Triggers...

Talking about PTSD triggers... Just when you think you've got your head round what's going on inside your head, you get triggered by something. Yesterday's trigger was a link someone had put to a report on Sky News about a university rugby team and their latest star player. Guess who this player turned out to be? If you've read my book, Please eat..., you will know him as Ben's friendly rival, Kieran. Ben's friend and rival on the rugby and sports fields, and in the classroom. Whoosh! A kind of unpleasant explosion went off inside my head.


"And Ben was better than Kieran at rugby, too," said my husband wistfully.

Which takes me back to that blog post I wrote in early July 2011 about the time I spent an afternoon chatting to Kieran's mum while the two of us watched the school sports day - the sports day two years after the one where Ben beat Kieran in the 1500 metres, also described in my book.

At the moment these flashbacks to 'what could / should have been' had the eating disorder not consumed the last three years of Ben's promising school, social and personal life - and almost his physical life as well - seem to have a particularly unpleasant effect.

They always did make me feel heart-broken. But at the moment, they also exacerbate the alarm button feeling which, as described in the last post, is stuck on red.