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What Trauma Feels Like

We all experience the world in different ways, through our various senses and cultural conditionings. We all have different beliefs and different ways we live our lives. My world previous to the events of October 7th 2023 was as perfect as I could have wanted. Our quite life was blissful and full of love and full of gratitude. As I have written about earlier, I couldn’t have wanted for more. The juxtaposition of our life and the events that took place couldn’t have been further apart. What happened was so far from the realms of possibility, I still find it difficult to accept that it was allowed to happen.

More than nine months after the events of October 7th 2023, I still find myself, on occasion, being engulfed with sadness. I mourn the loss of everything we had in our previous life. People, pets, possessions and peace of mind. All those things that cause me the greatest sorrow. 

Last night I dreamt of my dear Kittie. He was my rock in my previous life and he was a great listener. In my dream he was his crazy loving self. Nuzzling and dribbling with joy. He was really there in all his glory. I miss so much the physical interactions with my cats. Cats have always played an important part of my life. 

All we had known from our life was gone in less that 24 hours. If it were a natural disaster like an earthquake or a tsunami, it would have been easier to bare. It was not a natural disaster, it was an intentional attack on an innocent community by the very forces of evil. The gates of hell opened on that fateful day. This is what I have to live with as best I can.

Getting Up Each Morning

Something that I have become very aware of since October 7th 2023 is the way I get up every morning. As soon as I open my eyes, for the briefest of moments, all is right with the world. That moment is lost as soon as I am aware of my surroundings and reality comes marching in. 

Having ones world shattered and destroyed is not your everyday kind of problem most people have to deal with. I try to carry on with living my day as best as I know how. I have already a morning routine which gets me out of bed and into each day. Small things done regularly bring a little sense of stability into my life.

My life has gone from stable, comfortable and happy to unstable, uncomfortable and relatively unhappy. The joys of life at this time are fleeting and come along in a sporadic manner. Two feral cats, a mother and her young cub, came to visit our garden this afternoon. I sat and observed them as they chilled in the long grass. We made eyes at each other, they understood that I was not a threat to them. This was one such joy that came along at exactly the right time. 

Finding My Inner Strength

These days are an unsettled time for us. As soon as we start to feel settled we will be moving on. This move is one that has been on the horizon for a while. Our community is being relocated to a temporary site outside Beer Sheva. We will be moving and settling once again. For this my inner strength will be put to the test.

Resilience is a word that I have come across regularly since dealing with the trauma caused by what happened on October 7th 2023. I am not sure it is a fitting word in my case. After what happened I feel decidedly weaker as a result. They say what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. I don’t feel stronger after what happened. I feel that my will has taken a massive pounding, so much so, that rebuilding it a very slow endeavor. One step forwards and ten steps back would sum it up quite well.

As a man of 53 years old, I had built up a resilience to the hardships of life, the difficulties faced by regular people who are living regular lives. I always considered myself well hardened to whatever life may throw in my direction. How could anyone, however resilient, handle what was thrown at us on October 7th 2023? So forgive me for not feeling strong enough to just live in a normal way. I don’t know if a normal life will ever be attainable ever again.

Reading Between the Lines

I have always enjoyed reading. My favorite books tend to be fantasy fiction and, like most people, I have my favorites which I return to reading again and again.

I started to read Dune, an old favorite, which I haven’t read in over a year. It is a masterpiece of the imagination and I love the images it conjures up in my mind. Something I wasn’t ready for was the “flashbacks” I experienced whist reading.

You see, the last time I read Dune, my life was very different to what it is today. My life was settled and comfortable and full of promise. Everything was as it had been planned to be. These days are not those days and reading Dune just felt so different. I was reminded once again of how much we had lost. I had, back then, purchased the original Dune movie on Blu-Ray. We never got to watch it. I will continue to read but I cannot read without being constantly reminded of a life long lost. I enjoy the memories that I have of our previous existence. The interesting thing is though, I never expected, in my wildest dreams that those memories would be all that I had left of our beautiful life. Those memories have become some of my most treasured belongings.