General Firework Fiasco

[angelsinmyheart]

One of the triggers my sufferer has is loud noises; when we were making 4th of July plans his TH suggested that we should either go to the movies instead of watching fireworks or that he should listen to his music really loud so that the explosions weren't as loud. Being the nice guy that he is and knowing I love fireworks, he opted for the second choice. That night, we forgot his ipod, and neither one of us had a car.

The episode he had was the worst I've seen, I was afraid at one point that he wouldn't snap back out of it. He was shaking, crying, and completely out of it. When he finally calmed down almost an hour later though, he couldn't remember anything that had happened. He had no idea where we were or what was going on.

His TH suggested I do some research and reach out to others. So here I am. I think I was more scared and upset by what happened than he was. Any advice/response would be greatly appreciated.

 

[PTSD and Me]

Fireworks do the same thing to me. I'm not sure what you're looking for though?

If fireworks are his trigger he's being pretty generous to go to them with you. I have never gone to fireworks since, and my husband doesn't mind just sitting at home with the windows closed and watching TV. I pretend the 4th of July doesn't exist. I still get triggered all summer long, but its a little better without the actual celebrating idea.

 

[angelsinmyheart]

I'm curious about why the fireworks triggered him this year. We've been to firework shows a couple times since we've been together and he actually loves lighting them off himself. He's put on some of the biggest shows I've seen! So I don't really understand why it was so different this year.

Also, why wasn't he able to remember what happened afterward? Is that a common reaction? It has been over a year since his last episode, but he never responded that way before.

 

[PTSD and Me]

Well, I don't know why they would set him off this year and not others. There was probably something in this year's trip that reminded him of the trauma and made him feel like he was reliving it. I can make an educated guess about what will set me off, but sometimes something I was expecting goes fine and sometimes something I've done a hundred times will trigger me and I never saw it coming.

As far as the amnesia, that can happen when a person has a flashback or other kind of dissociative episode. When someone is that upset, their brain kind of shuts off in order to protect them from the full impact of the memories. Dissociation can be mild to where a person knows where they are, but feels out of it, to full on amnesia or feeling like they are outside of their body. One thing that you can be sure of though, if his brain's defense mechanisms flipped the circuit like that, whatever he was going through was awful. I guess you probably already knew that, but sometimes it helps to remember that we have no control over it. We can be literally back in the trauma with hallucinations and everything, or even just re-experiencing the emotions, even if we know where we are can be enough to trip our brain's defense mechanisms.

I actually know someone, though he does not have PTSD, he used to have severe anxiety attacks, and if it got too bad he would simply pass out. Lose consciousness, fall down, the whole thing. I almost think that would be preferable to being stuck back in a trauma or even the emotion of one.