How I Survived 4th of July: A Mental Health Update Post

 The 4th of July has come and gone now and I'm ready to talk about it.  You see, the 4th of July is usually an awful day for me.  I have complex PTSD from years of trauma and abuse.  One of the many traumatic events I went through was what I call, "The Naked City Shooting", and it has been one of my biggest problems since the day of the shooting.  Immediately after the incident, the sound of fireworks would cause me to cry hysterically, much like a small child who is terrified of something.  It was embarrassing to live life this way, but what was I supposed to do?  How do you undo the damage of trauma?  If it was simple, therapists would not have a yearlong wait list to get services.  

In anticipation of the noise, I typically take a clonazepam at around 6 or 7 pm on the night of the 4th of July.  The goal is to be so sedated that no noise wakes me up.  This usually does the trick, in conjunction with my other nighttime medications, most of which have a sedative effect.  I decided not to do that this year.  I woke up to fireworks last week and handled it very well, so I wanted to further test my limits, so to speak.  I discussed this with my mental health team, and we all decided together that it would be okay to test myself and only take the clonazepam if things became too much to cope with.  I was comfortable with this plan.

Michael and I went out and ran some errands, one of which was a trip to the dispensary for my anxiety medication.  I don't necessarily like to take clonazepam, so I use Cannabis, instead, with the approval of my doctors, of course.  I stocked up on my supplies and was confident that I would be able to get through the noise with these supplies.  I got a little bit of everything while I was there... flower, dabs, disposable pens, etc.  By the time we got home, I was already feeling a little bit sleepy, and the big event was still hours away.  

I spent some time with my husband and son, then I headed up to the bedroom to go lie down and rest for a while.  My son and his girlfriend went out to watch the fireworks, and I crawled into bed where I thought I was going to relax.  The noise of the fireworks started to get pretty loud, pretty quickly.  I did not have any anxiety about the noises.  It did not stress me out.  I did not cry nor hyperventilate.  I was so amazed that I was calm during the entire fireworks show (plus the additional fireworks show the neighbors gave us afterwards).  I never even had to use my anchor to keep me calm.  I even stood at the bedroom window and watched the fireworks, which is something that I have not been able to do for many, many years now.

After a couple of hours of the constant noise, I started to get a migraine from it.  I wasn't expecting that.  Usually, the biggest problem is the noise sounding like gunfire and me having flashbacks and meltdowns over it.  This time, the migraine was my biggest complaint.  I decided to put on my headphones to drown out the background noise.  I started to notice that Michael was having a lot more issues with the noise than I was, but his issues are due to Autism, not PTSD.  Nonetheless, I felt for him having to deal with the noise with no options to lessen the volume.  He doesn't have headphones, and he was not going to allow himself to use mine, even though I offered all of the things I had available to help me get through it.  He was much more concerned about how I was handling the fireworks than any issues that he was having.  Likewise, I was more concerned about him because I was having little to no issues, myself.  It's funny how we both focus on caring for the other.

The headphones trick worked flawlessly.  I played a sleep playlist that I have on my phone.  I didn't want music with words to get me amped up or into the wrong mood, so I stuck with meditation tracks, Native American flutes, and singing bowls.  It usually does the trick.  I fell asleep with them on me, somewhere around 10:30 pm.  I woke up sometime after midnight and all the noise was done, so I took them off and went back to sleep.  I slept well for the rest of the night.  I ended up getting over 8 hours of sleep, which would never have happened before reprocessing The Naked City Shooting through EMDR.  If I wasn't a believer before, I am now!  EMDR is like literal magic.  I have no other words to explain it.  It's just pure magic.  

I cannot wait to see Lori on Monday so that I can tell her all about my experience.  She has been gone for over a month, so she doesn't know about most of the growth and progress that I've had.  I just know that she is going to be so thrilled to hear about it!  She is personally invested after all the time and effort she has put in to preparing me for this phase of my healing journey.  It feels so good to have something to be proud of for once.  

My son said that I was lucky to not have the anxiety yesterday.  I corrected him by saying, "No, it was not luck.  It was all of my hard work to get here."  I put in 9 months of preparation work before I ever did my first reprocessing session.  I had to acquire tools and skills to carry me through this phase of the journey.  Luck had very little to do with it.  I was lucky to find Lori who happens to understand me more than anyone else.  Surviving last night's fireworks show had nothing to do with luck and everything to do with my determination to heal what has broken me.