Nightmares

Credit: Scott Robinson

I can’t say that I ever remember having an actual nightmare about my rape. Terrible thoughts at night while in bed, definitely. Nightmares involving my rapist, certainly. But not the rape itself. For this I am extremely grateful. I know several fellow survivors for whom this is a chronic symptom. I suppose I am lucky.

This year, I even managed to escape the “first day of school” nightmares. Ask any teacher, and you will find that this is a yearly occurrence. Panicked dreams where you open the classroom to find

Exposure

It was a stunning day today.  Spring finally looked as if it might someday appear.  It was 54 degrees today!  54!!!!  That is a number that was unfathomable just a week ago.  The sun was shining.  The children at school were able to actually go outside for recess and run amok for a few glorious minutes.  I was able to venture into the great outdoors without gloves for the first time in months.  I had a good day at work and was ready for a nice calming evening.

I was not ready for another sneak attack of PTSD, right at the end of the work day. 

Advice for the Loved Ones of Rape Survivors

In the wake of Sunday’s piano debacle, I did a lot of internet searching Monday about PTSD, anxiety, and panic attacks.  It took all day for me to shake the effects of the morning.  This is such a common problem, not just among rape survivors, but for people in general.

Panic in Unexpected Places

The delightful thing about PTSD, panic attacks, anxiety disorders, and the like, is how they can sneak up on you out of the blue and without warning.  It’s very unsporting of them.  One should be given a fair shake when trying to deal with one’s demons, I believe. Today was one of those days.  We awoke to a lovely blanket of snow.  It was light and fluffy, very pretty, and deceptively slippery.  Mr. OneWoman and I sighed and said, “Ugh, not more snow!”  But we brushed off the car and headed off to church like the troopers we are.  We’re used to this winter nonsense, even though this year has been particularly wintry.

Triggers

(A special trigger warning applies to this post.  Please take care of yourself.)

Survivors speak a lot about triggers.  We use trigger warnings on everything we write, we say something triggered us, we apologize for triggering others.  Trigger is both a noun and a verb.  And triggers are the bane of our existence.  For those of you lucky enough not to know, a “trigger” is something that brings out our memories of the trauma that we went through.  It can be anything and it draws us back into the original traumatic experience.  A trigger can bring on a full-blown flashback, or it can just set off a series of emotional and physical responses.  Because they are so common an experience for survivors, I thought I would attempt to write a piece about my triggers to help others understand.

Triggers can be anything.  Seriously, anything.  A smell.  A sound.  A seemingly innocuous object.  A place.  An action.  A time of day.  Our friends and family are often baffled by our reactions to what appears to be “nothing” to them.  Whatever the trigger is, for some reason our mind associates it with our rape or our rapist.  When we are triggered, it is a very distressing experience.  This is why we post trigger warnings.   The last thing we want to do is cause our fellow survivors distress.  A rape survivor sees the warning and can judge for himself/herself whether they are feeling strong enough to read on.  It’s a “spoiler alert” of sorts.