AIBU to ask what having PTSD is like for you?

[Unconquerable]

Do not have ptsd, life with a man with ptsd but he cannot really describe it. Says he is lost for words.
I post here for traffic and because I know there are many individuals with ptsd on this board.

I have a diagnosis of PTSD from teenage sexual abuse and rape. I had very complex therapy that basically saved my life and I would say that I am 90% better. But in a way that makes it wise because I get so pulled into a false sense of security that when I get a flash back, it's crippling. For me it's mainly hearing a noise at night. Happens maybe once or twice every 3 months. I wake up paralysed with fear and can hear my rapist outside my room trying the handle of the door. I get a burning urge to urinate ( occasionally it's actually happened) and can't breathe. I feel like I'm being crushed. I can smell his semen and aftershave and it feels like I'm suffocating. I see a light under my door and his feet as shadows. Even when the door is wide open. It takes me around 45 mines to get myself under Control but that's sleep done for the night and likely the next few nights.... I get by on naps in the day time until my brain feels distanced enough. Then life goes back to normal and I almost forget about it all. And it happens again.

Other one is different every time. But something will trigger a memory. Could be a car the same as he had ( thank good old cars are getting so rare now). His aftershave. His accent. I can't have Jonathon Ross on the tv. No to people that remind me of him. So a big no to Anthony Warrel Thomson too. I watched a movie the other day and a cop pulled up to a car where two people were stuck in s as snow storm and said to the woman " I'm sure we can come to some sort of arrangement " and grabbed his groin and it sent me totally spiralling. I was shaking, vomited. Memoirs cake rushing back that I've locked up for 25 years and I couldn't control it. Took me 36 hours for my heart rate to get back to normal and it felt like I'd run a marathon in a heat wave.

I can't control it. And when it's happening I am not reasonable. My body is literally under threat and I am petrified. I feel body snatched and foreign in my own skin. But when I'm OK, I can calmly and rationally discuss it all and don't even twitch or react.

It's fucking horrible .