PTSD / Isolation/ Connection

My attempt to connect to people without actually connecting to people.  I've always been a very social person.  I love being social and I am one of those rare people that love talking to strangers and finding common links.  I crave being social.  There's this deep craving to connect.  I can barely leave my home though.  It has gotten a tiny bit better being on steemit but it's still not much of a life.  

My PTSD started about 20 years ago.  I had NO IDEA that it was possible to get PTSD if you weren't in a war.  When diagnosed I told the doctor that I had never been in a war.  I know.... hindsight is 20/20.  That was a very naive statement and mindset.  I was barely scraping by financially for years.  The only support system I ever had was a Neuropsychologist that specialized in Traumatic Brain Injury and also knew about PTSD.  He saw me weekly for free because I didn't have insurance.  He was a life saver.  I moved because I felt stuck in where I was.  I had lost my home of 20 years and my family refused to help me with anything.  I bought that home just after turning 21.  After losing my home I lived on a blow up mattress in a friends dirty empty warehouse for a few months.  I have 2 degrees and by Mensa's standards I'm a genious.  I haven't really spoken about my Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) much on here yet because I don't really know where to start.  If you look at my past posts you can read about how I lost 4 family members in 2 days and I was the only survivor in the car accident.  

Although my family knows all too well what happened to me I was kicked out of the house with a fresh brain injury and have been on my own ever since.  I had dreams.  I not only lost family (both alive and dead) but I also lost 6 tennis scholarships because of that accident.  My dreams were gone because I tried school and I couldn't remember anything for more than an hour or two.  This lasted about 3 years after the accident.  I'd changed and didn't even realize it yet.  I'll do more on this in another post.

I had adapted and learned to live with my TBI, after all I was pretty smart right?  After losing my whole world as I knew it, which happened within the next 5 years.  I lost my fiance and about 4 more family members and a couple of friends from High School.  I had a couple of dear friends that I would talk to about the pain.  Although most of my pain I directed at losing my fiance.  This is when my time started of "getting drunk with strangers"  that's what I call that period in my life.  I wrote a blog about it.  

Not knowing how after fighting and getting help I ended up way back at this point.  I've regressed sooo much that my mind is blown from it all.  I knew my PTSD had gotten bad again.  I've been trying to get help for 3 years.  I just hadn't really realized how bad it has gotten.  This brings me to the isolation aspect of it.  

Living around abusive people and family, I withdrew.  People that don't understand think I'm depressed.  I assure you I'm not.  I just don't have ANY self confidence anymore.  I once had a bright future.  Now my future is here and I feel like a bumbling idiot.  I'm afraid to meet new people because the conversation always comes up.  Usually by the question "What do you do"  "Where do you work"  ... things like that.  I am open about it because I don't want to lie or be dishonest.  I've even figured out PC ways of telling people to where they feel less threatened and feel ok with asking questions.  Most people run away immediately or (having no professional or personal background with either of my disabilities) try to fix me.  I'm not your pet project!  I just want to be treated like a normal person and with respect.  I want the chance to live a normal life.  Because of my many experiences with people I have lost trust in people and the world I live in.  I never know what's going to trigger me or when I'll get triggered.  I don't want to be 'that one friend'.  I don't have joy anymore because the PTSD has bled into the rest of my life.  I'm tired of being judged because I'm different.  I don't have the energy to go to new places and meet new people because I don't want to have THAT CONVERSATION yet another time to only get disappointed again.  I don't want to get hurt more than I already am because I cannot live with anymore pain.  So I sit inside my tiny apartment surrounded by people that yell and talk to people that aren't there.  They do and some deal drugs, there's prostitution and never really any peace and quiet.  I feel trapped in here and it's horrible.  It's a shit hole.  My apartment is clean but I have roaches.  Not because of anything I've done or not done.  It's because some of my neighbors are sooo gross and dirty that the roaches have infested the walls, ceilings and floors.  I'm safer in my apartment even though I feel trapped in here.  I don't have enough room to get another service animal and I desperately need one.  I'm stuck because I can't afford a larger, safer place.  This is my life now and that's where I am. 

I've found that sharing my story on Steemit has helped.  My goal was to try to raise awareness about invisible disabilities.  It's very draining but it's important to it's worth it.  I just can't do it every day.  Recently, I started posting about other things to try to connect with the community.  I've realized since I don't post every day that I'm losing regular followers, which is understandable the way it's set up here.  So I started trying to make at least one post a day whether I had the energy or not.  That's not working out so well.  I keep trying to connect to people in this virtual arena and I feel like I'm failing because I'm not getting the connections I need.  I Love Steemit.  I'm very grateful to have this opportunity to reach people.  I'm just sad I can't do this in the real world right now.  Thank you for reading.