Living with Mental Illness

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My experience of living with PTSD

PTSD is a terrible thing to live with.  It affects everybody in different ways.
 
Because I have both PTSD and depression I have a wide range of symptoms.  The most obvious symptoms are the mood swings.  I have days when I feel really good, and then for no apparent reason I wake up in the morning and I hate myself and I hate the rest of the world.  I feel really nasty, and I have to work hard to not lose my temper.
 
I have occasional days when I would rather stay in bed, but I have a good job, which gives me the reason to get up.  There are also days when all I want to do is sit and cry, again I have to work hard to appear 'normal' to everybody.
 
One of the symptoms of PTSD is the 'flashbacks' - I regularly have flashbacks to the time when I lost my baby son, who was stillborn.
 
The other thing that I regulary have are bad dreams.  THese are sometimes so vivid, 'real' and disturbing that they affect me for most of the following day.