Ben Tremblay · @bentrem
30th May 2011 from Twitlonger
Even TwitLonger can't handle a whole book of cog and social psych, so allow me to work around to my point.
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If you've ever had a badly sprained ankle you will be able to recall the wave of stabbing pain that shoots up when you placed weight on it. That pain kept you from stepping on it, which is adaptive. But chances are you were over-protective. Most of us are. Few have the sort of physical courage marines are trained to develop. So we walk very carefully, when we walk at all. But still, any moment slightly off balance gives us a set of jolts. And nobody can be perfectly balanced every moment!
If you've ever had a dandy sliver you will be able to recall that same protectiveness, though like the pain ... and the wound ... were considerably less than a severely sprained ankle. Pain, and the perception of pain, are very very subjective. It gets right into your mind!
That's what PTSD is like. Think of a really badly sprained ankle, then think of walking life's path like that. Think of having a sliver up high in the back of your throat so that even a simple deep breath would cause you to spasm. Imagine shrapnel in your mind ... the slightest contact lets loose purple clouds of reaction.
One more analogy, having to do with how some folk snap and others don't. There's something called a "fusable link" under the hood of a car. It's like a fuse, but bigger. Fuses are designed to be kinda frabile. Fusable links aren't, they're pretty rugged. But they're there to protect the bigger system. Instead of having an engine fire, that link blows out, before things get worse. The engine won't run, but it's not destroyed.
When an individual is stressed "more than enough", something blows. They don't go insane ... not quite ... but some part pops. It's like a sprained ankle that never heals. It's like a sliver than never gets pulled out. It's like a bit of shrapnel that's there for life.
When social dynamics go in a certain direction, when there's a certain manipulative sort of charm happening ... I experience rolling waves of shooting pain. That's how it is. Every day, of every year.