This is a quick note about how I tried not to let a bad memory ruin my morning. One of my work colleagues became a dad yesterday, which meant that this morning people in the office were talking about birth, labour, c-sections and epidurals. I sat listening while working (it’s a small office, it’s impossible not to listen), until the bit about the epidural, at which point I grabbed my headphones, went to YouTube and clicked on the first music video I saw. Which, usefully, was Slipknot, but anything would have worked to drown out what they were saying.
In case anyone wants some perspective on how utterly random triggers can be. I haven’t lived in a house with a garage door in four-ish years. Right now at this moment, I honestly can’t recall what they sound like, except something metallic moving and rather clanky.
There was one on tv. I wasn’t even paying attention to it, I had my headphones on and was actively trying to tune the show out. My ears picked up on the sound of the garage door, and a jolt of adrenaline shot through my body as I grabbed my laptop and moved to get out of my seat and run to my room.
I realized what happened after about two seconds.
The sound is gone from my ears, but my heart is still racing and I’m waiting for the door to the house to open, to hear the jingling of my mother’s keys and her footsteps moving through the house. My muscles are still tense and I’m fighting the urge to run to my room and stick a board in front of the door.
For years, the sound of a garage door was my warning to pack up what I was doing quickly and retreat to my room if I was out of it.
I can’t remember the sound of the garage door right now, but I can’t tell my brain to stop trying to react to it.
This can be reblogged, if anyone was wondering. I wrote up this post with the intention that hopefully people who read it and didn’t really get triggers would understand a bit.
Another thing: my sister was watching a tv show, and an actor with the same voice pitch as my dad’s came onscreen. I heard the voice and froze, choking on my own breath while mentally checking everything on my phone and in my room, making sure that none of my possessions were going to be taken because I had done something “wrong.” My dad was on a business trip in India.
Literally I once almost cried walking into my job at a craft store because they had orange streamers out. It reminded me of Halloween and that holiday has traumatic associations for me. Crying over a streamer seems completely silly without context, but you never really know what it may make another person think about.
I almost burst into tears at work one morning because someone was eating toast and the smell reminded me of being in hospital, where they would always come around and ask us what we wanted for breakfast and we’d have toast. Mine was with strawberry jam. I can’t stomach the thought of strawberry jam now just thinkng about it, but the toast smell trigger doesn’t make much sense because I have eaten it at home plenty of times since being in hospital. Maybe it’s just because it was in a public/unexpected place.
But yes, I have gotten upset over toast. And also the beeping sound a printer was making because it sounded like hospital machinery. I so wanted to go over there and smash the thing to make it stop.
This week I am thinking about the labels we put on ourselves, the labels other people put on us, and the labels we want. Partly because today is PTSD Awareness Day, and partly because a colleague is celebrating a different diagnosis that has given him relief and closure.
Really quick update about how terrible things have been because tonight is the first time all week that I’ve felt a bit more like myself, and I don’t really want to dwell for too long on how terrible things have felt.
When you message your friends back like “all good” but nothing this week has been very good, it just takes more energy to talk about it than it does to lie at this point
and the drink isn’t blotting out the week nearly enough
I realised this week that I have sort of come to be quite fond of my stoma site. Yeah, you can see where the staples used to be and the skin stretched, and the scar is a bit raised and lighter than the skin around it, and I can’t really feel when I touch it. But it sort of goes in a bit, like a dimple, and I think it’s sorta cute? If I could change something about my belly I would lose a bit of weight from it and tone it up a bit. I have come to love my scars and I wouldn’t want to get rid of them or change them. <3
Still got health stuff to sort out which I’ve asked my doctor for a referral for. Nothing major but I’m sick of dealing with it every time it flares up and at the moment it just seems like it’s one thing after another to deal with, constantly, all the time.
Hello! I had my gastroscopy and flexible sigmoidoscopy (aka endoscopy) on Friday and I thought I’d do a blog post to give you an idea of what both are like. I know lots of people get worried about these things, aren’t always sure what to expect if it’s their first time, and therefore look online for other people’s experiences to find out what’s going to happen. I know this because I’m one of those people, and even though I’ve had both procedures before, this time I still had a little look online to try to reassure myself that it wouldn’t be too bad.
Before we get going, let me point out that I live in Northamptonshire in England, and some things might happen differently for you if you live elsewhere or outside of the UK.
