I’m blogging it because I am desperate enough to try this in order to make the PTSD stop.

My reasoning, if it could be called such, is that this way I kind of externalize the PTSD… sort of, like, um, interact with it in some conscious way… sort of turn it into something I can imagine managing. Like, there are rules. Even if they change all the time and I rarely ever realize the changes until some time after the fact.

I should note that I don’t think PTSD is a game. The stakes are way too high for that. I’m just trying to turn it into some shape I can grasp. And having been through sessions with really bad GMs ((And some good ones. Man, I heart the good ones.)), Life is a Bad RPG turns into an exercise I can almost deal with.

My bartender ((Psychologist. Licensed. Part of the psychology department crack team of the local big clinic.)) told me a while back that I needed to… kind of… accept the PTSD. Not, like, give in. Actually, I don’t completely understand what he meant. Did he mean something like this? It does seem to help. It seems to help me kind of accept it as a part of my life, rather than keep denying it, the latter of which seems to make it worse.

The problem, though, is that while I can adapt to the PTSD—and have done so in various ways in the past—my PTSD also adapts to me. A fancy way of saying that things I do to mitigate it often become triggers.

So, one day I might have to stop writing Life is Like a Bad RPG. I hope that day doesn’t come. It feels like writing a little web comic without the drawing, which I’ve always wanted to able to do. ((That, or be able to keep up with a serial. I may start posting my serials on Tumblr or elsewhere at some point.)) It’s an outlet that somehow feels more immersive, even more complex, than anything I’ve tried before.

That immersion may, naturally, be my downfall.

Right now, though, I’m having… well, something like fun… while I’m doing it.