No Comfort Zone exposes a jagged slice of humanity that is all too present, but often shielded from our view. The author challenges us to see life as she does, so we can understand a bit of what it’s like to live with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). With insight and humor, she describes the fear and unpredictability of growing up in an unstable household, the terror of being raped as a young adult, and the confusion and shame of living with perceptions and reactions that are often so very different from others’. After years of treatment for depression, a diagnosis of PTSD came as a surprise. Isn’t this something that only happens to combat veterans? But it made sense. In writing this highly personal account, Marla Handy helps the rest of us understand what PTSD is and that it happens here at home, too.
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Excerpt:
“ I react to the world as I do because I’ve had my personal safety violated, which also makes me the type of victim that many need to call survivors. Otherwise, we make them uncomfortable.
They need us to move on, to be heroic, so they can be inspired and comforted by the acceptable ending to our saga. Recognizing that someone may be living in a continuous state of injury is too depressing and makes them feel powerless. And feeling powerless is scary.
But the fear of powerlessness is different than fear as entertainment or the fear of reaching out to expand one’s sense of competency in the world. This is the type of fear that invades and dissolves your comfort zone, leaving you bare and vulnerable. It’s terrifying.
Powerlessness is not a state that many people choose to stay in for very long, so they move away from it. They explicitly or silently tell those who are injured or grieving to hurry on to the hero, or at least the stoic, stage. Get up. Get over it. Get on with it.
“Hey, sorry for your problems but don’t let this change my life or my sense of safety.”
But that momentary terror of powerlessness? It’s just a whiff of what it’s like to live with post-traumatic stress disorder. Because with PTSD there is no comfort zone. Ever.
PTSD is both a result of randomness and a source of it. It is a conditioned reaction to living in terror of the next horrible event. It also apparently creates random physical and emotional reactions to routine life events. You can’t trust the world and you can’t make sense of your reactions to it. Nothing fits together in a logical pattern.
It’s enough to make you think you’re crazy.
As a child, our family often appeared normal to the outside...
Being hypervigilant is like being trapped in a haunted house, always anticipating a shock. The anticipation is so high that even minor events can cause a major jolt. A clanging pot or a coaster falling to the floor can cause me to jump and gasp. It happens at home...(or anywhere)...(and everywhere)...
Joke:
Why will there never be a ‘Race for the Cure’ for PTSD? Because the starting pistol would cause half the runners to hit the ground in panic.
....Marla Handy, Ph.D.
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