Navigating A Trauma Anniversary
For many people, the term traumaversary sounds like a completely made-up word. But I promise you that it really is not.
A traumaversary is the anniversary of a traumatic event or season in a person's life. It’s that remembrance even if only on the bodily sensation level of the occasion when something bad happened in our lives. Many of us have an innate ability to block out those horrible or awful memories. We stay busy, we distract ourselves, we know not to look at the calendar too closely during June or August so our brain doesn’t pay too much attention to the dates. Because we know if we do we might get sucked in by the memory of the trauma. It’s the anniversary of the trauma we are attempting to avoid. But even on a physical level, or a cellular level our bodies still remember.
Another way to think about a trauma anniversary is it’s the time of year, or an occasion, in which old memories and associations are brought to the mind or the body. It’s much like how in the holiday seasons your thoughts oftentimes are drifting towards family or personal matters, and in the summer your thoughts might be drifting towards your next getaway or dreaming of that next vacation. However, when these memories and sensations are in connection to a trauma it can be tied to a negative association. And it doesn’t even need to be on a conscious level.
Frequently, when a trauma survivor (or thriver) finds themself in the middle of a trauma anniversary (because let’s be honest it often just sneaks up on us out of the blue with no warning), it often forces us to relive the feelings from a traumatic event, causing symptoms like increased anxiety, depression, trouble sleeping, increased startle response, increased irritability, loss of appetite, nightmares, and increased awareness of their surroundings and irritable outbursts.
Because the person who is experiencing the trauma anniversary finds themself in the middle of all this, it often feels like they have not only failed but have let everyone around them down. Understandably these anniversaries are upsetting. In addition to being emotionally challenging, they leave everyone involved super frustrated. They also leave the person who was the one who experienced the trauma with misconceptions such as they haven’t gotten any better, none of the work they have done has helped, they are reverting back, it’s all for nothing, and the list can go on and on.
Further, bursts of unexpected anger or worry may threaten to damage our relationships, careers, and wellbeing. There are one of two reasons you are reading this blog. You are either living through this as a person who has or will experience a traumaversary, or you love someone who has a traumatic past. This brings us to the most important question. How do you help yourself or someone else if you have a trauma history and these anniversaries occur?
Oftentimes the most overwhelming parts of this are the memories, dreams, thoughts, feelings, grief, sadness, fear, anxiety, frustration, anger, guilt, avoidance, remembrance, and reflection. All of which you may have previously been led to believe you dealt with. If you take nothing else from this blog, please read and reread and remember this: trauma anniversaries do not discount the work you’ve done. Read that again. They are a bodily remembrance of the trauma we have experienced. It doesn’t undo all of the healing we have experienced. It doesn’t negate all of the dedication, commitment, and passion you have committed to your healing process.
My suggestions for navigating the trauma anniversary include the following:
Identify Your Personal Timeline: Identify what the trauma anniversary you are experiencing is, how long it typically occurs, how long it typically impacts you. Create a brief and factual timeline of what this particular trauma anniversary looks like for you, and consider sharing with your support system or inner circle.
How deep do the emotional lows get, how physical do the somatic sensations get, any nightmares, how do we minimize them, do we need to make sure you keep eating, what support systems should we put into place.
These are the patterns we want to watch for.
It’s really about setting you up for success, instead of just letting you get sucked away by the tornado of the trauma roller coaster.
2. Practice Self-Compassion: This is a super-challenging time for everyone involved. The last thing you need is more self-judgment, more condemnation, more criticism, or more negativity. Let’s agree to just practice some grace. Once you’ve come to terms with the reality that this might be a bit of a struggle and you are not going to get it all perfect, find ways to increase your self-care. Find ways to fill your cup. Find ways to get out of your own head.
Perhaps you need to ask for more self-care, maybe you need to increase your exercise routine, maybe you need to spend more time in meditation, maybe you need to spend more time in person with your accountability team, or maybe you need more loving from your dog or cuddles from your partner. Give yourself permission to ask for what you need, without fear of judgment.
Also, please be cognizant of the reality that for many people “simple” everyday tasks seem absolutely exhausting, overwhelming, and daunting during this time. If you have the ability to either ask for help or hire someone to do it for you please do so. Otherwise, prioritize and focus on what has to be done versus what you need or want to be done.
Please remain mindful of the reality that it takes a lot of strength to ask for help!
3. Honor Your Experiences: It likely sounds very counterintuitive however there’s so much documented research out there that talks about the benefits of “commemorating trauma anniversaries.” If you’d like to do research on the topic look at the APA or the US Department of Veteran Affairs, both highly endorse this philosophy. The idea isn’t really to celebrate the date but to find a healthy way that makes sense to you to honor your experience and to honor the fact that you survived whatever it was, that you came through the other side, that you have or are working through the pieces of that.
Here are some examples of ways to begin to honor your experiences:
Donate time or money to charity, especially if that charity aims to prevent or to help others who’ve experienced trauma
Organize a dinner with loved ones. You may choose to make this a reflective occasion or a loving, joyful one. Do what best fits your needs;
Visit a meaningful spot, like a place that you associate with happiness or healing;
Plant a tree and bring new life into the world;
Express your feelings through art, writing, dancing, or another activity where you can release your thoughts;
Make yourself laugh by seeing a funny movie or hanging out with your most hilarious friends.
Organize a walk, write a book, perform art in some way, etc
4. Rituals and Memories: Scientific research has shown that there is so much healing involved when we create meaningful rituals. Many cultures have specific rituals for recognizing the loss, marking anniversaries, and transforming trauma. These may potentially look like formal memorials, symbolic gestures such as lighting candles, designing a community mural, community art, or a community gathering. Storytelling is a very powerful tool in creating rituals and expressing memories. If you are working with students they might like to write, record, collect or share stories from past years - bits and pieces (no matter how big or small) of pain, or resistance, or even ordinary moments in their lives.
It’s also crucial to remember that ANYTHING can be a ritual. Rituals take a bad wrap in life, but they can be so crucial to healing. Do you drive the same way home from work every night? Do you put your keys in the same spot every night when you come into the house? What are the first three things you do when you walk in the door? Those are examples of rituals. Those rituals provide us with a sense of security and safety. Rituals can also help us grief and heal. What would allow you to give this trauma anniversary a sense of meaning and a sense of peace?
5. Do The Work: While denial is helpful and serves its purpose, long term it becomes toxic and problematic. We all need to find ways to focus on healing the traumas that we experience in life. Find a really skilled trauma therapist. Find someone who is competent and confident in being able to help you navigate getting better and finding a place of healing and minimizing the symptoms you are living with. Some modalities that we really like at The Mental Wellness Center for easing the symptoms of trauma include:
EMDR: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is an extensively researched, effective psychotherapy method proven to help people recover from trauma and other distressing life experiences, including PTSD, anxiety, depression, and panic disorders
Trauma-Informed Yoga: Trauma-Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TC-TSY) is an evidence-based approach to address complex trauma. This group provides an opportunity to experience the present moment through options of participating in yoga forms and bringing attention to your breath, while empowered to make choices based on what is felt in your body.
Polyvagal Therapy: Porges coined the term “neuroception” to refer to our innate unconscious awareness through the autonomic nervous system to influences in the body, in the environment, and in interactions between people. In other words, we detect dangers before we have time to think about it. This tells us about the subtle sense of safety or danger that potentially influences any interaction in the world
Trauma-Focused CBT: This is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with a specific spin towards being trauma-informed. While many providers either love or hate CBT this is a go-to method for many providers.
6. The healing Power of Exercise: Many people become almost addicted to exercise. Likely not for the reasons you suspect. The surges of chemicals in the brain cause feel-good chemicals to release in our brains and also allow us to feel as if we have control over some things. It’s also a clear-cut case of cause and effect in our minds. I work out, I more than likely sweat, my mind shuts off and I feel better. A+B = C Which when you are in a trauma zone is really easy to access. Because when we are in the lizard brain, which is what’s activated when we have been triggered, we don’t have the ability to have deep cognitive thought. Therefore we have to have the ability to do things that don’t require a lot of decision-making.
No matter what you do to choose to cope, we want you to know you are not alone. We also want you to know this is not your fault. This is also not a result of you not having done the work. On a biological level, your brain and body often know without you even looking at the calendar. It gives credence to the verbiage, the body remembers.
If you are thinking about seeking help, please reach out. If there’s anything we can do to help, please let us know. If you would like to learn more about our providers please check out our provider’s page here: https://www.thementalwellnesscenter.com/providers
If you would like to schedule an appointment, please call us at 309-807-5077 or email us at info@TheMentalWellnessCenter.com
