Criteria C: Persistent avoidance and emotional numbing
This involves a sufficient level of:
- avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma, such as certain thoughts or feelings, or talking about the event(s);
- avoidance of behaviors, places, or people that might lead to distressing memories;
- inability to recall major parts of the trauma(s), or decreased involvement in significant life activities;
- decreased capacity (down to complete inability) to feel certain feelings;
- an expectation that one's future will be somehow constrained in ways not normal to other people.
What is a sufficient level? I am going to leave this one alone, except to say, "yes, yup, been there/done that one" and...
I wrote: Beyond Pain and a few years later I wrote Beyond Joy. Too bad that was pre-computers or pre me having one. The handwritten stories are gone with the rest of my possessions. Although I have little recall of what I wrote ~ I fancied myself a budding author back then so put some effort into my little essays ~ I know the gist of the first was that I seemed to no longer be able to feel pain. Mental or emotional pain.
"Life is a tragedy for those who feel, a comedy for those who think." I would quip,
"I am a thinker, not a feeler", life one big cosmic joke. Why cry when you can laugh. Oh, yeah, I could put on a show of sympathetic responses to others tragedy, yet not feel the remotest amount of sorrow for their grief. I am guessing, likely accurately, Beyond Joy happened in 1998, when the opposite occurred. Emotional numbing...
...'nuff said?
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