Advertisement
There are certain times of the year that seem to be triggers for me and, while they do seem somewhat consistent, I am nevertheless always caught off guard. I'll begin to have these minor adrenalin rushes and foreboding feelings and wander around in a bit of a daze not quite knowing why. About 2 years ago my therapist suggested that there might be some sort of anniversary related trigger and she asked me to look back through the times in my life when something particularly traumatic happened to see if there might some correlation. Sure enough, there was. This helped me to make sense of why my brain and body were doing the anxiety mambo, but now just knowing this seems to be creating a trigger all unto itself. Although, its not as if I mark my actual calendar.
For example, two days I began having a series of these adrenalin rushes. I had made several plans for Friday and Saturday and found myself terrified of actually going through with them. Skiing on Friday and then ice skating, movies and dinner with kiddo's on Saturday. I found myself awake at 4am on Friday morning dreading the ski slopes and well, even leaving the house. I forced myself anyway and had a good time (except for one run that turned out to be much more challenging than I was ready for) but managed to slowly navigate myself down it...cuz there really wasn't any other option. Then yesterday it happened all over again. That's when I remembered to check the calendar and there it was. The anniversary of my ex-husband's last physical abuse was on January 18, 2004- which resulted in me being taken to the emergency room and him being taken to jail. (Another annual trigger occurs in mid-April when I found my best friend after he'd committed suicide way back when we were only 14 years old and there are a couple of other one's not worthy of mentioning). Anyway, I decided to give myself the time and space to experience whatever it was my mind/body was trying to recall, but I had to schedule it in since I already had a full day of activities planned with the kiddos.
So I scheduled it in for today and made arrangements for my kiddo's to do other things outside of the house without me. I explained the situation to my older kids and they seemed to understand and were happy to help (providing I gave them a few $$ for lunch and ice cream while on their walk).
Anyway, I imagine that these sub-conscious anniversaries come up for many people. But I can't help but wonder if, now that I'm aware of the triggers, I'm creating a self-perpetuating cycle of anxiety simply by acknowledging the sources. Is there a way out of this labyrinth of anxiety? Granted, my responses have been less intense since I began paying attention to them, and telling myself that I will in fact allow myself to go ahead and feel whatever it is I need to go through seems to have quelled them a bit (even if I have to schedule it in), but I'd really like to remove them from my sub-conscious calendar entirely some day. So, I'm wondering if anyone here has had any breakthrough's with this sort of thing and if so, what seemed to help?
-K
For example, two days I began having a series of these adrenalin rushes. I had made several plans for Friday and Saturday and found myself terrified of actually going through with them. Skiing on Friday and then ice skating, movies and dinner with kiddo's on Saturday. I found myself awake at 4am on Friday morning dreading the ski slopes and well, even leaving the house. I forced myself anyway and had a good time (except for one run that turned out to be much more challenging than I was ready for) but managed to slowly navigate myself down it...cuz there really wasn't any other option. Then yesterday it happened all over again. That's when I remembered to check the calendar and there it was. The anniversary of my ex-husband's last physical abuse was on January 18, 2004- which resulted in me being taken to the emergency room and him being taken to jail. (Another annual trigger occurs in mid-April when I found my best friend after he'd committed suicide way back when we were only 14 years old and there are a couple of other one's not worthy of mentioning). Anyway, I decided to give myself the time and space to experience whatever it was my mind/body was trying to recall, but I had to schedule it in since I already had a full day of activities planned with the kiddos.
So I scheduled it in for today and made arrangements for my kiddo's to do other things outside of the house without me. I explained the situation to my older kids and they seemed to understand and were happy to help (providing I gave them a few $$ for lunch and ice cream while on their walk).
Anyway, I imagine that these sub-conscious anniversaries come up for many people. But I can't help but wonder if, now that I'm aware of the triggers, I'm creating a self-perpetuating cycle of anxiety simply by acknowledging the sources. Is there a way out of this labyrinth of anxiety? Granted, my responses have been less intense since I began paying attention to them, and telling myself that I will in fact allow myself to go ahead and feel whatever it is I need to go through seems to have quelled them a bit (even if I have to schedule it in), but I'd really like to remove them from my sub-conscious calendar entirely some day. So, I'm wondering if anyone here has had any breakthrough's with this sort of thing and if so, what seemed to help?
-K
posted by:
|
Unsubscribed |
Advertisement
Advertisement
-
Re: The sub-conscious marking of a dreaded anniversary
Sun, January 18, 2009 - 10:09 PMI feel you. Mine is a bit different. I get it when the season changes. When I lived in AZ I had quite a bit of trauma happen in the summer at times through my life, so in certain months when the air was like a hairdryer on your face, I would flah back to those traumatic times. It would cause me to have the brick of dread in my stomach. I have only been here in Portland for close to three years, but when this winter hit, I suddenly recalled all sorts of thing I'd forgotten about the winter prior. Nothing traumatic, but my move up here was a major upheaval. For me it's like putting myself dead in the place something happened, the air, the smells, the activities are all conducive to triggering a memorie. Much like how smells can remind you of a person, or place, or time. In fact I would think that certain times of the year would do more to the senses, because they really do envelope all of them.
-
Re: The sub-conscious marking of a dreaded anniversary
Mon, January 19, 2009 - 5:35 AM-K - The seasonal or annual anxiety is pretty "normal" vis a vis traumatic events (isn't that just xmas for most people? ;-) May I make a suggestion? What about looking at these events in a different way - de-traumatizing them, so to speak. Instead of dreading them, use them to mark turning (or simply important) points in your life. For instance, the abuse event with your ex was horrible but it sounds like it was the wake up call for you. What about "celebrating" it with a ritual or something that celebrates it as your day of (albeit rude) awakening to your own needs? Sometimes the best way to make peace with the horrible and traumatic events in our past is to accept them and find the silver lining or golden dawn hidden away, discovering what good the bad brought into our lives can be a way to make peace with it. The more we repress and deny something - whether out of fear, shame or just simple (natural) avoidance - the more powerful it is and the more likely we're to manifest it in a subconscious way. Sometimes it's about retelling our story to ourselves in a way that we can live with and in so we're not outside of a part of our own lives.
