I'm feeling a little empty right now. Last night I KNEW that I was going to have a flashback. I felt it coming on like a sneeze. I recall having an inability to think about anything positive, a lot of confusion, and a heap of terror. I don't really remember much else.
When I get flashbacks, I often black out for periods of time, ranging from 15-30 minutes, to up to 4-5 hours. I also tend to blank out of conversations rather easily. Does anyone else experience this?
My main question is kind of hard for me to talk about. I don't talk about it too much, but the trauma that ended up giving me a lot of trouble down the road happened 10 years ago in Pakistan. My father wanted to take me there because my grandmother was dying. She ended up dying while I was over there, which was kind of a shock to my system. She was very nice to me.
This was my first run-in with death. The cultural rituals of interacting with the dead body were very very strange to me and I remember being terrified and extremely uncomfortable. This, however, is not my trauma. Maybe a small part of it.
I LOVE animals. I loved them even more back then. One morning was a religious holiday (Eid al-Adha), where people will sacrifice an animal, and give a third of the meat to the poor, a third to their friends, and they will keep a third for their own immediate family. I had no idea this was going to happen. I walked outside of our apartment to find that the streets have been flooded with rivers of blood from the sacrifices, and I remember wading through it and trying my best to stay respectful of everything, but between all of the blood and all of the bodies of the animals (there were hundreds within sight at all times), I couldn't help but feel a terror that I've never felt before, and i still feel to this day. My heart is kind of racing as I type of all of this, but as I said before, I'm a bit empty right now, so it's a bit easier to talk about. A lot of times, my flashbacks will put me in that same place. Surrounded by blood, and absolutely terrified. There's a bit more to that story, but I don't feel 100% comfortable with my own trauma yet to talk about it.
I'm just a little confused as to how something that occurred when I was 12 years old can affect me today. I did witness an act of (what I would call) police brutality back when I was working as a security officer, which sent me spiraling back to when I was 12, around 2 weeks later. Is it possible for something like this to traumatize me this severely? Or is trauma purely subjective?
When I get flashbacks, I often black out for periods of time, ranging from 15-30 minutes, to up to 4-5 hours. I also tend to blank out of conversations rather easily. Does anyone else experience this?
My main question is kind of hard for me to talk about. I don't talk about it too much, but the trauma that ended up giving me a lot of trouble down the road happened 10 years ago in Pakistan. My father wanted to take me there because my grandmother was dying. She ended up dying while I was over there, which was kind of a shock to my system. She was very nice to me.
This was my first run-in with death. The cultural rituals of interacting with the dead body were very very strange to me and I remember being terrified and extremely uncomfortable. This, however, is not my trauma. Maybe a small part of it.
I LOVE animals. I loved them even more back then. One morning was a religious holiday (Eid al-Adha), where people will sacrifice an animal, and give a third of the meat to the poor, a third to their friends, and they will keep a third for their own immediate family. I had no idea this was going to happen. I walked outside of our apartment to find that the streets have been flooded with rivers of blood from the sacrifices, and I remember wading through it and trying my best to stay respectful of everything, but between all of the blood and all of the bodies of the animals (there were hundreds within sight at all times), I couldn't help but feel a terror that I've never felt before, and i still feel to this day. My heart is kind of racing as I type of all of this, but as I said before, I'm a bit empty right now, so it's a bit easier to talk about. A lot of times, my flashbacks will put me in that same place. Surrounded by blood, and absolutely terrified. There's a bit more to that story, but I don't feel 100% comfortable with my own trauma yet to talk about it.
I'm just a little confused as to how something that occurred when I was 12 years old can affect me today. I did witness an act of (what I would call) police brutality back when I was working as a security officer, which sent me spiraling back to when I was 12, around 2 weeks later. Is it possible for something like this to traumatize me this severely? Or is trauma purely subjective?
