Since I have been back, I have had a constant companion. I do not know their face, I do not know their name. I have never seen them. But they are always watching me. I feel the eyes of my constant watcher on me while I eat. While I drive home. Even in the dark as I sleep I feel the eye watching. Always watching. PTSD is always watching.
I left work at 5 pm and got home at 7 pm. For two hours, I drove, with my vigilant watcher following me. My eyes darted from mirror to mirror, there he was again. This time the watcher was driving a lifted chevy truck, gold, tinted windows. For two hours, I drove with the watcher behind me. I tried to convince myself that it was all in my head. As I always do, I failed. My anxiety could not be talked down. I knew the driver was just going in the same direction as me on the freeway, and nothing more. But the panic would not hear it. PTSD can not be reasoned with.
I sit with my back to the walls in restaurants because I can feel the watchers eyes borrowing into my mind. Judging, watching, planning something. I can't eat, I can't focus, I can't engage the people I am with. My food is bland because all I can taste is the lifeless eyes of the crowd staring back at me. The watcher is somewhere lost in the confusion. I drift out of conversations and let others take over, I appear to be anti-social, or introverted, but the truth is I am searching. Always searching for those eyes. I am tired of being watched, and can focus on nothing but that.
I am being watched, I know it is my mind playing tricks on me. But I can not win that argument with my PTSD. As bills pile up, and rent is due, my job on the line, PTSD is still there. Always there, watching. Still the only solid unchanging force in life. I know that it will always be there, I count on that, I trust in that. The eyes will always watch, and I will always search for them. Sanity may leave, family may walk, friends may drift but PTSD will always be waiting for the day I find it where it hides, watching me.
For those who understand this feeling, remember together we win, together we can find the watcher and stop it.
I left work at 5 pm and got home at 7 pm. For two hours, I drove, with my vigilant watcher following me. My eyes darted from mirror to mirror, there he was again. This time the watcher was driving a lifted chevy truck, gold, tinted windows. For two hours, I drove with the watcher behind me. I tried to convince myself that it was all in my head. As I always do, I failed. My anxiety could not be talked down. I knew the driver was just going in the same direction as me on the freeway, and nothing more. But the panic would not hear it. PTSD can not be reasoned with.
I sit with my back to the walls in restaurants because I can feel the watchers eyes borrowing into my mind. Judging, watching, planning something. I can't eat, I can't focus, I can't engage the people I am with. My food is bland because all I can taste is the lifeless eyes of the crowd staring back at me. The watcher is somewhere lost in the confusion. I drift out of conversations and let others take over, I appear to be anti-social, or introverted, but the truth is I am searching. Always searching for those eyes. I am tired of being watched, and can focus on nothing but that.
I am being watched, I know it is my mind playing tricks on me. But I can not win that argument with my PTSD. As bills pile up, and rent is due, my job on the line, PTSD is still there. Always there, watching. Still the only solid unchanging force in life. I know that it will always be there, I count on that, I trust in that. The eyes will always watch, and I will always search for them. Sanity may leave, family may walk, friends may drift but PTSD will always be waiting for the day I find it where it hides, watching me.
For those who understand this feeling, remember together we win, together we can find the watcher and stop it.
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