The Significance of Trauma Anniversaries

[dust]

Nicolette,

I am in the sub-conscious camp on this one as I don't consciously remember the dates/seasons of my traumas, but somehow my body remembers them and I go into the strangest spaces at specific times of the year. PTSD is all about repetition and trauma is an ongoing reaction to horror that repeats and repeats. Perhaps the acknowledgment of anniversaries (before or after/conscious or sub-conscious) is part of our healing process? Like a form of desensitisation, the anniversary forces us to process a little more of what may have been a humanly incomprehensible event. Trauma also begets trauma, I was triggered by a past event this time last year, now I am being triggered again by both the body memories of the original event and remembering how badly I was triggered last year on top of it... it sometimes feels like a never ending cycle.

I'd like to write more on this but no time now, it is a very interesting thread, thanks.

dust

 

[Claire]

For me I've think its a bit like some people getting down on Birthdays or on New Years Eve. Its a time that comes round and if I'm not careful I find myself looking at my life and cursing the fact that I'm still not well, or still getting nightmares or whatever the symptom is at that moment. It can be very easy to get very down and dread it coming round each year. I judge myself on the anniversary. Very much like when people get to certain ages eg. at 30 they might want to be married, with kids, nice house, good job etc. Whatever they think they should have liked to have achieved by then.

For me its a bit like this with the anniversary. However I also believe it doesn't have to be that way. A while ago when I was struggling with an early anniversary of my crash a good friend suggested I make the day special and make a plan to do something good that day. Go and do something fun. It has worked and for the next few years I did this. I still do, but I dont need to as much. I'm aware of it but the day doesn't have the power it once had.

As I feel better about myself and my ability to handle PTSD, the anniversary doesn't matter so much.

BTW I think you should feel free to ask whatever you like because that's the only way you and other people can learn about things.

 

[Grama-Herc]

This may be somewhat off topic but not really.

Anniversary, not sure what I would do if I had one for my trauma. Since I don't know what my trauma is, I can't know when my trauma happened.

But this has caused me to think, Maybe I should keep a log of how I feel throughout
the year and see if I can pinpoint a significant time frame of unexplained stress or increase of symptoms.

This might just help with figuring out what really happened to me.

Food for thought anyway

 

[dust]

Grama-Herc,

I think that is a really good idea... I am moving into my second year of a personal diary. At the moment I am writing my daily diary while making a parallel reading of what I was feeling at this time last year.

I am noticing patterns in my emotional landscape. Very helpful for those of us with memory issues.

dust

 

[midi]

I see them now as survivor days. We can and do have negative anticipations around 'anniversaries,' especially if we haven't dealt or if there was no closure. It's almost like picking the scab off to see if you still feel.

I remember how I suffered from a near-death incident every year in the week before my birthday. It filled me with such dread and apprehension. Last time around, nothing happened, so to me, it's as if I've broken the chains.

 

[avgirl]

Hi,

I came across this while searching because today is a major anniversary for me, the start of when my C-PTSD whirlwinded due to one crazy event, that just caused the rest to be no longer possible to hold together.

I totally get where you're coming from, as I'm angry to have any of this take up space in my life to begin with, so "anniversary" is a crappy word to apply to any trauma. It doesn't deserve that word, which we apply to things we actually want to remember, and celebrate.

I think it's very different. See, I did NOT realize today was the anniversary: I wasn't consciously aware of it, but I'm feeling awful as I was up all night with nightmares (related) and sick yesterday, having much worse panic and lows. My mom JUST told me, after I told her about my nightmare, "you realize today is the day it happened, right?"

This has happened to me more than once where I'll start panicking because I feel utterly terrified like my world is falling apart, and then I realize it's the date. Dates can trigger flashbacks subconsiously, meaning you're not even aware that you're having one. Until you identify that it's a flashback (at least for me), it's worse because it feels like you're going crazy, a common fear with panic attacks.

Now I can talk myself back down and say, "you know what, this happened 4 years ago today, it's not happening today, it just feels like it's happening, I'm okay." So it helps to acknowledge.

 

[piratelady]

I am asking when I read posts and sufferers are talking about their upcoming anniversary in the same manner as you would a birthday and counting down the days.

My therapist and I talked about this last month. He told me that it is normal to feel unhappy and think about that when it is the first anniversary of something. He says it is normal but as you get through the first one, it gets better and you don't dwell on it so much anymore.

 

[Shellbell]

I don't have trauma anniversaries, as all of my trauma's have been ongoing pro-longed abuse over periods of years (one was 3 years, the next was 6 years - including a court hearing and the next was 5 years). Plus 3 decades of abuse from my parents and sister. My trauma weren't one-off events.

I've never kept significant dates in my head, due to wanting to forget, not remember.

I do have mixed emotions about things like Mother's Day which upsets me as it spoils my own Mother's Day for my children. My Mother was very abusive. And her Birthday. Those dates are hard.

So I do see some people would have significant dates that will be hard. When you have a date, it is very hard to get it out of your head.

 

[new gamma rays]

2 years ago today i was forced to go to an ER by my parents after i hit my mother. I thought about committing suicide before they could take me, i thought about calling 911 instead of going. Instead I went. And that has made all the difference. I can't really record the hell that happened afterwards, but it has never stopped since. For the next year wave after wave of the states psychotic involuntary mental health system kept crashing over me, driving me more and more distressed and my parents - well my mom -only added to to it. I have been threatened with force or taken by force to hospitals five times, only once out of anything medical related.

But when those wave were about to recede one year ago at this time - I was back at home faced with all my PTSD and trauma memories - on top of a bad living situation at home and another more important issue bearing down at me. Things hit the breaking point and I didn't know how i was going to make it through the week. My parents had no idea what was going on nor did they bother to inquire but without telling me they enacted their 'plan' to help me: i.e. my mom called an ambulance to come to the house and essentially take me away by force. I can still see my dads eyes staring me down the last time, as I was being forced onto a stretcher in my own home screaming 'you're killing me!' and my dad doing nothing. So yeah, its my anniversary, but it feels like what happened two years ago, just happened a couple of minutes ago. I think I have one of the worst cases of PTSD ever.


And the thing that terrifies me is, that's half of my problems. I have a chronic illness that I was supposed to treat instead. Instead the mental health system and all its iron claws devoured me. I live in a group home now, some respite, but the sea of all my trauma still surrounds me.

 

[Jen93]

" I am asking when I read posts and sufferers are talking about their upcoming anniversary in the same manner as you would a birthday and counting down the days." (Sorry, quoting doesn't work on my IPhone, so I just copied and pasted a part of Nicolette's post.

I hope you forgive me for making this comparison, but it seems a little accurate. People celebrate Rememberance Day on November 11, and there are ceremonies on September 11th to recognize the fall of the twin towers. It isn't so much about recognizing it as a birthday-It's about recognizing that it happened and that it had a significant impact on us. We remember because to forget would be like that state we were in post-trauma and pre-diagnosis. We acknowledge that it happened, and quite possibly it could be a way of celebrating that we survived.

That's my take on it. We're not celebrating, we're acknowledging. There's a difference in my opinion.

 

[Chrissyy]

I don't really acknowledge "anniversaries", but I notice when it's the time of year, and how long it's been since whatever. I get down then because it could be 5, 10 years and I get angry at myself that it still affects me. I don't countdown or pay that much attention, if I notice on the exact date that'd be more of a coincidence for me, and a lot of the dates I don't even know anyway.