In my world, an anniversary is hardly something to celebrate. My anniversaries don't include flowers or candle lit dinners or smiles. Anniversaries for a person with PTSD is the date of a trauma. You could hide the calendar from me and my body would still manage to remember. I might not connect the dots right away as to why I felt physically out of whack, but my body would remember - causing me to be anxious and nervous and irritable. I'd feel like I had a brick laying on my chest, weighing down my heart.
Most of my days are in summer and fall but unfortunately one of those days is linked to a Friday the 13th. The original date is June 13th, but since that day in 2003 was a Friday and following the horrible events that happened that day, I will not be able to forget that it was that dreaded Friday the 13th.
I did my best to distract myself today. In my spare time I read a book, I listened to a different book on audio when in my car (I often have more than one book going at a time so that I always have one accessible), while at work if there was a lull I focused on the next chapter in a YA novel I'm writing, I watched 3 different TV shows and saw a movie at the theater.
If my brain is busy following a story, it has a far less chance of pushing through memory or pain. It's why I'm able to quote and reference my fair share of movies and actors, why my book shelves are lined with novels and why I never can quite seem to get enough programmed (and DVRd) television.
Despite my greatest efforts, I still cringed and prayed for peace every time someone at work (whether it was a coworker or customer) blabbed on about what day it was. It still was the first thing on my mind as I walked to my car. Memory... is like an obnoxious person who just has to finish telling you their story until they get the reaction that they so desire.
Death can steal a person, make them into nothing but a memory that your brain grasps for. People stay frozen in time, a prisoner in your mind. Sometimes you can pull out a memory at random, sometimes the memory jumps out at you and leaves you balled up on the floor. Death graces us with memory we've never even noticed that we have. We suddenly remember things about people in great detail. Detail that drags us down and beats us until we can't even feel the pain any longer. And that moment you find out that you've lost someone? You'll remember that moment for the rest of your life.
That June Friday the 13th I can remember the way the summer air smelled, how heavy my brown sandals were on my feet, how my knee length jean skirt had a tendency to twist uncomfortably when I went to sit down. I can remember the blare of sirens in the rig I rode in and I can see every street sign that I glanced at while looking for the road that the emergency page had initially called out. If you needed me to, I could draw out the exact set up of the living room that the call was at and how I suddenly couldn't remember how to do something as simple as breathe.
{The next excerpt previously written in a private blog from 2008}
I ran into a friend at school today... someone I hadn't seen in years. Much to my surprise she didn't even look the same. I barely recognized her at all, until she spoke. And her voice? It was what death would sound like if it had the ability to be heard. I stood before her, but my mind was everywhere else.
In my head I was stepping out of the still moving truck only to be greeted by air thick enough to be able to grab a handful and hold for a moment. And her stale words of "I'm so sorry, Erica" lingered in my ears. That's why the sound of her voice takes me back. Because she was the person to tell me that he had died. She was the first of many that had called to check on me that night and make sure I had heard the news, but the only one that seems to be stuck hiding in my head somewhere, patiently waiting for the right moment to jump out and smother me.
Reliving moments like those remind me how important life really is. I watch too many people take things for granted and I wish I could take them by the shoulders and shake the hell out of them until they fully understand what they'd feel if they spent all their time keeping their thoughs to themselves instead of sharing them with other people.
You can stop, think about everyone important to you and ask yourself if you'd regret anything if they weren't here tomorrow. You should never have to start out saying "I never told them....". Even the people that you've been standing next to for the last 15 years, you just assume they may just know that you care about them, but never assume. Because regret? It can kill you. And it never goes away.
PTSD may not be who I am, but it definetly has a way of explaining me. And making things seem more controllable. I no longer have to sit in a fit of confusion wondering what I did wrong. I can fix what's broken... I can't fix what doesn't exist. On June 13th 2008, in memory of that date and all it represented, I had a small tattoo done on my wrist. It was a symbol for the word fly. My friend Sarah had copied a poem into a gift she gave me once and it had moved me beyond words.
The poem read:
"Come to the edge" he said.
"We are afraid" they replied.
"Come to the edge!" he said.
They came.
He pushed them.
They flew.
I got the tattoo as a reminder that when I'm pushed to the edge, I have the ability to fly instead of fall.
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