Elena: my life stories (short stories) | book 1 | ✔️

Finding my self

When I read the book shake hands with the devil, I thought it was just gonna be a normal but disturbing book. I didn't think it would make me think about my own mental health and how I was going to live after reading it I didn't think it would have a good enough impact I just thought it was tree DNA at first, and I started to read it.  It was about a Canadian peacekeeper who won to Rwanda to stop the genocide. I'm sorry for the triggering language there his unit got abandoned He ended up coming home afterwards with post traumatic stress disorder. I was able to identify more with Romeo Dallaire then I would with Rain Man as my first diagnosis was ADHD then Asperger's then after I read the book, I finally found out what the cause of my depressions were!   PTSD! That wasn't the only thing that took me to self discovery, nor was it just the movie companion to the book Shake hands with the devil which was a very well acted that being said I was able to relate to the guy because I used to pull out my eyebrows when I was younger, and I would have depression at the same time and have dark thoughts and stuff like that at the time when I was younger when I read the book and watch the movie of Romeo Dallaire, I found that he was more authentic and more human than let's say rain man I was not want to associate myself with or identify myself as he was happy and I was trying to live my life and trying to live my emotions in a better way that being said, I did have big emotions and a big temper! Wonder where that came from too, so I ended up seeking hell after I read the book and saw the movie because I thought this is what ticking me off all this time since I could ever remember!

"Babies don't have memories!" My father would growl Why did he heard about my diagnosis!   What he believed and was more science than actual psychiatry or psychology as I have heard many times zero kids at remember when they were first conceived and I'm not exaggerating that so there!  There are instances where babies do consciously remember what the heck happened to them or even as far back as when they were conceived, I was  the (un) lucky few that ended up, remembering everything that ever happened to them as a we little child even as a embryo! That being said, I found this that little kids can't remember. I find that a fan but anyways!

This is where my love of reading help me save my mental health and not just with that one book but also with a book called world's most dangerous places  by Robert young pelton! That book had his fifth edition had a chapter or a little snippet about PTSD and his symptoms and I was able to realize maybe that was me, but I didn't know then when I shake hands with the devil, confirmed my suspicions, and I was able to identify myself as a PTSD warrior not a suffer. I don't think of myself as a suffer as it can go down the wrong tube, or worse! 
So I ended up trying to help myself with riding as I may have mentioned it also I enjoy a lot of creative things. I found this help me a lot steal my father would growl at me saying "you can remember you were a baby!"

Let's just say he did a lot of growling in his life, which was very good for my PTSD ! And he was a bit of a drunk and would tear my mother down with him!   Which was annoying! 

I loved them man - not the drunking nor the growling!

-T.M.