Category Archives: numbness

Post-Traumatic Stress—Movies, TV, Anger

12 Sunday Jun 2011

Posted by in anger, movies, numbness, Post-Traumatic Stress, TV

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            My favorite TV shows and movies bothered me after Daddy died.  High suspense stories didn’t interest me anymore.  Comedies weren’t funny.  Sad movies broke my heart too much.  That visual art medium intensely triggered my feelings in the beginning.  My heart pounding, I would rush to the bathroom wishing to vomit out the stirred memories.  Mostly, I just stared at the clear water in the toilet.  Later I simply disconnected my attention from TV shows or from a movie.  I usually drifted into thought, or maybe went to the kitchen during some action packed scene.  Dullness served its purpose for a while.  I wasn’t feeling anything.
            Then the determined anger came.  I felt it toward my father and with myself, too, that I couldn’t even get lost in a story.  So I set about the task of desensitizing, watching my favorites over and over again till I wore a callous over the ultra-sensitive nubs of my mind.   Hardening myself, I purposely watched even the hardest parts of murder and mayhem.  But the suicide themes, they were definitely off the list.  Some things can be taken too far.
My ever-protecting husband many times tried to change the channel—for me.  I got angry at him, too.  I took back the remote control and flicked the channel with my single intention.  I didn’t want suicide to ruin everything fun in my life.  I would watch what I wanted, damn it.
 Anger is an emotion of enormous power.  Filled with robust, bursting energy, it’s the spark that sets the flame.  Just as the mind mercifully shuts down in self- defense, anger can push it back right into reality. 

Numbness and Flashbacks

07 Tuesday Jun 2011

Posted by in feelings, flashbacks, heal, numbness, suicide, time

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            My feelings swung from one extreme to the other for a long time after Daddy’s death.  Numbly, I reasoned that I must be doing fine.  I would feel guilty that I didn’t feel anything about Daddy’s suicide.  Then I judged there must be something terrible about me and doubted my ability to love.  The next day, or maybe even the next minute, something would trigger a flashback.  It could be anything, the food I ate that day before I found him, a movie scene with gunshot sounds, or a sudden sound of silence.  And I became a trembling volcano of feelings and memories that I couldn’t turn off.  I felt like someone stripped me of my skin and dragged me through salt. 
My soul burned from those flashbacks.  I felt embarrassed by them if they happened to me in public.  I felt afraid of them if they came while I was alone.
            Those experiences led me to believe that I would never get over my father’s death.  I felt I was either a rudderless vessel carried or tossed by raging currents or sitting flat on a dead sea.  Then the anger came, and I vowed that I wouldn’t let my father’s choice affect the rest of my life.  None of those ways of thinking predicted the truth of my future.
            The actual relief of my experience came when I realized time had gradually slowed those swinging emotions and memories to something less extreme.  Little by little, I stopped reliving the pain.  Recalls became bittersweet and controllable.  That adage about time healing wounds became my truth.
            Suicide is like a razor slashing at the souls of those left behind.  The cuts are deep and serious.  No matter how much you want this to be over, keep talking, keep breathing.   It takes time to heal.