Minimizing Psychological Damage Immediately Afterward

[rjtransient]

I could use some advice.

NOTE: Possible triggers here - not sure what others will find triggering. Read at your own risk.
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When you're in the middle of a disturbing event, one that might lead to nasty flashbacks later on, how do you handle it? Is there a way to prevent it from encoding itself in long-term memory in full lurid detail?

I was at home for the holidays. My father went to a party and pulled into the driveway last night at 12:45 AM, shouted something incoherent about the cat trap on the porch, stumbled to his room, and slept until 11 AM (apparently). I spent the rest of the night with Warren Ellis. I fell asleep at 5 AM (insomnia, not mad partying, just fyi) and drifted in and out of sleep. Heard shouting early this morning, then fell back asleep under the influence of my medication. Nothing unusual.

I woke up this afternoon to find that my mother hadn't gotten out of bed. She'd taken fourteen Imovane tablets -- not a lethal dose, but enough to scare us -- and left a note for me on her bedroom dresser. I went to the basement where my father was watching TV. I asked what was up. "I don't know." In a gruff voice. I called my sister. She told me to call 911.

The paramedics managed to get some half-delirious answers out of my mother. They asked why she'd taken so many pills. "I just wanted to sleep." My sister and I "always overreact". (This is the second time she's done this on record, and I've lost track of how many times she's threatened suicide that would "be on your heads".) She actually started laughing weakly and joking around, like it's normal to sleep from 7 PM to 4:30 PM. One of the paramedics went out the door saying "I've had enough. This is pissing me off." The rest of the team called a dispatcher and she was taken to emergency. My father took the opportunity to shout at everyone. He took off in his car. I printed out directions to St. Jo's and grabbed my keys. As I was pulling out, he pulled back into the driveway and knocked at my window, gesturing to the take-out pizza he was holding.

I won't type here what I said to him.

So, the point: while I was wandering around the hospital, I came across something that I really wish I hadn't seen. It wasn't the vomit, or the blood -- it was the location of the vomit and the blood and what it implied. I don't know for sure. I don't want to know. Hospitals, sick people, IVs, bodily fluids, I can handle that, but not when a child (or baby?) is involved, apparently. I didn't think I was capable of feeling that viscerally sick when I'm angry, and I was angry.

But I'm proud of how I handled it. I stayed calm and kept my mother company for a couple of hours. They put her on an IV and made plans to take her to the psychiatric ward. The nurse was a lovely person, and I knew my mother was in good hands. I drove home and spent the evening on autopilot, updating my Kijiji ads and playing music. I was okay. I was good. I was dealing.

Then panic hit me with no warning around 11:30.

I took two Clonazepam tabs and some valerian, but my heart's still racing. I don't feel like talking to anyone on messenger. I don't feel like reading. I can't go to bed. I'd spent New Year's quite happily devouring Crooked Little Vein, but now I can't read another page without feeling ill. I'd go for a walk or go driving, but I feel too out of it.

How do you deal with this? If you've just witnessed something that you instantly want to wipe out of your brain, or if you're in a situation that feels under control right now but then hits you like a tidal wave later on: is there a way to minimize the damage? Stop yourself from remembering or fixating on it or having every last detail burned into long-term memory?

I've heard something about Tetris. Someone posted an article here, I forget the technique, that might prevent new traumatic memory formation within a six-hour time frame. (Don't know if there was a study on humans.)

And how is it that you can handle a situation rationally and stay focused for hours, only to have a nervous breakdown when the anger and focus wears off?

I'm blinking at the screen and thinking about taking diazepam. But there's gotta be a better way to deal with this. Experiences, thoughts, advice, anything, would be appreciated.

 

[Pixie]

Hi RJ. I'm sorry but I only just saw this thread.

I have had similar experiences. When the crisis hits, I'm fine at first and just do what needs to be done but later the same feelings come up as you have described. The last time I made hubby take me to the hospital because I thought I was dying because I couldn't breathe... it turns out that it was "just a really bad panic attack"... ugh.

I don't really remember how I actually dealt with it and don't know a better way because I dissociate so much but I do understand hun and I'm sorry that you are experiencing this.

Rell

 

[Deleted member 541]

I too have had similar experiences with post crisis incidents....I would handle the crisis really well, and then afterwards would completely fall apart, and have a meltdown.....

This was during the time that I hadn't been diagnosed, nor had treatment. Once I got treatment, therapy, and worked on my trauma and myself, this seemed to disappear, for the most part....

Hopefully, things will get better for you, as you move forward in your healing....

 

[anni]

I've been wondering this same thing, so thank you for even asking the question. It is SO frustrating to be in the middle of chaos and handle it what seems like REALLY well, then have your system seem to take matters out of your control later and begin freaking out all by itself. Like you, I do know that each time we handle something which is a trigger and weather it we are apparently getting better because we're de-sensitizing. Facing triggers is something we can WORK at, and feel like we're actually defeating something. When the nervous sytem seems to 'take'off' seemingly all by itself there doesn't seem to be any way to do anything concrete to prevent that.

I'm sorry not to have anything helpful to say other than you're not at all alone in this. You did say any input would be helpful so wished to at least let you know that much.

I'm pretty sure someone who has healed through this aspect of things will no doubt pop up somewhere in this thread soon. In the meantime, I'm really glad you were able to ask this. Given the circumstances it can't have been at all easy to write about what must have been a dreadful day by anyone's standards, much less anyone trying to work through this dam PTSD dreck.

Sorry it was SUCH a dreadul day, and hope you're taking care of yourself as well as you can,

Anni

 

[rjtransient]

Hi guys,

Thank you so much for your responses. I can understand that theoretically, I'm not alone and my responses aren't completely abnormal (or unmanageable), but sometimes I need to hear it from another human being.

I'll keep digging at this. I keep thinking, if we understand how to treat psychological symptoms with talk therapy and grounding techniques and workbook exercises once the damage is done, why can't we apply those techniques immediately to prevent another episode?

I don't have that level of control over my own psychology just yet. At the most, I can recognize the feeling that something is coming on (as in, I can feel the dissociative fog descending), and I try to roll with it.

Pixie: ack, "just" a really bad panic attack?! Again, this is where knowledge versus experience comes into play... it's lovely to spend four nerve-wracking hours in emergency feeling like your lungs aren't expanding properly and hearing your own heartbeat, then find out that your heart rate is up to 140 bpm, and then at last receive the verdict: "You're okay, it's just a panic attack." We're told to remind ourselves that panic attacks aren't life-threatening. Which would be helpful if all of those soothing messages could somehow get through to my sympathetic nervous system.

Dissociation can be a necessary coping mechanism, I suppose, but it still sucks. You definitely have my sympathy and understanding. I hear that it does get better with time and effort. Neuroplasticity works both ways, destroy and repair. . . .

She Cat: your response got my attention. Long term treatment can eventually prevent the meltdown phase? This gives me hope. Thank you. I haven't been to many therapy sessions yet, but I'll be looking into counselling immediately once the winter semester begins. Counselling is free under my student health insurance plan.

I know I found it therapeutic to write the original post, even if it took me something like two hours to make it sound coherent. Even if it felt weird to be sharing it. So that might be one of the short-term solutions I was looking for.

Anni: there are a few people on the forums whose posts I always look forward to, and you can count yourself among them. You've stated this so well. It's funny, re-exposure feels like the polar opposite of desensitizing. My strategy is to let my nervous system go haywire but write about the incident afterward and dissect the hell out of it. It would help to trust that I'm getting somewhere and keep working even without short-term reinforcement. So we're in it for the long haul. I'll look at it as a challenge. That works.

I do know that fighting eventually pays off. I've been working on certain triggers since 2006. A lot of my phobias are gone; I don't usually freeze up around people who remind me of my abusers; I can recognize behavioural patterns and leave bad situations before they escalate. 2006, though, was a different story. (Forgive the ambiguity here, but I'm referring to a handful of different events and different triggers at once, so I'm not sure which one to pick as an example.)

New Year's Day was dreadful this year. But on the upside, as I mentioned in one of Pixie's threads a few weeks ago -- I said something about "being perversely happy in the worst circumstances" -- I won't let a bad situation completely control my mood. Even if it tries to hijack my amygdala.

Thank you, again, for your insightful response and your empathy. It helps.

 

[anni]

:) Funny, too. I had what I would have once considered to be a really boring New Year's this year. Maybe it's part of controling our world into what we need it to be, but it worked and it was pretty much heaven. We didn't go out, didn't even make a point of watching the count-down or do anything more typical than buying a dam pork roast, had zero family over, but possibly drank a tad too much extremely good vodka. It was the first New Year's in an awfully long time that wasn't dreadful and it was by accident. I didn't have the mental energy to do anything esle and had just QUIT the holidays by then. The only thing which suffered was the goldfish, who we forgot to feed.

At any rate, the next day, on cue, the nervous system was hijacked like I forgot to tell it we hadn't had a dreadful evening.NO idea on the planet why. Like you, this time I just acknowledged the event.I rode it through, and kept my nice memories of the first dam New Years in a decade that was lovely. Like you also I'll dissect why the nervous system decided it was time for an implosion, but at least I really know that someday it's not going to be his way.

'Hijack the amygdala'. That's hysterical! Thank you!

Anni