PSTD - How Am I Doing?

The Feeling of Uncertainty is Real

There a some days when the uncertainty of my very existence is overwhelming. Today is one such day. I cannot see further than this day, this hour, this moment. I feel a sense of being trapped, not knowing how my life will pan out. It is not lost on me that I was trapped in our safe room in Beeri. Then we didn’t know whether we would live to see another day. I can’t believe that I would ever be writing such a thing. The trauma runs so deep through every fibre of my being. The physical trauma and the mental trauma are part of my day to day life. I so very much want to continue living my life the way I always had but after what happened to me on October 7th 2023 that seems like a distant fantasy. 

Today I feel sad, anxious, stressed and uncertain. I long to be reunited with my former self. I know he is in there, or I am in there somewhere. I will keep on hoping that I will return to myself to whatever degree that is possible. I just want to be taken away from it all, be looked after and exist for a while without any responsibilities in the world except for relaxing.

Coping with life right now is a struggle but I am doing the best I can. I wish that I was able to do a whole lot more but I can’t. I am living a very basic existence right now, the emphasis is on my mental wellbeing hence journalling my states as I grapple with this new existence of ours. I am grateful for everything that I have and I live as best I can with a positive outlook for the future. Today though, I just can’t seem to see clearly. I know that the waves of trauma have varying frequencies and this current one will pass on when it is done with me. The damage it causes and the pain it brings are very real. I will weather this storm as I have done with all the ones previously. I miss the golden light streaming into our bedroom. This memory brings with it a calmness that is needed right now.

Some Days Are Positive 

It’s been a week since I wrote anything new. I had a particularly low period at the beginning of the week where I decided to channel my energies into my music. I was able to further a piece that I had been working on but couldn’t find the next bit. I found that “next bit” and throughout the week I created a new recording. It always amazes me how I have the ability to discover the music that is inside of me. Once I have a melody then through a process that I do not fully understand, a full piece of music emerges. It is like it has always been there waiting to be discovered, much like a sculptor revealing the sculpture from within the rock. I am so grateful to have this ability to create music. I wasn’t sure, after October 7th 2023, that music would fully return to being part of my life. Music has proved to be an innate part of who I am. Nothing can take that away from me.

Recovery from Trauma is Not Linear

Unlike recovering from a physical injury, for example, that might take a few days rest of a few months, Trauma recovery is a multi-faceted injury that never completely heals in its entirety. Talking from direct experience of trauma and the process of recovering from it, I can tell you that it is a complex and very personal journey to healing and living with the fallout. There is no “one size fits all” and the sooner one realizes that then the healing can really start taking place. 

So having said that recovery is a completely individual endeavor, how does one come up with a recovery strategy? Well, like I said, recover is not a linear process whereby at the beginning you are broken and at the end you are fixed. This is not my experience and, of course, depending upon the severity and circumstances of the trauma, the spectrum of healing is very broad and multi faceted indeed.

I have, since October 7th 2023, been trying to discover exactly how the trauma that I suffered has changed me. I cannot speculate of other peoples trauma but I can certainly empathize with them. I can however examine in depth my own suffering.

The basic facts of what happened to us on October 7th 2023boil down to these few things, in no particular order. Our neighborhood was under siege my militant terrorists intent on killing, raping and destroying everything in their path. Our house was broken into and ransacked and set on fire destroying all our worldly belongings, We survived under the threat of imminent death for 13 hours in our “safe-room”. We were concerned for the welfare and safety of our children and our extended families. We were aware of the seriousness of the situation from text messages from family, friends and neighbors. I experienced the freeze response whilst gripping the door handle of our safe-room in the full expectation that the terrorists were going to break in at any moment. There was a constant gun battle going on all the while and our house was succumbing to the ravages of fire. We could not breathe, we almost passed out. We were rescued under fire and taken to relative safety where we also came under gun fire.

That was difficult to write. These not so basic facts are what happened on that day however there was a whole subset of traumas that would follow over the coming weeks and months to the present. What I experienced, what my wife and kids experienced, was unique to them yet together we collectively experienced the ordeal.

Over the first few days and weeks we began to understand the magnitude to what had happened to us, our community and the neighboring communities. This was a trauma on so many different levels. As the truth of what had happened began to sink in, I was left in a kind of no-mans-land, shocked, traumatized and in a state of disbelief.