About Me.

I’ve never been very good at writing about myself. I usually read posts back and think I sound whiny, or it just makes me cringe, but this is my being in my own head. The point of this is to try and get out of that to be honest. So, in case people reading this don’t know me, or don’t know enough about me.. I’ve added an about me section. I warn you, this will be long.

Online I usually go by Casper, I have no issue using my real name except it kind of freaks me out when strangers use it. I can’t explain why! I am 27, and I am from the UK. I’ve suffered with PTSD (officially diagnosed) since I was 20, but I think it started long before then.

I am not comfortable enough to drag out the brutal truth of what I’ve been through, but I have had significant trauma at the ages of 16 and also 26. I kept the first trauma to myself for 4 long years. The truth only came out because I got horrifically drunk and blurted it out. Before that I had spent those 4 years being the most self destructive I’ve ever been. I was drinking way too much and way too heavy. I would come home and trash everything in sight, I’d start violent arguments with anyone in the vicinity and I put my entire family through hell with the drama and the fact that I would hurt myself in that state too. I couldn’t hold shit down. Friendships, relationships, family, work… It all took hits.

I eventually admitted I needed help after realising a lot of my symptoms sounded less like anxiety and more like PTSD. It was a long and super painful process, but I started seeing my GP regularly and I started therapy. I REALLY started therapy. I’d never gone through CBT before, and I did this when I was 21 on and off until I was 25. I got an official diagnosis of PTSD, and I finally started medication especially for that.

I’ve battled with self harm for years, so long I struggle to pinpoint when it started. I think it was when I was bullied at secondary school. It helped me cope, it helped me feel. Then when I went through trauma at 16, it became a familiar friend. I would cut myself almost every day. I’ve been in hospital, I’ve been sewn up, I’ve been lectured, seen by psych numerous times, I’ve had that look so many times it is burnt into my damn retinas at this point.

I am self harm free as of a year since writing this. The last time I cut I really went for it. It was after a night of drinking, getting the courage to tell my best friend at the time, what her disgusting boyfriend had done to me. Long story short, that didn’t go well. I cut myself with a kitchen knife and very much fucked up my thigh. I ended up in a hospital in London alone, pumped with morphine to cope with the pain I couldn’t yet feel, and scared. I had to have a plastic surgeon sew me up. I couldn’t walk properly for weeks. This was all on a Sunday. I started a new job that Monday that followed.

That’s all I really want to share for now, I think I’ll update this as and when I feel stronger.