My Story Struggling with PTSD

Hi, guys, it’s me again! For those of you who are new to my channel, my name is Jaxon Smith I am from a small town in Oregon. I am seventeen years old and I was diagnosed with PTSD or Post-Traumatic-Stress Disorder last year. This video is going to be a little bit different than I normally do. Today I am going to be talking about my PTSD and bringing awareness to the disorder.

My PTSD was triggered by a very traumatic event that I ended being stuck in the middle of. My school was one of the many that were targeted with a school shooting. I remember that we were walking down the halls like it was a normal day and suddenly, a gun went off. Everyone scattered, but the shots didn’t stop. You can hear everyone screaming in fear and the ones that have been shot just crying for help. Before that time, we have never practiced a code red before, and no one knew where to go or what to do. So, we ended up hiding in closets and classroom until someone came and got us.

After that night I found it really hard to sleep through the night without having terrifying nightmares. Unfortunately, a few of my friends ended up passing away and I had a really bad case of survivor’s guilt due to that. I also ended having to transfer schools because every time that I walked through the front doors I would end up with horrible flashbacks of the event. Since that day I have hated and regretted going to school, I used to love going to school and learning more about different topics, but not anymore. After a few weeks of that continuing, my mom ended up taking me to the doctors to get me checked out. After a few nights of staying in the hospital, I was diagnosed with PTSD. They said all of my symptoms fit such as the flashbacks, loss of interest in activities, and nightmares but even the survivor’s guilt was a part of the PTSD that I didn’t even realize.

To this day I still have my good and bad days with my PTSD. Just like you would with any kind of injury or mental health disorder, even just for a normal person. We all have our good and bad days. When I am having a good day, I tend to be able to control my flashbacks pretty well. They don’t happen as often and definitely not as bad on my good days. I have the opportunity or the chance to feel good physically. My body feels free, I guess you could say. When I have my bad days, I end up getting really tense and my body starts to ache. My emotions are easily changed with my good and bad days. If I am having a bad day, I can end up crying hysterically for no reason because I had a flashback. When it gets to that point, I pull myself away from people and I guess in a way I become anti-social. I do it, especially when it happens in public because I do get embarrassed about it. People stare and think that I am crazy or that there is something really wrong with me when there isn’t. On a typical bad day, I could be walking in a store that my friends and I have been in together and I could get a whiff of someone’s cologne that was the same or similar to my friend’s and it could take me back to take the day in a second. Leaving me crying or screaming in the middle of a store with people staring at me. When that happens, it takes me a while to snap out of it.

As far as treatment wise, I started out with cognitive therapy and that was going pretty well for the most part. Then I was also pulled into a biomedical therapy and was placed on some medication. One to help with my anxiety with the flashbacks and another to help me sleep through the night. Those changed my life because it made it easier to cope with the reality of my condition. Well that is once we were able to find the right dosage for me. After a few months of that, they started to ease me into exposure therapy which is basically what it sounds like. They slowly expose you to the situation that your mind is trying to hold on to or the traumatic situation. That is probably the therapy that helped me the most in my therapy.

I guess the advice that I give to someone is probably if you are someone that is struggling with PTSD, you aren’t alone in this battle. I know that sometimes it's hard to get out of the thinking that you are the only one who knows how it feels or that you don’t want to put that burden on someone else. Let me tell you this, that is what friends and family are for. To love and support you. You just need to let them help you with their love and support. My second piece of advice is to the other people when you see someone freaking out, or in my case having a flashback in public, please don’t stare or make fun of us. It makes us all feel terrible because we don’t want to be looked at any differently. We are truly trying our best to be normal or have our good days, but it just doesn’t happen all the time. You can’t have the good without the bad. It is just hard to control it at times and it is something that we are working on.

If you guys liked this video, give it a thumbs up and don’t forget to subscribe. If you are someone that has been diagnosed with PTSD feel free to let me know about your experiences. Thank you, guys, for listening!