In Comparison

When I finally snapped and began to hear voices, that was when I realized I needed in-patient professional help. I could no longer deny or hide from the sexual traumas I had experienced. The compartments, or boxes as I refer to them as, were opening against my will. My mind was exhausted, and I had to deal with it. Or die.

We decided the best hospital for me was Menninger in Houston. My experiences with the voices and stay(s) at the hospital are all in the book, so I won’t divulge too many details here. I will say that, frankly, I didn’t believe I had PTSD. I thought that although I was already into my 50s, I had somehow become schizophrenic, although I was fully aware that schizophrenia presents itself in subjects in their late teens/early 20s.

The stories I heard there in the hospital.. they were stories of abuse that went way beyond the scope of what my experiences were (are). There was a woman in her 30s who went through brutal excessive repeated sexual assaults. From her early childhood where her family members raped her, and into her adulthood where she would seemingly seek out men who would abuse her because that’s all she knew. At one point in her adult life, she was put into a cage. There were men coming to terms with their own traumas; war veterans who saw horrors that made me feel like my traumas were less important. How could I have PTSD? Yes, I was dragged into a field and raped, but in comparison with my comrades on the unit, my shit was small-fry.

Or so I thought.

The truth I learned is very important. You cannot measure your traumas against someone else’s. It doesn’t work that way.

Your traumas are just as destructive as someone who may have gone through what you deem to be much worse. PTSD doesn’t care, and it affects more people than you think. Some of us just shove it deep down into the abyss. That special dark space in our psyches where the events are stored. They still have the symptoms of PTSD though. The hyper vigilance of you in your surroundings, the fear, the night terrors, the depression, panic attacks, anxiety, and addiction just to name a few. What I came to learn was that the traumas I experienced are just as bad as the war veteran, or the woman put into a cage. Why? Because the outcome was the same. PTSD doesn’t discriminate or measure – there is no threshold or border that needs to be crossed.

If you’ve gone through ANY kind of trauma that affects you in ways that make your life unmanageable and are experiencing signs that something is very wrong, don’t say to yourself, “It’s nothing – people have been through way worse”, that’s a lie. PTSD wants to keep you isolated, and does not want you to get help because maybe something, a small voice, is telling you that you don’t deserve help.

Bottom line: Everyone is different. Your traumas are equally as devastating as anyone else’s. Please, don’t try to compare your experiences with someone else’s, because PTSD will tell you that you are lesser than. That you’re not worthy to help. I’m here to tell you that you ARE WORTHY. Do not deny yourself the help you need because you feel overshadowed by others who you think have gone through a lot more than you. It’s a lie perpetuated by a deep seeded diagnosis that’s hell-bent on perpetual torture. My traumas are not greater than nor lesser than your own.

There’s help for you if you are in crisis due to sexual assault. It doesn’t matter when it took place. It’s the RAINN.org National Sexual Assault Hotline.

(800) 656-HOPE

There are live people there to help you, and to help you find help in your area (US). I write this with love to all my incredibly brave Survivors.