Being a trauma survivor with PTSD symptoms means living a life that feels extremely isolated and misunderstood. You know you’re doing the best you can to get through every day with a minimum of meltdown, but to the outside world uncontrolled symptoms of PTSD can look crazy, lazy or just plain weird.

A long time ago I wrote about what I wished my family understood while I was struggling to heal posttraumatic  stress disorder. That open letter became so popular that we posted it as a page for caregivers to help open the conversation about how to support a survivor in PTSD recovery. The interest in that page has been so enormous that we decided to turn the info into a graphic so that it’s easy to see, print and share.

And so, today we reveal the artwork…. voila!

Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments. From what you suggest we can create another image and so keep the conversation going.