out of the dark ages

wow....living in dark ages for so long....it's not easy doing this SOCIAL stuff.
i had recently hit a bottom in life (15 months ago) thinking i was incurably mentally/emotionally damaged (FUBAR).
i saught help through available resources (hospitals, psychiatrists, counselors, etc.) and was advised that the problems were SOCIAL in nature....in other words i wasn't nuts or terminally emotionally screwed.
the prescriptions were the same....get me to the rooms of AA....and plug away at re-joining the human race.

most who have casually known me didn't seem to buy the socially-challenged label....but i certainly knew !
i have been quite socially adept and gregarious on a superficial level....but absolutely confounded when it came to honest intimate ralations.
i have also been subject to extreme fear of groups ( potential mobs? ) and would often find myself extremely agitated, anxious and feeling like a panicked hostage within a gathering of people.
this problem became worse and worse over the years....until i felt unable to commit to group events of any kind.
over working life, i had been an art and ESL teacher, public speaker, entertainer, an artist working and demonstrating in public....and eventually found myself unable to risk attempting these types of work again.

fortunately, i discovered that i was not in fact "S.O.L. and completely on my own !"....and began the long arduous process of learning how to live with....P.T.S.D. !
experience suggests that only those who have experienced PTSD can understand it's limiting and crippling effects.
i suffer with what i'm comfortable calling a disease of perception....not ever being able to trust that what i thought, felt or believed....was true.
i now look for truth inwardly, with the help of my version of a higher power, other folks sincerely working at their recovery, and the 12-step methodology of AA .
i have learned to trust those inner voices....not the ones in the hampster cage rattling between my ears.
so-o-o-o....i have gained clarity and courage to risk these words....what else do i have to do?

perhaps something in these tales will make a difference to someone....if not, they are certainly serving to help this old dodger.