Do You Suffer or Do You Cope?

I will beg your forgiveness now, as I haven't had a lot of sleep and there are some personal issues that may affect my abilities to compose in complete coherence (well my norm of coherence) and proper spelling, grammar and the like. The title of this particular thought exercise comes about from two personal things that have happened to me, one that has been a part of my make up for some time now and one in which I am on the outside looking in upon someone whom I love deeply and dearly. I dedicate these thoughts to her. If I recall correctly at some point or another I have kinda sorta told my story and probably either said "I suffer from..." or "I used to suffer from, but now cope with...". It is not uncommon for any person to have some condition, be it physical, mental, emotional, financial, spiritual or what have you that effects their life in some manner, and not always to the betterment of their life. We have a tendency to say about ourselves or someone else whom we know has such a condition as "suffering from...". For me, that condition is PTSD. It presented itself with clinical depression, and some pretty reckless behavior. And before I really even knew I had this stress disorder, I can look back now and say I suffered. Tho, in actuality, the suffering was by those who put up with me when I was insufferable; those who tried to tell me that I had changed and I thought they were the ones were just slightly off. But eventually I came to realize I needed help. I got that help. That help gave me mental tools that helped me to move from suffering, with all of the negative connotations and the oh woe is me self-victimization that attaches to it, to coping with that very same condition. The condition still exists within me. It will most likely be a part of my life until the day I die. But instead of allowing that condition to limit me in what I can and will do, by realizing that coping with this condition, the only limits I must abide by are the ones that I set for myself. Granted, with PTSD, I have to know (or at least learn to recognize when I come up against) what my trigger(s) is to sending me on a "wonderful" no expense not thought of to charge me with trip back to some dark and ugly event(s) that put me in Freeze, Fight or Flight. Oh what joys come from over reacting (or under reacting, no reaction at all) due to being in a different place altogether even tho physically I never left the spot I was in. Flashbacks are fun! NOT! Especially not when you are bouncing your own vehicle off of the side of a semi trailer at 70 mph to avoid the piece of tire scrap that you thought was something else entirely. So, knowing what my triggers are and not allowing myself to let my condition and those triggers limit me, but for me to set my own limits (goals, dreams, these are limits - the limits to which you would strive to find the life and live it as you most desire) I don't allow myself to suffer (ok ok, yes I have "bad" days and still suffer from my condition), but instead have harnessed it, and make it work for me, I now COPE with my condition and live life as fully as I am capable of doing. So, after all of that above, to my daughter, and also to my friends and family who have some injury, illness or other condition that makes your life harder than it should be. It is my fervent wish and desire that you will look past the negatives of whatever you "suffer" from, decide that you are not going to allow that condition to be your master and control you any longer. That instead you will find some slight glimmer of inspiration in my story, and find your way to cope with whatever it may be. Learn to cope so that the limits you face as to what you want to accomplish are not set by anyone or anything but your own conscious, rational, thinking mind. That you will find your way to strive to make the best of what all you have, in spite of something that says you can't do that. My hope is that you cope!