Brad Schipke describes PTSD as constant terror and hypervigilance that makes leaving the house feel impossible. People with it feel profoundly misunderstood because no amount of reading about it captures what living inside it actually feels like. He calls it hell, and says only those who've been through it truly get it.
How does a person with PTSD feel? Well, most people with PTSD have come to me and said, nobody understands how I feel. And honestly, that's true. Nobody does, and nobody really will unless they've gone through it themselves. And even if they logically understand the symptoms, if they've gone to school and they've read a lot of books on it, that is completely different than actually having PTSD and actually going through it. It's very hard to describe or write down what it feels like to be absolutely terrified, jumpy, hypervigilant all the time, to always be on edge, to be terrified to leave your house, to be terrified to basically do anything. And most people just don't understand that because they haven't experienced it. And honestly, most people will not experience that. So PTSD is, uh, hell.
