmful intentions especially like bullies. The only kind of people that I have never felt anger for are people who commit homicides. I guess since I never dealt with one in my life, my brain is neutral when it comes to people who commit homicides. As Xander, I see science behind everything, which is why he isn't emotional because he's like a robot or computer. And yes, if you have noticed, I use he/him pronouns for both Xander and Steven instead of I/me because well, I don't know, but I feel comfortable doing it, so I will just continue with it. And well, Xander is just an entity and judging his nature, he has no gender or sex, he is just Xander. However, I will still use he/him pronouns with Xander as I feel comfortable calling him those pronouns. It might have to do with Steven being a male, but gender identity doesn't matter to Xander because he isn't human nor anything close to that. He is himself; an entity of his own.