Wow. This is about my fifth day on Steemit and I’m almost overwhelmed by the diversity! Something for everyone, and lots of stuff for a multi-passionate septuagenarian waking up from a near-death experience.
My name is Myrna Throckmorton (one of my nom de plumes and nee.) I use the designation “First Citizen” to differentiate some things I do from my first love, creative writing (specifically novels.) You can think of and call me, Aunt Katy. Over the last ten years, I have gone from “nothing wrong with you but your attitude,” to, “you have a little bit of arthritis,” to, “might be Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s or … …” … to, “You have extreme spinal stenosis.” –That, only after I was hospitalized with life-threatening symptoms.
I also have PTSD.
The only wars I’ve ever participated in were in the houses where my parents did battle, followed by my own bedrooms after I married. Battlefield conditions can be created anywhere, by anyone. You do not have to be an active combatant to suffer from those conditions.
I haven’t the time to turn this into a fully-researched and documented essay. If you don’t know, and didn’t care enough to look it up, “septuagenarian” means someone who is in their seventies. At least, for seventy-five years, PTSD has been a life-long, chronic condition that pops its ugly little head up at the most inopportune and insidious moments. As a medical condition, it is hardly terminal, but it tends to aggravate other medical conditions, hastening their ultimate effects. As a psychological condition, it went unrecognized and ill-treated for so long that most of the research and guidelines for treatment are relatively new and untried. But at least it is getting its due.
My own self-medication consists of music, writing, gardening (permaculture – look it up, or watch my feed for articles and essays), art, crafts, remodeling and refurbishing my older home, and cooking, canning, preserving and storing my own food and more, for gift-giving and education. I do not lack for something to post about, only the discipline to narrow down the choices to a manageable chaos.
I guess, for a while, most of my Steem will consist of comments on other peoples’ posts. –I gotta LOVE this venue!