First Response to Post Trauma

Would we want it tto last forever anyway?

Occasionally something happens that is devastating. This happened to me this week. I felt powerless to respond. I only wanted the event to have not happened.

I cancelled life. That is the only way to describe it. I ate comfort food all day while talking on the phone to others devastated by the event. Listening is good.

I do not know how I made it through the day without screaming into the empty air or crying my eyes out.
But, after awhile,  I was able to reflect on what was happening  - what had happened. I finished watching a movie and took it back to the machine where I rented it for $1.00. The movie,  "Like Dandelion Dust".  had a similar theme as the devastating event of the day. I suppose it aided in processing the event, however indirectly and unconsciously. At the time, it was intended to be a distraction.

I also made my bed, planted seeds, washed my hair, wrote another thousand or so words, sent a few emails, completed a project I'd been working on for a month, washed clothes, shopped for company, exercised, and mailed a birthday present to my grandson.

Finally, when I couldn't find anything else to distract me, I sat in front of the TV to forget the whole thing for awhile. Unfortunately, I had seen everything already that might have been of interest. There seemed to be no escape.

I sat on the porch with the cats for an hour or two and was swept away by the whispering wind momentarily - a meditative focus, yes, but not for long enough.


Left here in a place between the no longer and the not yet, what is there left to do?

Trust. Let go of any expectations now. Dancing at his point was not possible, holding its promise for a time in the near future.

Believe, as dear Aunt Bea used to say, "Something good is meant to come from this.", -  wisdom remembered at just at the right time. I still preferred that this good would happen  without the unavoidable immediate future,

With one foot into the reality and one in the good that will come from this, this pause in time is acceptable. 

Own it!! And I let the paralyzing devastation pass on its own accord. And pass it did soon enough.