See, I was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder about ten years ago. Nice to know what it is, at least.

This is an example of what PTSD is like for me:

When I was a little kid, our family would travel between the Los Angeles area and central California a lot. To get there, we needed to travel over an area known as the San Marcos Pass, which is about 22 miles of winding road. See, I have pretty bad motion sickness and the 22 mile drive consisted of my mother, facing the back seat, watching until my face turned a particular shade of green. At which point, my father would pull over to the side of the road and I would get out and hurl my lunch... (Of course, my parents were both such bone-heads, they never gave me the Dramamine until Santa Barbara - which was about 30 minutes before I'd hurl, and they never once considered allowing me to sit in the front of the car with the window open... Nope. Too stupid I guess).

At any rate, the San Marcos Pass was a deep terror for me as a child. But as the years passed and I no longer had to go to central California, I forgot about those horrible trips. Or so I thought...

When I was about 28, a group of friends and I decided to go camping over Memorial Day weekend. We set out with all the necessities - a lid of p0t, a bag of "mushrooms" and a case of Heineken - oh, and a roll of toilet paper. We had a lovely drive up the coast, past Ventura, and stopped for lunch in Santa Barbara. At which point, we remembered we had no reservations at a camping site... One of the guys got on the payphone, looking for a spot. Afterward, he returned to the table to report good news. There was a camping area very near where we were. Just through "the San Marcos Pass". I excused myself from the table, went into the ladies loo, and hurled up my lunch...

PTSD causes a physical reaction to a memory we thought was hidden safely away.

Okay. Back to the present and my job, and the new project I was assigned last week.

I started having incredible anxiety on Thursday. Incredible anxiety, crying jags and the inability to perform even the most simple of tasks without totally fucking them up. I was an embarassment to my profession.

I realized that I was re-living all the times I'd done the same type of project. Being responsible for important stuff has not been all that healthy for me. I tend to wake in the middle of the night, panicked that I've forgotten some crucial detail, or I find myself unable to remember if I sent something or other in the mail, or by fax... I was apparently re-living all my fears on Thursday, and I was one miserable gal.

Fortunately, I was able to talk myself down off the ledge on Friday morning, when I remembered a couple of important details.

First - when I was on that fateful camping trip - I didn't get carsick. You know why? Because I was driving! I was in control of the car, and I was at one with the car as we sped through those curves and around the hills. I think if I'm not at the mercy of someone else's idiocy, I tend to do better.

And second - even though I tended to panic and freak out when managing important tasks with deadlines and whatnot - I never once fucked up an installation, or a catalog review Not once! I fact, I used to be complimented on jobs well done, and was even in demand for my abilities!

So yeah. PTSD sucks. But for some reason, I managed to get out of it this time. That's so cool.

July 17, 2004