Anniversaries.

[Emily The Strange]

I haven't been on this forum in such a long time, I haven't even thought about it. Things were going along quite nicely, I was attending work, seeing friends and my eating and sleeping patterns were returning to a semi normal pattern. I actually thought it was all over, I was "better"...oh how I was wrong.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the car crash that has ruined my life. In the past few weeks I have felt myself becoming more and more distant from the world and my mood getting lower and lower. I thought I could control it but I'm running out of energy.

I'm barely sleeping, barely eating and drinking far too much alcohol. I never used to be a big drinker. I have been fighting urges to hurt myself all day today and feel like just running away. I've made plans to leave many times but never intended to go but right now I could just disappear for good. Suicide has popped into my head which has scared me, it's not something I think I'll act on but its still there.

I don't know what to do with myself, how I'm going to cope tomorrow and how to come back from this. I know it's just a date but it really has messed with my head. I intend on having a "me" day tomorrow, surrounding myself in things that could make me happy, see how it goes. Then I'm expected to continue as if nothing happened the very next day. I'm not sure how to cope any more.

 

[WillyKat]

I'm sorry that the anniversary is bearing down on you like that.

Perhaps I shouldn't even respond because I don't know what day my abuse occurred on, other than it was in summertime. So I guess I'm lucky in that I don't have do deal with anniversaries. I do remember the day I nearly did myself in but it's inconsequential now.

But let me just say that at some point we humans decided that we should quantify how many times the Earth circles the sun. And that's a little bit odd considering our lives and history don't really move in the same kind of circle.

My point is that your life is a long path, beginning when you were born and continuing up until today and beyond. It does not begin and end in the same place like a circle. It may help to visualize what happened as a ways down that path and that you are where you are now looking into the future.

Hope that helps.

 

[Emily The Strange]

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I don't really know what I as hoping for when I wrote this last night, other that the opportunity to be listened to, I don't have a very good support network. It means a lot that someone read it and took the time to respond.

I'm not sure why anniversaries really mean so much in my life but dates really stick. The anniversary of the car crash wasn't a problem the first time round but the worse I feel generally the more I fixate on it. Other anniversaries are bad days for me but not quite in the same way.

I survived the night and my day hasn't been so bad today, back to a full day at work tomorrow and putting on that fake smile. I actually think I can make it. It's like making it through that one day has boosted me and I can do anything, I know its only temporary as I'm easily triggered but its nice whilst its lasts.

I've spoken to therapist in the past about anniversaries and their answer to it is to have a me day and try not to focus on it. Easier said that done and I still haven't managed it. Even typing 5/12/09 makes me feel a little sick and can lead to flashbacks and the like so seeing it all day long in a newspaper, on the tv, on the computer screen, on my phone, its all just too much to bare.

I like the idea of picturing my life as a path instead of a circle as it feels. I've tried to think like this before and have even had a tattoo on my forearm based on this and letting go/moving on. It says : Let it go, let it out, let it all unravel. Let it free and it can be a path on which to travel. Every time I feel like my life is just circling and not moving forwards in a positive way I read it and think. Recently it's been going round in my head a lot. I'm not sure how to stop circling around and repeating the pattern every year though.

 

[WillyKat]

There's some positive things going on with you: recognition. You have to identify the areas you need to work on before you can make any real progress, so its good that you recognize those areas.

I'm struggling to get past that first milestone too in terms of how I react to daily ... incidents. Beware of trying for knock-out blows and learn to appreciate small, even tiny victories. Baby steps, not giant leaps. Be the tortoise, not the hare. Pick any metaphor you like.

 

[Emily The Strange]

Oh yes I can recognise things I need to work on but then it come to actually working on them I seem to shut down. I had to stop seeing my therapist for that reason. We would discuss things to work on and then 10 minutes into the session I switch off, sometimes I would switch off emotionally and then other times it was like I was somewhere else entirely, no recollection of the session passing me by. It's like my brain is saying it's too painful to deal with we're not going there. I had 8 sessions like this and my therapist told me that she can't help if I don't let her in. It's not like I have a choice in the matter, I really want to work on things and get better. So now I'm stuck on my own trying to figure it all out by myself. It's hard but I have no other choice.

I appreciate the tiny victories, they don't happen very often but even the tiny things make a massive difference in a world filled with darkness. I feel like most weeks I achieve one small things and then all of a sudden something will happen, I'll see or hear something and I go back months in progress. On the run up to the anniversary date I seemed to go backwards every day and it's all I can focus on.