My view of PTSD

In my yoga trainings, we talked a lot about PTSD. This is also something I deal with personally, so I thought I'd share what it looks like in my life, just a little, not the full picture, because it's too much.

PTSD is standing in the rain with a friend, scraping off any conspicuous markings on your car so that you'll be harder to find in a parking lot. 
It's knowing how to check your car for tracking devices, because the sheriff showed you.
It's surveying a room thoroughly before you enter. It's looking out the windows before you leave, and sticking your head out the door before you commit to walking outside. 
It's jumping through your skin when someone in the gym drops a heavy weight.
It's building up anxiety for a period of days, before you have to go do a thing, so much that you actually feel sick, but you go anyway. And then it takes two days to feel ok again. 
It's moving and not wanting to share your address with anyone, and when you do, admonishing them not to share it with anyone else. 
It's a feeling of dread upon opening your email, or hearing your text message chime.
It's not being able to sleep, and waking up every few hours when you do, thinking you heard that noise...
It's worse if you've experienced the same type of traumatic event multiple times in your life.
It's people telling you it can't be that bad, or you are exaggerating, that you are making too much out of things...

It's so much more, but it's not me. It doesn't define me. I keep going, I keep doing the things. Even when they are hard. Especially when they are hard.