A.C. Brooke

Hey guys! Bit of a depressing prose I wrote last night but I wanted to share (trigger warning for mention of sexual assault). For a really long time I’ve wondered how to capture what life with PTSD is like, more specifically, how it feels to navigate in your 20s. Spoiler alert: it’s kind of rough!

More specifically though, I wanted to illustrate how you acclimate to it, how the disorder becomes something you just begin to live around. But then there are those acute moments of realization where the unfairness of it all hits you in the face, when you realize the way your life–at least right now–differs from your peers’ and it all just kind of…hurts. I have a hard time figuring out what’s the human condition, what’s the 22 year old condition and what’s just a result of trauma. Hopefully in time I’ll figure that out, but without further ado…

I’ve Never Been to Iceland

People ask me a lot if I have any upcoming plans to travel. I guess that’s what you’re supposed to do in your 20s. A woman at work today said she’s going to Iceland. I’ve never been to Iceland. 

I called my psychiatrist this afternoon. He forgot to fill my prescription. My parents don’t want me on meds but I had to stop caring about that a while ago. I’m hoping this one works. This is the fourth drug we’ve tried. 

On Monday I had a dream that two guys broke into our home. One of them held a gun to my mother’s head. He said he’d pull the trigger if he couldn’t rape me. I woke up and went to work. 

Usually I have a good day at the office. I like the things I do, and I know I do them well. But sometimes on the ride home a certain song will come on and I’ll cry. I’m not sure why I do that, but I do. 

There’s this ache in my chest lately. When I scroll through my phone late at night trying to fill it, it gets a bit bigger. Funny how things are like that. I try not to wonder too much about who I would be, how I should feel. I go in knowing it’s a losing game but pay to play anyway. My sister tells me not to be so hard on myself. But youth kind of feels like an hourglass, and mine has shattered all over me.

I wonder what it’s like to think about other things, to go to parties, to go on dates. I saw a video yesterday about a group of traveling friends who spend every Sunday night dancing around a campfire. The caption was something along the lines of ditching tradition. It made me kind of angry, actually. I had to put my phone down. It’s nobody’s fault, really. I blame strangers for things they don’t have to endure. That’s not fair. But sometimes it all feels a little tone deaf: Someone telling you to find the courage to jump out of an airplane as if that’s the issue. In reality, you’re still figuring out how to put on a parachute. I guess I’m not the target audience. Knowing why kind of hurts. Knowing it’s not my fault somehow makes it hurt more. 

I’ve never been to Iceland. I don’t know if I’ll ever make it to Iceland.