My therapist literally told me I am at the development level of a 15-year-old. Obviously, this creates problems in my life, because I have done plenty of adult things. However, in may ways my emotions are stuck at age 15. I began to experience trauma at age 15.
When I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), my therapist at the time said that I had four very unique and separate incidents that caused me to develop the signs for this. Not one. Not two. Not three. Four. Four incidents of trauma. My first incident of trauma occurred at age 15.
So, really, it should not surprise you that some of the parts of my identity are frozen in time. How PTSD works is that you really can lead a fairly normal life with treatment. But you still have triggers. Triggers are things that mentally take you back to the place of trauma, and then it is as if the trauma is occurring right then and there, all over again, with the same level of emotional intensity.
[For more of this story, written by Elizabeth Barnett, go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...-up_1_b_5919770.html]
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