RE: Living with A Mental Illness-A First Person Perspective
I can't personally imagine the effect PTSD would have on day to day life. But with any condition that impacts thought or emotion I've found that labelling it a disorder and treating it like an illness is wrong. It implies that you are broken or defective.
You're a human, like everyone else, and your struggles may have a much more negative affect on your life than the average population, but you are not ill. Asking or needing help is not an indication of weakness, nor does it make you less human and labelling conditions like this as a mental illness implies a frailty.
For what you and many others have gone through, having the symptoms of PTSD should be "normal" and labelled as such. You shouldn't feel like there is something "wrong" with you or that you have an "illness".
I don't know how these thoughts will be received but it's just really the labelling that bugs me for something that is a normal and understandable response to those kinds of events in life.
Thanks for sharing your story and I wish you well
Thanks @kieranstone for such a thoughtful comment. I think this is a really interesting topic you raise. My perceptions are coloured by my background. In the Army it was traditionally seen as a weakness to be affected by this kind of thing, so there became a real effort to identify it as an injury to normalise it. No one looks down on you if you break a leg, so if we can frame it such that its seen the same way, then people would be more accepting of it. "Its just like a broken leg" literally became a saying in some settings. I think the labelling helped break down some barriers in this regard.
That said, you are 100% right in saying that it's completely normal for people to be affected by their experiences, so labelling it as abnormal can be counter productive. I know I don't publicise in the real world for fear of stigma, so there is undoubtedly some truth in what you say.
I like the broken leg analogy. It's an injury that will heal, maybe with some lingering symptoms, but you'll still be able to get on with life.