i'm supposed to be studying for a final i have in oh... 2 hours. and instead i am blogging. priorities people, priorities. blogging obviously trumps my ethics and values class (the class where my professor is out to get me.)

Life is a little rough right now. I am doing a type of therapy called "exposure therapy" and it is rough. I was diagnosed with PTSD a few years ago now and exposure therapy is a newer type of therapy that treats PTSD and can even cure it, getting rid of all symptoms. PTSD for those of you who don't know, stands for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I had something traumatic happen in my life and my brain didn't quite store it right. instead of storing the memory in the hypothalamus, where memories reside, it stored it for some reason in the frontal lobe, where personality, decision making and rational reside. Scientists don't know why this happens exactly- it's an unconscious action obviously and the result is PTSD with a memory. The difference is someone who had something traumatic happen and does not have PTSD will perhaps think of that memory, or something will trigger it, and they will have emotion. sadness, fear, regret, maybe they will cry. but it is a MEMORY. a bad one, but a memory. now someone with PTSD will get triggered or think on the memory or it will spontaneously come up and IT IS LIKE THE TRAUMATIC EVENT IS HAPPENING ALL OVER AGAIN. Your body responds from your head to your toes as if your trauma is happening all over again. Its not just a memory, it is a flashback and you are there all over again, and in the meanwhile, your brain is getting RE TRAUMATIZED all over again. and the vicious cycle continues.

the results of Exposure therapy are astounding. People who have successfully completed exposure are no longer qualifying for PTSD diagnosis or any other type of anxiety disorder! unbelievable.

So anyway, I am smack dab in the middle of exposure therapy right now and it is BRUTAL. Probably one of the hardest things i have had to do. But i believe in process, and i will hang in there and never give up, because i want a life worth living.

Last night, 'person i love' was looking into my eyes very thoughtfully. I asked "what do you see?" 'Person i love' says, "I see a lot of hurt... i see a fight going on, but you seem tired... tired of fighting so hard... tired of hurting. sometimes i see hopelessness and that scares me."

'Person i love' is a very special kind of person.

I am tired- i had secrets buried deep inside as long as i can remember, and i've only been alive 22 years. Sometimes I just cry because i am so exhausted. sometimes i am too tired to sleep, too tired to move... but i always pick myself up and keep marching on. i refuse to give up, i refuse to quit. Life has DRASTICALLY improved over the last few years and it is only getting better and better. That doesn't mean that i feel no pain inside anymore, it doesn't mean there aren't really hard days when i feel like throwing in the towel, but as a very wise woman told me, therapist, you can have both. you can hold both emotions... sadness AND happiness. fear AND safety. confusion AND understanding. life is a balance.

I have my moments where i feel i surrender and i feel hopeless and too exhausted to pick myself back up and keep marching on... but the difference is i don't allow myself to stay there. i ALWAYS CHOOSE to pick myself up. I let myself stay in those lows for a moment, and then i take a deep breath, put my shoulders back and chin up and i MARCH ON.

"When you get into a tight place, and everything goes against you till it seems as if you couldn't hold on a minute longer,never give up then, for that 's just the place and time that the tide will turn." -Harriet Beecher