How To Prepare For A Trauma Anniversary, According To Mental Health Experts [bustle.com]

Laura Pinhey 9/11/186:41 AM

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be a challenging mental health issue to manage, especially considering it's unique to each and every individual. However, a common trigger for many people with PTSD is their “trauma anniversary,” or the date that a traumatic incident or event occurred. In fact, a trauma anniversary (and the weeks leading up to it) can be one of the most difficult times during the year for people who live with PTSD. Fortunately, mental health experts say there are ways to prepare for an upcoming trauma anniversary that can help you feel more empowered to tackle the triggers and negative feelings that may arise on the date.

“A trauma anniversary, or anniversary reaction, is the recurrence of emotional and/or physical distress experienced around the time of a past traumatic event or experience," Devon Hawes, a Clinician at Mountainside treatment center, tells Bustle. "It can reactivate thoughts and feelings from the actual traumatic event.”

According to the Sidran Traumatic Stress Institute, a mental health organization, an estimated one in thirteen people in the U.S. will develop PTSD in their lifetime, and around 13 million U.S. adults have PTSD at any given time. PTSD can be caused by a number of different events and situations, but trauma anniversaries are oftentimes a shared experience among those with PTSD.

[To read the rest of this article by Kyli Rodriguez-Cayro, click here.]

[Image: Hannah Burton/Bustle]

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Robert OlcottMember

Laura, I've subsequently 'discovered' that 'motor vehicle accidents' can also prove both problematic and 'resilience-building'. When nearing the storm drain at a local 'primary intersection', remembering my New Year's [before sunrise] morning accident on my motorcycle, reminds me to avoid the ice build up that 'customarily' builds by that storm drain. I had been watching the stop light and on-coming traffic at the intersection, which was otherwise bare pavement, when I made the turn at the stoplight, a 'wee-bit-too-close-to-the-icy-storm-drain'.... (If I had been using the 'training wheels', it might have stayed upright, but still slid on the ice surface within 4 feet of the drain grate). Now I take the turn a 'bit-wider', after I finish 'taking notes' on the status of the pavement surface in proximity...

9/16/1810:28 AM

Laura PinheyMember

Robert Olcott posted:
Before doing EMDR, which stopped the 'flashbacks' I'd had of witnessing my mother's handgun suicide-for 28 years, I used to begin having a 'challenge' around "Mother's Day", and it continued until the anniversary date of her suicide in August. ... I still sometimes 'dread' "Mother's Day"....But this article is certainly timely in my case: Thanks for posting it, Laura Pinhey.

Robert,

What a horrific experience you had, but on the other hand, what a wonder EMDR is to have stopped the flashbacks from it.

Yes, the anniversary reaction is real. I had one myself for decades to a bad car accident I was in as a child before I ever knew that anniversary reactions were a normal phenomenon and not just me being melodramatic. Glad if this article helps you deal with the this difficult period of the year.

--Laura

9/11/185:48 PM

Robert OlcottMember

Before doing EMDR, which stopped the 'flashbacks' I'd had of witnessing my mother's handgun suicide-for 28 years, I used to begin having a 'challenge' around "Mother's Day", and it continued until the anniversary date of her suicide in August. ... I still sometimes 'dread' "Mother's Day"....But this article is certainly timely in my case: Thanks for posting it, Laura Pinhey.

9/11/181:37 PM

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