Life would be no better than candlelight tinsel and daylight rubbish if our spirits were not touched by what has been.
George Eliot, Middlemarch
Birthday cake, WikiCommons
My son turns 18 in two days. I turned 18 only four months after the most traumatic event of my life - the loss of my firstborn child and the subsequent loss of my first love. My 18th year vies with my 17th year for being the worst of my life. I was grieving and lost and the memories that I have of that year are like the sporadic glimpses you get of a midnight landscape lit only by lightning - fragmented and frightening. The thought of anyone, even my beloved son, turning 18 fills me with a sense of foreboding, as though a great weight were going to drop on me out of a clear blue sky.
While I was away (with my parents), my son also began going out with a girl: an adorable, petite girl who is smart and kind and has a good sense of humor. I'm truly happy for my son. However, when I see my son and his girlfriend together, at the age I was when my boyfriend and I went through so much sadness, I feel as if my heart is breaking anew.
That's okay. Being triggered can be easier when we anticipate and plan for it and find ways to cope with that triggering. Yesterday, I met my son's girlfriend for the first time. I suspected that seeing them together would be triggering and I was right. I was prepared and, so, when I felt unsettled and jumpy today, I didn't fight it. Here are a few things I did that helped:
- I was kind to myself about the feelings I was experiencing
- I spent time practicing songs for choir, since singing always helps to open my heart
- I spent quiet time alone
- I took time to write this post, which allowed me to think through what was happening
- I drank a glass of wine
- I talked to my husband about how I was feeling
- I re-read favorite poems
- I looked through my favorite book on coping with PTSD : The PTSD Workbook
- Above all, I WAS KIND TO MYSELF
All of these things help. None of these things can completely ease the painful reminders of what my own 18th year was like. Only more time and more therapy and more self-awareness can do that. Pretending that nothing's wrong, on the other hand, can end in disaster, like it did for my ex. M. had an emotional melt-down when his youngest daughter graduated from high school. This melt-down had huge consequences in his life. I am pretty sure that his unwillingness to see how his feelings were connected to his past only caused him more pain. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.
For people who have PTSD or carry a lot of grief, mindfulness is one of the most important qualities to cultivate. Mindfulness is the opposite of mindlessness and is much easier on me and the people I share my life with. Before, I often hurt myself and others when I was overwhelmed by flashbacks and intense emotions. Now, I still feel pain when I experience PTSD triggers, but I work very hard at processing this pain and not letting it bleed over onto the people I love. And that's why, with some careful preparation, I expect to enjoy my son's 18th birthday. We're going out to a Malaysian restaurant with B. and his girlfriend then coming home for ice cream cake with a few of his friends and our friends. I'm looking forward to it. Does that mean that I'll never feel sad or upset when I see the two of them together? Of course not and that comes to a second quality that is essential to dealing with PTSD - kindness. I truly believe that being as kind as I can to myself, will lead to the ability to be kinder to others. Easy? No. Necessary? Yes.
How do you deal with triggers? I'd love to hear your stories.
Meanwhile, I can't help but smile at the happiness and innocence of young love and remember the good days that came before the bad. Despite the pain we went through, I have many happy memories of those days with my first love. Here's one of the songs we used to slow dance to in an updated version by Annie Lennox.
