PTSD and cPTSD as neuro-divergency and as mental disabilities

Photo by Milad Fakurian on Unsplash

I write a lot about de-stigmatizing mental health; I try to do mental health advocacy.

And yet, as someone who is constantly grappling with what that means, while living in a world where mental health crises and conditions are still so heavily stigmatized -

I sometimes marvel at just how many ways I have fallen short in my understanding.

For example:

Even though I have read, and I know that PTSD and cPTSD causes brain damage, so much so that it changes how your brain functions - making it a form of neuro-divergency -

I know that.

I have known that for a year or so.

And yet, rarely do I think of myself as disabled.

My depression and anxiety are so much better and more manageable now.

I firmly believe that mental health conditions, and whether you called them crises or illnesses, or all of the above -

I do believe that they are disabilities - arguably with their own additional challenges because of their invisibility in this able-bodied and able-minded society -

I do not always remember to consider myself as disabled.

Even though I know better.

Even though I have read the neuroscience, and I know that my brain scan and imaging will look different from someone who has not undergone trauma(s).

And even though I know that my neurotransmitters have changed and sizes and parts of my brain have shrunk, and others gotten larger, and taken over, running the show -

Precisely because my brain adapted to try to survive.

Because it responded when it sent messages coursing throughout me, signaling heavy cortisol overdrive - that I was in danger.

And we needed to protect me.

They did a full systems overdrive -

And the result - an altered brain chemistry -

Much like TBI, a traumatic brain injury is a disability -

Much like autism and variations of that and ADHD - are all forms of neuro-divergency -

You could also call them disabilities -

Precisely because we live in a world that is so fixated and normed by neuro-typical ideas — whatever the fuck that means -

That even survival and smart brain adaptations and the superpowers of ADHD - they all create additional hurdles and can be understood as disabilities in this world in which we live -

It is so paradoxical - and yet oh so very true - that mental health conditions - trauma and how it changes you -

It both is my superpower - I’ve developed helluva resiliency and much increased human compassion for others, greater spiritual connections - and also a greater self-awareness and knowledge -

to heal myself and my family - generations before me -

It’s all part of the superpower of agony - trauma - but can be transformed and reframed and understood as super abilities -

And they are -

But they are also disabilities -

Because many people don’t understand what it is like to live in the brain and body of someone heavily traumatized, shaped by the imprints and effects of trauma - -

Even though, sadly, many more of us probably are, than are not.

I don’t know why I struggle with this -

When I take stock of what I’ve had to endure-

• a spiraling sense of shameful identity/shame as self

• intense levels of cortisol that made me feel caffeinated/hyper/on speed - which drove me to insomnia and pretty intense generalized anxiety (though I detest the name of that condition - nothing ‘general’ about it - but acute and hard…)

• a heightened startle reflex

• emotional outbursts

• extreme emotional exhaustion

• disorientation and a confused, surreal mental state

• a lack of therapy and medication and insurance - for years -

• untreated PTSD and cPTSD - for years -

It is rather sobering - and writing it all out -

How can all of that not be seen and understood as a mental disability?

It is -

And yet - maybe it’s that we live in a world where we still privilege physical disabilities over mental or invisible ones -

Maybe it’s pride - to admit that I am mentally disabled, is to grapple with my own limitations - perhaps my intellectual nature fights against that -

Whatever all the reasons may be -

Today I am reflecting on how - though of us with PTSD and cPTSD - in having brain damage and neuro-divergency -

May also be understood as having mentally disabilities.

Perhaps just another way to reclaim my status as a survivor -

And what I’ve done despite all this mindfuckery.