Death My trauma - Armed Robbery

[JSAEH01]

2.5 years ago a guy with a ski mask and an AR-15 walked into the store I was working at and started shooting at me. I remember my mind and body shutting down and accepting the fact that I was going to die. He shot at me 3 different times nearly missing me each time. I was the only one in the store. The last time he shot at me we made eye contact and that's when time stopped. It seemed like everything paused in that moment. Then a person walked into the store, looked at the guy robbing the place and asked him with a chuckle, "are you robbing this place?" The guy without saying anything lifted up his gun and shot him in the face with the barrel of the gun just a couple feet away. That was the only way I was able to escape. When I saw him lift the gun up to shoot I ran as fast as I could and hid in the bathroom. I heard more gunshots while I was hiding and was confused because I thought i was the only person there. When the police came and I walked out the store I saw the guy robbing the place face down dead right next to my car and another guy on the side of the street bleeding out from the side. This happened 2.5 years ago but it feels like it happened just yesterday.

 

[somerandomguy]

That is absolutely horrible and I'm sorry it happened to you.

I hope this site helps you heal a little.

 

[whiteraven]

Welcome @JSAEH01. That sounds terrifying. You found a good place for support.

 

[Friday]

This happened 2.5 years ago but it feels like it happened just yesterday.

Yep.

That’s the thing with PTSD. Our brains, for whatever reason, don’t log the past as passed, forming memories… but present. So we end up with 2 different realities overlaid on top of each other.

Like it really DID just happen. Or is currently happening. Which would make how we’re reacting totally normal. It’s that it ISNT currently happening, but is months/years/decades back that’s f*cked up. And it’s not like deliberately holding onto a grudge, it’s not a will power thing, it’s an actual brain thing. Instead of memories we’re remembering, we’re reliving. >.<

The fantastic news is that it is extremely treatable. Well over 90% of people with PTSD progress on to be asymptomatic. That’s the whole goal of trauma therapy… as near to nill symptoms as possible. Even those few of us who end up with symptoms long term? PTSD isn’t a static disorder, with everything full-on all the time. Instead? It is extremely …malleable. Could have knocked me over with a feather the first time I started playing with my symptoms (speaking as someone who has a full-on all-the-time disorder, I was expecting this to be the same)… and they actually got better. Not just me learning how to live with it, better, but the more I pushed the boundaries? The more the boundaries actually moved. Mindblowingly awesome, that.

Have you looked into EMDR? It’s arguably the best treatment for single event traumas, and is even very effective for many people on multiple & long term complex traumas (it didn’t used to be. It used to be single-events only).

No treatment is perfect for everyone, so don’t despair if you’ve already worked wih an EMDR therapist, ther are roughly half a dozen tier 1 treatments for PTSD; you just sound like a perfect candidate for it.