Books in elementary school… remember, or did your elementary school have a book day? Buying books that would arrive in a big box that the teacher would distribute to the purchasers/students, class. I used to buy them for the fancy covers, the sense of ownership of a symbolic thing, but symbolic of what? Belonging, being a part of, showing I am one of them by being interested in books? Pretending I was capable of adequate reading, perhaps just “owning” things as a comfort. I never read one of them! They were like prizes, things to admire, symbols… an act of class participation.
Pictures in books. In a reading assignment, I would always count the easy-to-read pages, hoping for lots of pictures, because reading was such a struggle. I had a consuming anxiety disorder (this was 57 years ago, thus not diagnosed), struggled to focus, was distracted, and highly dissociative.

CPTSD fills the boxes on the checklist

That same psychic dis-ease lives with me still, but it is now better managed. It is the… I want to say C PTSD, but with differing diagnoses combined, ADHD being a strong potential comorbid with, it often leaves me wondering, but CPTSD fills the boxes on the checklist.

My identity was partly of a shifting grandiosity. I prided myself on being able to build things in late adolescence, with a hammer and wood, etc. I thought I was The Bee’s Knees (a 1940s saying) knowing building, but I was completely engaged in my private delusionary world. I had zero idea of how things were “supposed to” be built. There was no reading up on building nor interaction with others to learn carpentry. I was ignorant, alone, isolated in my world of simply- wanting it to be so. Too busy hiding, denying, and struggling to keep authentic self-awareness at bay. What was I going to do next for the imperative of self-distraction?

Karate, same scenario. Practice, practice, practice,… but practicing what? I obsessively practiced a few moves I learned in a couple of classes that I managed to go to. Yet, I had to quit due to social phobia like everything socially I briefly attempted.

I would never learn the names of people in rock bands that I liked, sports teams, or anything else. It was as if looking into who they were was somehow antithetical to the grandiose image I had created (the “I do not know who I am, or them, syndrome”). I would seemingly repress the energy toward “knowing” who they were, or who all was in a band. The Rolling Stones, I knew it was Mick Jagger, but I was oblivious to anyone else in the band. (In the ’60s, everybody in the day knew of the fab-four, John, Paul, George, and Ringo. You couldn’t escape it!) But the same is true for people on sports teams. I’d know of the names of the BIG stars, but nothing specific about them.

So much of my experience has been blocked from awareness

So much of my experience has been blocked from awareness, the grandiose falsity of it being too much for me to truly comprehend or understand. There had been an amnesia aspect to my sense of identity, away from a concrete understanding of self. It is as though a fantasy self was perpetually constructed to overcome the crisis of dissociating from authentic feelings, emotions, self-understanding, any further personal development, and how I fit among others, etc.

Take away the fantasies and what am I left with? A sense of self that was so tortured inside that I could barely function in life. In my lost decade, after my lost childhood, I could not adequately function. However, the grandiose self-images I clung to, they served their purpose, in the moment… I did not want to be aware of any of it, not the truth of my suffering. The perpetual beer and cigarette in my hand spoke of that.

My basic educational structure has been stunted by not learning appropriately all along in my school life. Here, ADHD rises to a level of more than just curiosity. Metaphorically, I zoned out during the shopping for dinner, the understanding of the recipe and the meal’s preparation, and instead lived off take-out food. What is a vowel? Nouns and verbs are my basic understanding of English grammar. Syllables, or virtually anything else… no, I don’t know (did I ever?). And that pertains to almost all I was supposed to digest in grades 1-12. What a struggle in school, and life! To this day, I cringe at the thought of someone handing me something to read in front of them, fearing they will see I can’t read appropriately and/or comprehend what I just read. Hypervigilance short-circuiting my concentration.

All of my past hobbies, fishing, photography, composing music, writing, woodworking, karate, gardening, everything was done in a dissociative way, by “just knowing enough” to fake to my inner child that I was a great fisherman, writer, photographer, lyricist, and songwriter. The grandiosity of it all! Always and in everything, zoned out from personal development and understanding of “how things work.” There is a form of a learning disability in all this (kind of a duh statement), but I don’t know what it is called. I don’t want to use the word crazy… certainly dissociated, anxiety-ridden, and hypervigilant. Perhaps simply put, it is my flavor of… C PTSD, or put in a different general way, is an active trauma disorder. And, again, potentially hanging out there is ADHD combined.

I expose and divulge this hoping someone else might find relief in knowing they are not alone. I have come to learn that what is real and present within yourself, consciously or unconsciously, is shared by others. Not all others, but others who have lived a similar journey. I have never told this to anyone before, other than my current therapist. Here is a prime example of how the authenticity of self-expression can break through the inner burdens of fearing exposure and begin to heal the shame that radiates… from hiding. So how do I write and come across as I do sounding perhaps different from what I have described? THERAPY! Years, well over a decade of therapy and studying the humanities, something, with an interest to me. After barely graduating High School and a God-awful lost decade after High School, suffering emotionally and economically drove me to approach therapy and college. Therapy was required here to sustain my drive to survive, in school and out. Remedial learning became my college major for the first two, nearing three full semesters. In college, I was never free of my inner conflict with C-PTSD. Learning was a struggle, but I persevered. And low and behold I began getting A’s and B’s. Me?!

I now have four associate degrees, (*Social & Behavioral Sciences *Psychology *Business Administration *Medical Transcription Specialist) at the end of my couple of decades-long drive to rise from the ashes. I never could attend a four-year college, and I feel sorrowful about that. My concentration issues, along with bouts of major depression and social anxiety disorder, left me anchored in the two-year Jr. College system. I never gave up trying to learn to overcome my shame of feeling inferior to others who were more capable of processing… LIFE. But there is a state of consciousness within me now that is of a profound understanding of how psychological… (I don’t want to say mental illness) barriers can block, or slow and limit success. And that in and of itself, in my mind, is a triumph!

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Jesse Donahue

**  Copyright notice. All of my writings are copyrighted and registered with the Library of Congress.

My name is Jesse Donahue. In 2015, at the age of 58, I took up writing, and since then I’ve written two novels, poems, and essays about my journey struggling with CPTSD. The essays, 50+, were an adjunct to journaling in therapy to amplify my learning and self-understanding.

My writings, which include therapy notes, poems, novels, and essays, are all a part of my ongoing personal therapy. Many of my essays are in a stream-of-consciousness style, unleashing, sharing, and delving into energies that continuously process in my subconscious. My writings, initially, geared for me and my therapist’s eyes only, began with my exposing my thoughts, fears, and feelings (or the lack of) onto paper… a journal of therapy notes. Then, with fear overcome and via a personal decision of choice, I shared them here with the readers. My essays, most all, originate from my weekly therapy notes. My intent and desire is to encourage readers to recognize traits in themselves and find a therapist if they are willing and able to do so. If you are in therapy, ask your therapist to read them and discuss what pertains to you. For some, it can be a long and difficult process over extensive periods to awaken to the unconscious issues that have us acting out in life. Our behavior can seem like dancing to a buried, invisible energy that we are not able to directly see or confront. It is my sincere hope that my insights will assist the reader in the process toward reaching a deeper self-understanding. Bringing the unconscious out into the light of self-awareness, understanding, and acceptance fosters self-love and the process of change.

My published writings with the CPTSD foundation: *The Hidden Bugaboo. The Beganning. Twelve Days Without Coffee. Learned Helplessness. Cast Out of Eden by Toxic Shame. The Crumbs and The Banquet. What an Outside Appearance may Not Show. Obedience to the Light – Bombs or Love. Stepping Into the Shoes of Who You Are. Personal Honor, Integrity, Dignity, Honesty. Inspirational Tugging – Teachers. Codependency – Overriding the Monster of Self Hate. Surfing the Light Through the Darkness. We are but Storytellers. A Writer’s Brain – The Gift. The Highway of Worries.