Death And How It Amalgamated My Traumas - Owie

[LaurenRose]

I have a number of Traumas in which each one individually warrants a PTSD diagnosis. I have a friend who I met when I was in Homewood for trauma treatment. He is my age and had done two tours in Afghanistan, the second one which destroyed his world. Over the past three years, we have spent hundreds of hours on the phone talking about our trauma, the symptoms, leaning on each other for the support of "knowing" the space you know? He is one that I am able to talk to about all my traumas, and he was able to talk about his war-time trauma with me. It didn't matter (which is something I truly cherish about those of us with PTSD) that we didn't experience the same events, but that we were able to be with each other in that hurt space.

I sat with him for the past three years and watched helplessly as PTSD and his coping mechanism, alcohol, slowly erode his life. He passed away a few weeks ago, bled out from the internal destruction of his body. Unlike me, he never had a desire to just "step out" of life. The combination of alcohol and constant adrenaline took it from him.

When I heard that he had passed, I was flooded with a kaleidoscope of emotions. First one was that wistful longing of "he made it." Second was the profound sadness that he didn't make it. Third was anger at PTSD for stealing so much of him. Fourth was confusion as to why some get scooped up into the PTSD world and some don't - experiencing the same event. Fifth was fear - how well am I going to do on this healing odyssey?

I had all the classic signs of shock for a number of days after I heard. His Mom called me. She had gone through this phone records and saw how many times he had called me. I am eternally grateful that she did. It would have been brutally hard if he disappeared for a number of months, my not knowing what was going on for him. Living a few provinces removed can be disastrous in keeping tabs.

I was able to notice, in a detached way, what was going on for me. I am so grateful sometimes that I have DID as it is an ability to separate that helps keep me together. I noticed that with this new trauma of losing a friend and having it rock my world, that it brought all of my traumas up into stark relief. I have never experienced it so deeply. Suddenly, each one of my major traumas were like they had been flash burned and all were blistering and hurting and wounding at the same time. I have experienced triggers which bring in the panic and emotion from previous experience. For example, if a man were to cut me off when I am driving, sometimes I can have a trauma re-enactment that pulls together my near death automobile accident, and the fear experienced when a man is angry and my life is threatened, knocks loose my "when you are happy I am safe", and erupts the helplessness I have felt in all the different hard times in my life. A flooding happens which I am not able to recognize for the most part as a re-enactment.

This though, this has not only brought up the emotions of previous traumas like the car cutting off ones do, but it was as if all of the life threatening experienced were happening all at the same time and my strategic ability to "what if, then what" imploded leaving me completely defenseless as I wasn't in the context therefore didn't have an actual ability to protect myself. I have experienced this with one or two traumas at a time, but not all of them. It was like I had fractured into the many "me's" of trauma experiences and was having flashbacks of them all - all at the same time.

I wonder if this is normal. I wonder if this is simply another way the PTSD mind/emotions have a meltdown experience and the psyche separates and tosses one into that surreal space until it is able to somehow stitch itself back together.

I am scared and worried that I won't be able to get back to the place where even though each trauma shares emotion, and thoughts, and symptoms with each other, they were held separate as unique experiences. I wonder if I am now in a space where the traumas have combined into one really big trauma and I will have to continue my journey working with the enormity of it instead of being able to have focus on one or two at a time.

I hope I get back to a place where I know where I am on this journey of healing, where it makes sense again, where I can find peace in knowing that this is normal and hard and terrifying and rewarding, watching my progress unfold. I am lost.

 

[LaurenRose]

Still thinking of him everyday yet not quite as often every day. The sadness I had from using my phone knowing he will never call again is beginning to dissipate. Listening to songs he has "given" recommended to me have once again made it to my mp3. My stomach is just now beginning to settle, eating porridge doesn't make be vomit it up right away. I used to make porridge at 00:00 while talking to him on the phone. I have been looking at my paints again, the desire to pick them up is on the horizon. He was an artist. Slowly the grief is beginning to slacken. Now I fear that I am going to forget him, forget about his torture, forget about his love and understanding because it is too painful to remember him. I don't remember the action of suppressing something so deeply, only the reaction of it coming to life. Is this what I am doing? Suppressing him? or is this a natural part of grieving. He is the first person close close to me to die - and to die of something I am in current battle with. I am lost.

 

[Kintsugi]

You are a survivor.
I wish I had more to say.

 

[Heather]

Oh - Jelly. Losing a friend like that how could it NOT rock your world?? I know when I lost my friend a couple of years ago it knocked mine completely off kilter. I sobbed for months.

Hang in there.

Hugs. Heather

 

[LaurenRose]

Today I made a phone call. My friend was an artist and one of his dreams was to have a showing of his paintings. He painted abstract. I paint my emotions in form and definition. For example one of my paintings is about shattered hope. I painted the big hand reaching, finger pointing, down from above, on the diagonal. I painted a smaller hand, finger pointing, reaching for it from the bottom, on the diagonal. There is a sparking from the fingers almost touching, the promise of hope. At the wrist of the big hand, I stuffed it full of dynamite and lit the fuses (hope about to explode). The little hand is solid and the wrist is bone (my reaching for hope). Two meanings. One is that I present myself as solid but the bulk of me is bone, naked, without emotional substance for embracing hope. The other is that I am straining so hard to reach it for support that I have ripped my skin leaving me with only a skeletal being. This is my experience of reaching to touch hope only to have it explode and leave me shattered. It is one of the 150 paintings I have painted that I have displayed in my space. It nourishes me as it helps me to know that hope needs to be carefully considered. Right now "hope" is risky. Doubt runs through my mental/emotional being. Too risky to take on without careful analysis, coming to what could be an "acceptable risk." My troubles arise when I don't "really" know what it is that I need or desire. I used to freak out that this was the situation. Today I am soothed knowing that this is how I currently operate and that this could shift if I continue to do the hard work of healing. Already I have progressed as I see myself type the word "hope" in some of these posts.

I have been emotionally unstable and putting myself in the public eye was impossible. Since my friend passed as a result of not being able to cope with his PTSD, I want to honour him, honour my own PTSD, honour you all. I made a phone call today to an art gallery that specializes in mental health. I am terrified. In my grief and despair that he is dead, I am hoping this will help me get into a more grounded space in this world. There is so little public exposure, so many mistaken beliefs that PTSD is only experienced in the military, that I want to do something that will bring more understanding to the "normal" world. My hope (tinged with suspicion) is that there will be inspiration for those suffering/struggling in this space, comfort to know there are people who are experiencing the same, that it will this viewing will "normalize" them, "normalize" me.

I am hoping to get your response. I am hoping that if you feel a red flag, that you will let me know. I know I am reacting emotionally, and hoping that if it is somehow going to harm me that I catch it in time. I am lost.

 

[Kintsugi]

Hi Jellymint,
I wrote a memoir about trauma and family for exactly this reason. I do intend to get it published when it is refined and ready for public access. I think that expression through art is healthy, because, at least in writing, a lot of processing emotions goes into the creation of the art. I cannot write about something I really don't understand. I cannot express something that I am struggling with expressing to myself. There is a distillation found in art that is a product of the artist's pains to process and create something that can be accessed by others.

Good luck! I'd love to see photos of your art.

I will also warn, however, that creating emotionally draining art and bringing it into the public can be very, very... distressing. Or, I don't know. Hard. I feel like I just recovered from writing my memoir. Maybe. I don't know. It definitely took me months after writing it to recuperate from what I'd done, and I am hoping that the backlash is now over, at least from that, for now.

(((Jellymint)))

 

[Mercy]

Now I fear that I am going to forget him, forget about his torture, forget about his love and understanding because it is too painful to remember him.... Is this what I am doing? Suppressing him? or is this a natural part of grieving. He is the first person close close to me to die - and to die of something I am in current battle with. I am lost.

Loosing someone a precious to you as this friend, someone how really 'got it' is very hard. I don't think you will ever forget him. With DID [I have DID too] some part/parts may not have been as close as to him you are.
I'm going to write out for you a prayer card from a funeral of a young man. I hope it comforts you some.

You can shed tears that he is gone
Or you can smile because he has lived.

You can close your eyes and pray that he'll come back
Or you can open your eyes and see all he has given to you.

Your heart can be empty because you can't hear him
Or you can be filled with all the caring you shared.

You can remember him and only that he has gone
Or you can cherish his memory and let it live on.