No PTSD is not some weird cisco proprietary protocol. Some info on wikipedia that you already know:
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to one or more terrifying events that threatened or caused grave physical harm.[3] It is a severe and ongoing emotional reaction to an extreme psychological trauma
CCIE Candidate was the first to form the link between the CCIE lab and PTSD and called it post-traumatic test disorder. In short these words describe it best “…curl up into the fetal position and start sucking my thumb…”. It has been two months since I got the digits and only now starting to recover. I have noticed that after the lab there were two phases. The fist month was a huge high on adrenaline and the only thought on my mind was “what next? what else?”. To actually sit and not know what to do with the free time was similar to meeting an ex girlfriend you haven’t seen for a few months. Equally awkward as excited. Then the second phase arrive, you remember why you guys broke up in the first place and for some unknown reason become a bit despondent. The last month or so was hopefully the lowest point on the sine wave. I kept wondering whether all the blood, swear and tears was really worth the digits? Before the lab I wondered why it seemed that the ccie blogs seem to fade away after getting the digits. Now I know, I subconsciously block every thing related to the lab out. I still receive the groupstudy emails but the first thing I do in the morning is to delete literally 99% of it. I only read the off topic emails. This is all changing, Im blogging again, I start reading some SP related emails on groupstudy and Im genuinely interested in doing the MPLS exam of the CCIP track. There is still a mental block when I think about the other two subjects required for the CCIP cert. Not more QOS or BGP, Im not ready for them yet.
If this post seems incomplete, it will be because it is. Im having a ripple effect of the sine wave.
