“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao Tzu

The triathlon is completed. I am in therapy for anxiety and because I can’t sleep at night.

The therapist is kind and wants to get to know me.  We explore different things in my life.  I am, also, there because I need to deal with my parents who are not doing well financially and mentally, but I have not communicated with my parents for years out of self-preservation.

So, I was in therapy to figure out how to deal with this difficult situation with my parents.

In therapy, we talk about my childhood. I talk about my mom who never left the house. My mother who took a lot of opioids every day for her bad back.  My husband had already concluded that my mother was drug addict.  I had not come around to that. I believed that it was her bad back “medicine.”

My mother always had very unkind things to say to me like “no one will ever like me” when I was about to go to college.  Life as a child revolved completely around my mother.  We talked about that in therapy.  Maybe, my mom was mentally ill, but all I could really see that she was very physically sick.

In therapy, I recounted about how as a child that my dad “spanked” me because I did something bad. Those spankings were harsher than I would have liked to admit then, but I could not see that at that time.  I thought that there were a few instances where my dad may have crossed the line.  Overall, I thought that my father was not physically abusive and I was punished for being bad. Once, I did have a note to not change for gym because of one injury and I knew that injury may have been suspect of physical abuse.

As we discuss these things in therapy, my life is getting worse. I am having more and more difficulty sleeping and any symptoms that I have worsen.

One day, I very nervously ask the therapist what is my diagnosis.  She says in kindest way possible that I have General Anxiety Disorder, Depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  There it just sits… PTSD.  What could I even have PTSD from?  What trauma?

I am a researcher at heart.  There is nothing like researching yourself.  In therapy, I entered a long phase of studying myself as well providing my nuggets of information to the therapist.  Every once in a while, I would have some new information or insights for her.  Let’s be honest, she knew this information.

Anyway, that night, I googled PTSD and I checked many websites over and over. The symptoms were so undeniably me.

I had so many of these symptoms that I could not believe it.  I was agitated, irritable, hypervigilant, mistrusted and I had severe anxiety, insomnia….

For reference, people may experience (source Mayo Clinic):

Behavioral: agitation, irritability, hostility, hypervigilance, self-destructive behavior, or social isolation

Psychological: flashback, fear, severe anxiety, or mistrust

Mood: loss of interest or pleasure in activities, guilt, or loneliness

Sleep: insomnia or nightmares

Also common: emotional detachment or unwanted thoughts

It was undeniable that I had PTSD, but from what trauma? It was a shocking and shattering diagnosis.   Yet, I still did not know the trauma that caused PTSD.  How could that be?