Delayed Damage

Several people close to me have, within the last few months, experienced trauma. In some cases, it was medical in nature, in other cases, it was the loss of a loved one. All three of them faced new experiences during these events and had to handle things they've never had to handle before. I have talked to them about something and I hope I'm not coming off like some kind of Debbie Downer about it. I'm not trying to make things worse, I'm doing my best to prepare them for what may follow.

Sometimes when we go through a crisis or trauma, the emotional toll doesn't show up for a while. I think our bodies go into a kind of automatic mode and we just function as best we can to get through the difficult days. It's what I did during my grandmother's death. It was awful and I grieved for her, but at the same time, I was trying to handle extended family and arrange things so I could move. The brunt of the grief and the horror of watching her death hit me later, months later, when I had settled down and rested for a while. It was like this after all the surgeries surrounding cancer I had when I turned 40. I functioned, though not well, and the magnitude of all of it didn't hit me until later in the form of a panic attack that left me covered in hives.

A BBC cop shows I watch handled this issue. One of the main characters was kidnapped and held at gunpoint. She did some therapy afterward but felt it wasn't helping her and she was fine. Honestly, right after the incident, she probably was fine. But months later, she began to question her judgment, to drink, and to lash out at people over the tiniest of things. The impact of the trauma didn't hit her until way after the situation. Perhaps if she had been warned to anticipate this as a possibility, she would have gone back into therapy. As it was, she ended up taking early retirement because her mind and body got to the point where she just could NOT handle her job.

So look, if you go through a big scary something and then months later find yourself doing strange things or freaking out or panicking or weeping for what seems like no reason, remember that this is normal. Often our minds will compartmentalize things so that we can survive a crisis. This doesn't make the trauma go away. It just delays it for a while. If this happens, talk to someone about it. Acknowledge that it's going on. Don't let anyone make you feel that you don't deserve to process your emotions just because what happened was in the past. Get what help you need and give yourself time to heal. Pain and fear don't really show up and go away at our convenience.