[clara]

Roxanne,

I am not attacking you or anyone else. I am not saying living with PTSD is a choice: I do happen to know what I am talking about.

I am not trying to make light of what is an awful way to live and I am certainly not trying to throw it in your face. I have never claimed that PTSD is like depression. Depression is as real as PTSD: I have had to learn to live with both.

Colours, places, a look on a person's face, a smell - all of those things will be trggers for the rest of my life too. I got to the point where it hurt me so badly to live that way I had to find a different way to live. I did not want to spend my life hating, being frightened , waking up everyday tired because I could not sleep properly, and livng with a permanent knot in my stomach. I lived disconnected from my own life until five years ago. I had no idea what it meant to really feel anything.

It is easy to shout at me and say I do not know what I am talking about . Fine, if that makes you feel better.

The point is that I no longer allow that fear nor PTSD symptoms to control myself. I am talking about making choices about how much less pain a person chooses to live: that is all! I am not saying it is easy. Far from it.

I have been to hell and back. Saying I am not a nice person, because I am not afraid to voice my opinion, is something you can do as well, it simply lets me know that you are still in a great deal of pain. For what it is worth I know what it means to be stripped of one's dignity more than you could ever imagine.

I do not know you and Roxy, you have no idea who I am, so before jumping at my throat so quickly, why don't you ask me questions about why I have said what I have said. I am not someone to write such things on an open forum like this just for the sake of it.

take care of yourself.