Weird Dissociation, Really Upset

[Caterpillar]

I'd been doing really well PTSD-wise until last night. I was just sitting there and suddenly I was in a blizzard and crying and screaming (thankfully only in my head) that I wanted out of the cold. I'm not sure how long it lasted, but I was absolutely convinced I was outside in the snow. It stopped extremely suddenly, when something clicked in my mind and I was like, wait, it's May! It was so strange because it was so sudden and so completely real, yet the instant I remembered it was May it completely vanished, except for the lingering feeling of cold in my body that took hours to get rid of and anxiety so overwhelming even all my meds aren't doing much.

Probably needless to say, my most recent trauma happened in January, much of it on the night of a terrible blizzard (so cliché, right?)

It took me a little while to make the connections, but I realize now that I was severely triggered by seeing the police parked in front of my house with their flashers on. It turned out to be nothing, but, of course, the police were involved in the traumatic incidents. In fact, I live in a small town and it was the same damn cop, lol.

I'm still not feeling right at all. I laid awake most of the night shaking and trying to convince myself nothing horrible was happening again. Now I'm home alone all day and trying desperately to focus on work projects so I stop imagining all the horrible things I'm afraid will happen to my family. Not to me, of course. Nothing bad ever directly happens to me. It's one of the absolute rules of life, that I watch the bad things happen to everyone else.

I don't know why I'm posting this thread, really. I guess I'm hoping for some advice, or maybe just some commiseration.

 

[Shan-Nav01]

I don't have any advise to offer, but I can offer commiserations!

That sounds like not a very pleasant thing to go through, I'm glad you snapped yourself out of it when you realised it was May!

Gentle and warm hugs! :hug:

 

[Caterpillar]

Thanks, Shan. :)

The lingering paranoia and anxiety is pretty powerful. Definitely one of those days I wonder how I'll get through to the end of, though I've made it through the others, so I guess I'll make it through this one too.

 

[Mercy]

This sounds like a flashback. I always feel unsettled for a couple of days after I have one. IHO that it is 'safer' for you to go over your family concerns. Intrusive thoughts can be managed for differently for each person. Some find that taking a walk and verbally noticing what you see. That gives you a different points of reference for the day. Some folks like to play music and sing or hum along. This reveberates in your chest as you hum or sing along. This helps me get back into my body after a serious flashback. I feel sad for you that this happened.

You were able to recognize the trigger, the police flashing lights. That is very good. It will give you a starting point to decontaminate that particular trigger. Exposure therapy will help but you may not be ready for it yet. I used to cut out pictures from catalogues of my triggers, one at a time. Where will you get those pictures- google police uniforms. there is bound to be a car in some of them. Or Ask a friend to take a pictire of your town's police car, print it with wide margins. You might like to color the lights in the margins, circles of red and blue as if they were flashing. Print another one and write any words that come to you in the wide margins.

9/11 was a tramatic disaster for so many of us. I think we will always remember it and heal or cope the ptsd symptoms we live with.
(((((((HUGs if you accept them)))))))

 

[Caterpillar]

Thanks for the hugs, Mercy.

I've had an anxiety reaction to police for a long time (if they're there, something terrible must be happening), but this is definitely the worst it's ever been, probably because they were completely unexpectedly in front of MY house and I didn't know where all my family was or that they were safe. Total panic moment (oh, and if anyone's curious, my fiance was getting a fixit ticket for having a headlight out--he'd gotten pulled over in front of the house. All that panic over a lousy headlight.)

I guess it was a flashback, though I didn't flash back to what I consider the worst parts of the trauma, which happened inside buildings. But I realize now it makes perfect sense to flash back to the ambulance pulling away outside... with its flashers on. It disappeared into the snow, all except those flashers. It felt like I could see those forever.

Before all this stuff happened I LIKED emergency flashers. I thought they were pretty. :(

I don't know if exposure when I'm calmer would help. Sometimes my brain can be really stubborn about not reacting to unreal triggers (pictures, video, etc), but will still do total panic if I see it in real life. Though now that I think about it, I have a TV show in my vast collection with an episode where an ambulance drives through the snow at night, with its flashers on. *shivers*

 

[Mercy]

It might be a good idea to watch the show when you are ready. Another way to decontaminate a fear, like fear of riding in an elevator, is to take your husband or therapist with you and let yourself see police cars for real as they leave the station. You both may stand on the corner sipping hot coffee as you watch. You will control how long you want to stay and how close you want to stand. That will change as you tolerance goes up.

This other way of approach is real. You will see lights flashing. When this fear intrudes in your thinking, you can try to counter it with the thought that they are going to help someone.

I can empathisize with you about serious trauma because of the World Trade Center disaster on 9/11. As an architecture student we went to the two building to see the mechanical floors and were asked to estimate the maximum number of people who would be in the buildings during the morning rush. We counted people in the subway, in the plaza, in the restaurant including staff. One purpose of this was to estimate how many men's and women's bathrooms would be needed. We arrived at 46,000 people. Juliani's actions show he knew that number too. NY had 11,000 body bags. He asked the Army for 35,000 more.

The subway engineer driving over the Manhattan bridge saw smoke and decided that he would not take his train packed with commuters to the world trade center. Instead he asked for a run to grand central station. He saved many lives. Many companies were having conferences up town with their foreign counterparts. I lift my trauma about seeing it and knowing that we had recommended many of our friends children to work there by the recognition that, yes about 3,000 people died. 43,000 people didn't die there that day. 43,000 miracles. That thought helps me to balance things out.