I can smell blood and kerosene.

[FUNKbrs]

All it takes is the right color of yellow-orange light, or just a really stressful day.

When I was ring announcing for death match, I got very accustomed to the smell of blood in the air.

Half the show was displaying the physiological effects of shock on the wrestlers, as well as the intentional traumatization of the audience.

Nothing captures the attention like an induced dissociative gaze, after all. It's like watching a trainwreck.

And when my friend shot himself and painted the inside of my van in his blood as he desperately held the tourniquet I'd put on him in place, being able to dissociate and do what needed to be done to help out was extremely useful.

Obviously, yes, I should have been shit scared to be driving around looking for a cop with a man gushing blood in the passenger seat of a busted van full of hot guns, but luckily I'd trained for it with years of deathmatch ring announcing.

And when a man on fire pried open the door to a bar I was taking a piss in with the intent of dragging his girlfriend down to hell in his fiery embrace and burning the building down with it, I was the first one dragging freaking out women to the parking lot. When my friends who were playing that show were too freaked out to load out their own gear, I walked back in and loaded out drums for my friends over that bastard's still smouldering body.

But now if I'm having a stressful day, I can smell blood and kerosene, and my eyes get wide like saucers. I have to be careful when people see me, because my natural resting facial expression is my eyes showing the whites all the way around and my jaw locked in a forced neutral expression. Everyone I know thinks I've gone crazy.

I look in the mirror, and I look fucking crazy.

Even as I write this, my eyes are big and round like concentric circles in my skull.

If someone tells me so much as a contradictory statement, let alone a white lie, I'll drag them over the coals for it. I have no patience for any kind of petty games or brinksmanship.

People don't know what's at stake.

I am both expressionless and hypervigilant. I don't seem to be paying attention at all, while at the same time soaking up every wave of sound and ray of light touching my senses. Imagine a tiger silently waiting in the tall grass for it's prey, or a startled deer holding still and silent.

Imagine being that animal.

Now imagine a normal person, relaxed, friendly, good humored, seeing you in this state.

They will either see you as the tiger, or worse, the deer.

I no longer have the luxury of pretending I'm okay. It's written in my eyes. Even the muscles in my face has changed shape from constantly being held rigid to avoid belying what's going on inside my head.

I go on my health insurance's website and look for a therapist. They only show an inpatient hospital for PTSD.

I ain't doing that shit.

I message my insurance and tell them I watched a man burn to death and I'd like to talk to a therapist in an office setting.

These fuckers act like I told them I've got a pistol to my head.

All of a sudden chat clams up, says they're not licensed to talk to me. I send a formal message through the secure email, no response. I call the insurance and get told I can only talk to a mental health subcontractor that's not legally liable in the same company as the parent insurance company.

It takes 5 days of trolling Humana's phone system to finally start getting them to respond to me when I use the sane-people contact methods.

Let me assure you, if I was suicidal, I'd be dead by now. One of the big things keeping me alive and trying to stay sane is knowing that bastard Jared Mclemore wanted me dead, crazy, or both.

I don't believe in hell, but I wish I did, just so he could rot there.

Fuck him, and fuck everyone with him.

There's no punchline or moral to this story

True stories normally aren't written that well.

But yeah, it's fucking hard to pick a doctor when the reason you're picking a doctor makes your eyes stare holes in the wall.

The whole time I was writing this, I could smell blood and kerosene.

There you go. There's your fucking punchline.

[FUNKbrs]

At 4/25/18 04:11 PM, HarraH wrote: All it takes is a different perspective on the same situation to see it as something new...

You give yourself credibility but you lose it to other people. Nobody can give you that back.

Does that mean anything to you?

I really don't give a fuck about other people's opinions.

That's how self esteem works.

Or toxic narcissism, I can't tell.

Wait, no, they're the same thing, just depending on whether your describing the trait in yourself or in your ex.

[DanielTheManiel]

At 4/25/18 03:59 PM, FUNKbrs wrote: I can smell blood and kerosene.

That can't be right.
Unless, your blood IS kerosene.
Whoa...

[DrSevenSeizeMD]

Is it just your area? I used to have Humana and we had quite a few therapists to choose from.

Though I've done therapy twice, and honestly the books they recommend me to read helped me more than the therapy.

You're a very smart man. I bet you could do some self help as well.

And you've been through a lot, you probably do have PTSD.

But you definitely don't need inpatient

[SatanBrain]

So you can smell iron and fuel. Wow.

[CiviLies]

How is it that almost every traumatic thing that could ever possibly happen to a person seems to happen to you. I won't be surprised if some genocide occurs in America only for you to survive it so that you could add "survive a genocide" to a list of super shitty things you've been through

[DamnedByFate]

At 4/25/18 10:27 PM, DanielTheManiel wrote:

At 4/25/18 03:59 PM, FUNKbrs wrote: I can smell blood and kerosene.

That can't be right.
Unless, your blood IS kerosene.
Whoa...

I take it you've never had to torch the scene of a self-created bloodbath before.

[DrSevenSeizeMD]

At 4/26/18 04:43 AM, CiviLies wrote: How is it that almost every traumatic thing that could ever possibly happen to a person seems to happen to you. I won't be surprised if some genocide occurs in America only for you to survive it so that you could add "survive a genocide" to a list of super shitty things you've been through

You'd think he was lying if you didn't know him, but he's telling the truth.

I'm hesitant to stay close to him, because I figure something awful will happen to me, for him to live through.

[FUNKbrs]

At 4/25/18 10:35 PM, SevenSeize wrote: Is it just your area? I used to have Humana and we had quite a few therapists to choose from.

They gave me a long list, but a lot of them are duplicates, and a lot of them are religious or inexperienced. The research I've done up to this point says I should look for an EMDR specialist

So far I've seen a bunch of drug rehabs, a hypnotist, and a large number of middle aged women with horses and flowers who'd like to talk to me about my relationships.

Frankly I need the kind of psychologist that normally works for a prison, not a hospital.

I doubt there's a large support group for people with my kind of history. Statistically I'm a bit of a nightmare patient.

Though I've done therapy twice, and honestly the books they recommend me to read helped me more than the therapy.

You're a very smart man. I bet you could do some self help as well.

And that's the other side; Stefani's doing teletherapy and they just make her write a bunch of shit in a journal. But I already write all the time, and I've been doing the self help thing for nearly a year now and I'm still pretty batshit. Not as bad as I was, but it only took me 9 months to recover from Steve and the anniversary of the thing's coming up and I'm still thinking about it all the time and dealing with the repercussions.

And you've been through a lot, you probably do have PTSD.

But you definitely don't need inpatient

The red flag list I read gave me a score high enough that I could get involuntary inpatient even if I never admit to suicidal or homicidal ideation based on a some childhood experiences.

It's funny, if you read the documentation they put out for potential patients, everything's fine, you just have to "get treatment", but if you read the training documentation for employees, you get a completely different picture of how you'll be treated.

So far, it seems the employee training documents were the accurate ones.

[CiviLies]

At 4/26/18 07:07 AM, SevenSeize wrote: You'd think he was lying if you didn't know him, but he's telling the truth.

I'm hesitant to stay close to him, because I figure something awful will happen to me, for him to live through.

I know what you mean. Then again if he's survived this much so far and has helped others survive in the past, sticking by his side may not be a bad idea. I can think of few people who'd make a better post-apocalypse survival partner :P

[FUNKbrs]

At 4/26/18 12:20 PM, CiviLies wrote:

At 4/26/18 07:07 AM, SevenSeize wrote: You'd think he was lying if you didn't know him, but he's telling the truth.

I'm hesitant to stay close to him, because I figure something awful will happen to me, for him to live through.

I know what you mean. Then again if he's survived this much so far and has helped others survive in the past, sticking by his side may not be a bad idea. I can think of few people who'd make a better post-apocalypse survival partner :P

I'm apparently handy with a tourniquet and keep my head cool no matter what.

Maybe way cooler than it should be, in situations where I should be hot and passionate.

[DanielTheManiel]

At 4/26/18 04:51 AM, DamnedByFate wrote: I take it you've never had to torch the scene of a self-created bloodbath before.

I'd have to create the bloodbath first, and we both know that's not my style.