Meandering Michele’s Mind: Post-Trauma Thoughts
Monday, April 12th, 2010 • Uncategorized •
I’ve been thinking recently about how my initial feelings after my trauma stayed with me and impacted my life, perspective and world long after the event was over. I’ll explain:
When I was finally released from the hospital I had the very powerful feeling that I did not deserve to survive. Don’t ask me where this feeling came from. I’ve tried to figure it out, but I simply don’t know. I was 13 and anyway, who knows why we think and feel what we do post-trauma — after the shock of what we experience we’re not exactly in a rational frame of mind.
Be that as it may, that small voice in my mind saying, “You weren’t worthy of saving”, and, “You better do something to make your survival worthwhile”, got louder and louder over the years until I could barely stand the anxiety it produced. In addition to the usual PTSD-related symptoms and feelings of fear, anxiety, etc., I had this gnawing feeling that I had survived by mistake; someone had made an error and my time was really limited.
I was lucky: I had a loving and supportive family. I had a nurturing environment after my trauma. Still, it didn’t stop that voice or the feeling it created. The more deep into PTSD I went the more that feeling amplified until I could barely stand to be inside myself.
Since I’ve healed, it’s been a gradual process of coming to terms with the fact that of course, we each deserve to survive. Of course, we deserve to live — and more than that: live well. Each and every one of us has an innocent and pure soul that deserves to carry on and even heal after a traumatic experience.
I’m struck by the power of how those first post-trauma thoughts so shadowed the next almost 30 years. I’m wondering if any of you experience the same thing.
Did your initial thought/response to trauma become a part of your perspective for many years to come? And if it did, how is that impacting you today?
(Photo acknowledgement on Flickr.)
Tags: Meandering Michele's Mind, ptsd, symptoms, trauma
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Michele;
Its really amazing that we all had different trama beginnings but we all ended up in the same place. I mentioned before that I felt guilty for having survived Vietnam when my best friend did not. I would ask myself why do I have the right to live when he did not. Different circumstances but same ending it seems.
As I was a very young child when traumatized, my response was that it was all my fault. Apparently kinds often think like this, as it makes the world seem controllable – if it was my fault, I can work hard so it doesn’t happen again. This certainly left lingering feelings of guilt without a real reason for that feeling.
As to today – it’s just not a good thing to feel guilty without knowing why. Lots of people will take advantage and easily persuade you that things are your fault that are really not at all. So, we need to overcome the guilt feelings of the past as you describe Michelle.
[Michele--feel free to cut this down, as long as the point is clear--S]
Seeking the answer to your question as to whether a trauma victim suffers long-term effects after the event is one of the reasons your readers are here. But I understand that you wanted to get the ball rolling, so I’ll try to distill years of reflective writing into a few paragraphs.
I found myself alive after having said to myself “You always wondered how your were going to die. This is it, now pay attention.” I was just a touch disappointed, as I have always wondered what it was like to make that transition, always assuming the the “other side” would be something and not nothing, in which case I wouldn’t be able to compare, but worse, wouldn’t know that I couldn’t compare.
A dear teacher had, years earlier, gone over my proofs, which we both knew were correct. But I had a habit of doing four and six steps at once, and the written trail was not clear enough for others to follow, which is one of the reasons to write proofs down in the first place. She had looked over the top of her glasses and said, “You can do better than that.” After that, all she had to do was give me “the look,” and I knew that she knew that I had been lazy and inconsiderate of those who I might be able to teach in some way.
When I got back into port after the accident, the first letter I opened was from the lady I had been seeing, telling me that she was pregnant. Here I am, drugged to the eyeballs, in a lot of pain, not knowing why I was still there, much less alive, and I get the message that life is going on, with me or without me. “The Voice” said loud and clear: “You’re not done yet.” Later I changed that to “God isn’t finished with you yet,” but the meaning is similar. By the way, I married that beautiful woman, our son is a happy married film director, and our family was dissolved by my alcoholism, night-time violence, self-isolation, depression, flashbacks and lack of belief in myself. Thirty-seven years of undiagnosed PTSD, three families. Sound familiar?
I’ve been driven to achieve, not very successfully, knocking around at the higher levels of my industry (communications) but never fully engaged, always knowing that “You can do better than that.” It has only been during my recovery, in my case partly through the veteran’s administration programs, that I got some traction. I’m still running on three cylinders, but that’s more than I was.
But it wasn’t the programs themselves that made the biggest difference, though the effort of getting into them certainly prepared me to be able to hear (“the effort” being another topic for another time, as the guys who are really down aren’t going to be as motivated or persistent as I was). What I heard was in an address given by a vet-turned-doc who had observed that the common thread among all of his patients who had at least gotten a grip on their condition were their acts of service to others. One medic did it by becoming a vet; another, who had killed some children, now works with battered moms and homeless families; this doctor guy, a published writer who could have made a lot more money elsewhere, did it by putting up with the VA for years while he looked into the face of this tsunami of victims we are going to be submerged in here shortly. And I was moved to do research on alternative therapies, a body of information I had looked for and not found, so set out to make it myself.
People say “Oh, that’s a nice thing to do,” thinking that I’m selflessly serving others. When I try to explain the idea of “selfish selflessness,” you can watch their eyes glaze over, standard-issue Christians especially. It’s pretty clear that you invariably get back more than you give, unless you’re talking about much of 21st century capitalism. That particular aberration probably won’t last long, because it apparently doesn’t work over time. The CD-R—A PTSD Reader’s Digest 2010—containing some 1200 separate filings of some 900 articles, studies, and so on, about 200mb, is free and available, though I haven’t updated it since February. Incidentally, it’s illegal, as I—gasp–didn’t get permission to make it. Whudacundry.
I can be contacted at sjwaterman59@yahoo.com.
As for other effects, how much time do you have, and how much space should I fill?
My earliest trauma occurred in infancy — at birth and for three months afterward … so there have been many long years trying to make sense of horrific shocks and the necessary, lifesaving invasions of medicine. There were many subsequent years of abuse … and I see this now as partly caused by a complete lack of attachment and bonding — I was isolated medically, and couldn’t bond with my mother or father. Probably the primary mistaken belief (that somehow formed before I had the power of cognition) was that I wasn’t supposed to be … Its effects, I can finally say (at the age of 51!), are lessening. It’s been a very long journey of learning, unlearning, and relearning … primarily about my fundamental goodness and worth as a human being, and about the primacy of loving bonds. (Love is really as necessary to survival and sanity as air, water, food, shelter, warmth …) Having made sense of early events (like my grave medical condition at birth and all that pre-cognitive, pre-verbal trauma) has helped me to understand why the *really* unconscious beliefs have held so tight for so long. I’ve come to understand, too, that any rupture in our “grounds” of security, safety and relation are deeply traumatic … Now I believe that love underscores all healing, all sanity …
Thank you all for sharing your thoughts! BTW, Steve: No response is ever too long.
I find that when we raise conscious awareness of habits, thoughts, ideas and beliefs we are then able to directly work with them toward change.