Trauma Reactions

So my last post was obviously fired off while dealing with the stress of sudden shock. It has allieviated but I still get a lump in my throat when I think about what that family is going through.

(For those that are clueless about what I'm talking about - just over a year ago a very close friend was killed when his F/A-18 malfunctioned during a training mission.)

In a previous life, I was a psych major. That's good and bad when dealing with your own personal psychological issues. When our friend died, it took me a while to realize that in addition to incredible grief, I was dealing with trauma reactions. Not so much post traumatic stress disorder (a disorder is abnormal, it is pathological and destructive) but post traumatic stress reactions (this is normative, what you would expect to happen, not necessarily good but usually not destructive in the long run.) And reading about the latest crash brought all those feelings of trauma flooding back. The sadness, the disorientation, the horror at the physical aspects of a crash...ugh...that lump is growing again. The moment our friend crashed we were at church getting ready to leave our Wednesday night programming, visiting with some good friends while the kids played. We laughed a lot and the kids were having a great time together. It was one of those evenings where you keep talking about going home and bedtimes but everyone is having so much fun your just keep entending and extending the evening. I can see us out there oblivious to the chaos about to ensue in the California desert. We got word of the crash three hours later. And our whole lives changed....double ugh....

A year later, the actual date of the year anniversary fell on a Thursday. But that Wednesday at church I was sooooooo aware of where I was and what had happened a year earlier. At one point walking though the halls of the church my legs literally started to shake and my head felt spinny. I knew what it was ( normal trauma reaction) but it was still uncomfortable and disorienting.

And that is what happened tonight when I read about the crash and I felt sick to my stomach. It was the picture that got me. Two minutes before the crash someone got a picture. That is so personal. Reminds me of watching the twin towers come down and realizing you are watching the death of 3,000 people. I can't imagine having a picture of our friend from two minutes before his crash. It would be horrifying to me to have that and in some ways amazing. No, mostly horrifying.

That's enough for tonight. I'm going to bed.