lord now with this recent update and people will actually LISTEN TO ME EXPLAIN THIS unlike all the posts ive made about this before
Bitty has PTSD!
This is coming from someone who is diagnosed with PTSD and has suffered from it for the past 6-7 years! My PTSD is in relation to trauma from verbal and emotional bullying/abuse, and from what it looks like, Bitty’s is similar to mine except with less emotional abuse and more physical abuse. See here:
Basically? He was bullied. His trauma is in relation to bullying and negative physical contact, see here:
and SPEAKING OF nightmares, lets talk about his symptoms! We now have proof of recurring nightmares (as seen above), (mild?) panic attacks,
and aversion to things like rough housing, namely checking
(I’d like to argue here that he was suppressing an anxiety/panic attack)
Now you may be asking!! But Alex, he tweets about Holster and Ransom rough housing with him! He seems fine with it!
Let me tell you about something that happens when you have undiagnosed PTSD for an extended amount of years, something that I went though. I, like Bitty, experienced my trauma in 7th or 8th grade. I wasn’t properly diagnosed until my freshman year of college, so that was 5-6 years later.
You suppress your triggers. You learn to live with them and suppress them. Basically it’s either suppress them or you really fucking suffer. And hey, if we know anything about Bitty, it’s that he’s a champ at suppressing things (though he has gotten better with communication with Jack lately!).
I have a trigger of other people touching my neck. It used to be way worse, inducing panic attacks and leaving lasting arousal symptoms for a week after. (Click here for some info on PTSD symptoms including arousal symptoms!!) But because I just had to, you know, live with it for 5-6 years I just learned to suppress them. Someone touches my neck now? Yeah, I still jump a bit and have a panic response, but I’ve stopped going into full on panic attacks and instead suppress the feelings associated with it.
So basically? It’s HIGHLY possible Bitty has suppressed his triggers! Large boys picking him up? Probably have an immediate panic response and then the subsequent “no, it’s just holster and ransom. i trust them.” Jack doing the checking clinics with him was literally immersion therapy. That being said, even with immersion therapy, you know, the triggers are still there. You just have coping mechanisms. You’re numb to them. But, they’re still there.
There’s a reason Bitty is afraid of checking. And it’s because it triggers his trauma of being tackled in football.
just moving along like everyone else 