What exactly is trauma? How do we know we have it? And how do we overcome it?
I’m sure all of us have or have had experienced a type of trauma at some point or another. It’s normal; it’s a part of life. To try and answer the questions above, I want to share a recent experience in my life.
The most unexpected part of my ski accident and the whole experience was the lingering emotional trauma I experienced after.
The Accident
Dear Reader,
If you’ve read my blog post, “The Accident,” you know I was in a ski accident in February 2018. It happened in Ogden, Utah when I crashed into my little brother on a sharp turn. I ended up tearing my MCL and ACL. And it was hands down the most unexpected event of my life.
The Saturdays directly following the accident were the hardest. I would go about my daily activities like normal. The only difference was that since it was a Saturday, I would remember that my accident had happened on a similar morning. It made those morning hours feel like a type of “anniversary” of the event.
It may sound pathetic that I felt so shaken up over a mere ski accident, but the suddenness of the event and my unpreparedness to go through the pain and subsequent recovery were incredibly traumatizing. So each Saturday morning during the month following the accident, I would unintentionally relive my memories out on the ski slope--see myself hit my brother, feel myself flying through the air, hear my leg snap, and remember the cold snow as I laid wondering what in the world had just happened. Distress and fear would overwhelm me again, just as they had that day, and I would feel helpless once more. From this experience I’ve learned that the more unexpected and sudden an event is, the greater capacity it has to stay with the individual.
Panic Attack or No?
Let’s call my little episodes each Saturday morning “crying attacks” because I don’t think they medically qualify as full panic attacks. But they sure felt like it. Even though they would only last two to three minutes, they were incredibly harrowing. I remember the worst attack was the one two weeks after my accident. I remember thinking I was totally fine that morning because I had already cried a lot the Saturday before, so now I was "supposed to" be over it. Well, yeah. . . trauma doesn’t work that way.
So that morning I got myself breakfast and put on some music to do my leg stretches. During my exercises, I happened to remember it was Saturday morning. And I thought to myself, “Wow, Saturday morning around this time two weeks ago it all happened.” And all the sudden, old emotions were triggered again. Since I was already on the floor, I just laid there sobbing uncontrollably. My body shook as I processed the experience and those emotions all over again. I could barely breathe. As I relived the incident, I felt so much panic because the end of the experience was inevitable--I couldn’t change the outcome. And that feeling of helplessness led me to cry more. I didn’t feel safe. It was as though my sense of security I had had my entire life had been taken from me. I have honestly never cried like that before--that’s why I call these episodes “crying attacks” because huge, uncontrolled sobs would take over my body, and I couldn’t stop them.
During that especially bad attack, I thought about my old self--two-weeks-ago me--and what I would soon have to go through. The pain, anger, anguish, and loneliness I knew that two-weeks-ago me would have to face was heartbreaking. I remember crying for that girl (for myself) because I loved her and felt sick thinking of her going through the disappointment I had gone through the past 14 days. And then I thought of my future self-- two-months-into-the-future me--who was going to have to go through ACL surgery. I felt so much fear for that girl as well. It was so unjust the pain she was going to go through and that her recovery hadn’t even truly started yet. I honestly would not wish those feelings I felt that morning on anyone.
So after that particular episode, I was troubled I hadn't completely gotten over my accident. I knew wouldn’t recover physically for months to come, but why wasn’t I okay emotionally? I mean, I hadn’t been in a car accident or anything; one of my loved ones hadn’t died--so why couldn’t I get just over the incident and move on?
I was able to talk to a friend about this, and he told me what I experiencing. He talked about his own experiences and told me to look up some resources. I found the website
It was a very helpful site. It gave me the basic steps I needed to start dealing with my trauma I didn’t even know I had.
So What is Trauma?
According to the dictionary, trauma is “a deeply distressing or disturbing experience.” This can be a physical injury, emotional experience, or even a social one, but it always has to do with loss. And that day after that panic/crying attack, I realized I hadn’t dealt fully with my loss--my loss of a normal life, loss of security, and loss of mobility. You see, since trauma is rooted with the loss of something, like a person, a way of life, or innocence, that means you have to GRIEVE to eventually let it go. You can’t just ignore it because it won't go away on its own.
The first two weeks after my accident I had pushed myself too hard. I had gone to class and work during the first week--hobbling in on my crutches. I had even gone to social events and parties like a completely normal person. And then that second Saturday when everything slowed down, I had the crying attack. Afterwards, I realized that something was wrong with me. I wasn’t a normal person at the moment, so I shouldn't act like everything was okay. I had to recognize and ACCEPT that something traumatic had happened in my life, and that I had to confront it to overcome it.
Steps to Overcoming Trauma
I've adapted the advice from the website above and created my own steps to healing. The first step of overcoming trauma is accepting it happened--accept that you are not okay emotionally. Give yourself time. You will also need to relive your experience, as painful as that is, but in the long run, it will only benefit you. If you simply ignore what happened to you--like most of us do when painful things happen--you’ll never fully be able to live again. You cannot numb selectively. If you numb one thing, everything else in your life will be numb as well.
Second, come to terms with your new way of life. Accept that things will be different from now on because you have a new awareness of the world. It won’t be all bad because you will grow from this experience.
And third, you need to grieve the thing you lost. But remember that dealing with trauma and grief can be like a roller coaster--you have highs and you have lows. At the start, the lows are deeper and more frequent. And the crying attacks were truly my lowest lows. Only with time can the lows be healed. But first, you have to let yourself feel them.
I had gotten so good at telling myself that what I had gone through was something minor and something I could simply “bounce back from.” Many of us are told since childhood that life is unfair--that after loss and big life changes, we should move on. But everyone moves on on their own time table, and everyone grieves differently.
So I let myself grieve. I looked back on everything I had suffered the month before--including my newly-diagnosed Celiac disease and stomach problems, and I realized that it was OKAY for me to not be okay. I mean, I had lost so much in such short a time--a normal lifestyle and diet because of my Celiac disease and my mobility because of my accident. Heck, I was 21 and in college. I wanted to live like a college student--like my roommates and friends got to. It was maddening not being able to be carefree like them.
I felt so traumatized and not safe anymore because something so incredibly unexpected had happened that had changed every facet of my life. It was now twice as hard to do simple things and took twice the amount of energy. Everything took twice the amount of time. And then for a few weeks I just felt sad and didn’t want to do anything--nothing at all, well except watch the Office. That was another phase.
Healing Takes Time
The acceptance of my loss and changed lifestyle did not come for many weeks after the accident, but it did come. So if you feel you are not truly over something yet, don't give yourself a set timetable because recovery is not a neat process; it will be messy. Instead, decide to put yourself first. To successfully deal with trauma and move on stronger than before, you have to love yourself. You have to care about your mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing. And yes, sometimes you have to put yourself before others so that YOU can begin your healing process.
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