The Anniversary Effect

 I wasn’t going to write about this. I didn’t want to admit to it. I’m fine. Perfectly fine. There’s nothing to see here. But in the interests of being honest about mental health and what is normal and survivable and because I am genuinely fine I have changed my mind.

In trauma recovery there is a thing called the anniversary effect and it can completely knock you off your feet for a while. 

This isn’t a conscious remembering. It’s different, devastating and uncontrollable.

On the anniversary of my Dad’s death I might look at the calendar, check the sky for heart shaped clouds and have a moment of quiet remembering. It’s a good thing.

However, my Mum’s death is a traumatic event that happened to me and my brain approaches the anniversary in a different way. I hate that it does this. It makes it all about me and reminiscing is relegated to another day, another year, another lifetime. That causes guilt, which isn’t good for mental wellbeing either.

It starts about a week before. Sleep becomes more elusive. Eating is erratic. Emotionally I’m all mood swings and quivering anxiety. Focusing on anything is impossible. Lists, that have always been my friend, jump around the page and taunt me. I become a terrible teacher, a snappy housemate, a weepy wife. I say weepy but as I’m not really a crier this is what happened.

We were standing in the Long Suffering Husband’s shed. He’s finally finished it, except for the floor and getting the tools in. 

“It has only taken five years,” he says, “But I get there in the end.”

And tears appear in my eyes. A little sob escapes before I swallow it. 

He looks at me with tilted head and the look I hate. The one where I know he has seen that I’m not right, not myself and his face brims with concern. He steps forward to give me a hug and I cry. 

“What’s wrong with you?” he asks and I snap into anger, pull away, zip myself back up and say that I don’t know. And I don’t. Not then. I know that I’m not right, that I’ve been wobbly for a few days but I don’t know why. 

I have been putting things off. There’s an optician appointment to make, a birthday present voucher to use, which requires looking at a calendar and I realise that it is May and the anniversary effect is kicking in.

This is where my body mounts it’s own trauma response as a kind of memory party.

I’m assuming that anyone who has a trauma response has their own symptoms. Mine build. Difficulty sleeping turns to no sleep, first moving through panic waking, terrible dreams, unconsciously bruising myself at night and weird nighttime breathing. Not eating starts with a general nausea, an inability to swallow, stuffing comfort biscuits in to keep everything down then eventually vomiting for no particular reason. My contact lenses begin to hurt and my vision blurs to the point of everyone asking if I have new glasses. Constipation (too much information?) My brain decides it needs to focus on everything all at once and life becomes overwhelming as I develop a plan for world peace. I can’t look anyone in the eye. My palms are sweaty and my feet are cold. I want to run away but I don’t. I freeze. I go through life on automatic pilot, slowly, sadly, not fully engaging, wondering if I’m doing a good enough job of masking because if anyone notices and says anything I will run. I feel dirty. My hands get washed like I’m Lady Fucking Macbeth. 

The annoying thing is that I have been so much better lately. My broken brain has been healing.This PTSD has been EMDRed and yoga’d away. My walking, breathing, writing have all been slowly working their magic. So I was cross. 

Five years! I shouted into the void. 

Then, the day after the death-day anniversary my brain was light again. The fog had lifted and I was looking forward to things. And it is because of this lightness I decided to write this blog. 

The anniversary effect doesn’t cause a step backwards. It’s temporary and goes away again. It’s just your brain having a pity party. My brain has had to work very hard lately, so I can let it have a party once a year if it wants one. I’m not going to get stressed out by it.

If your brain is currently doing this then you have my sympathy because it’s not fun but you’ll get through it. 

Shopping Trauma

"You don't shop much do you?" my friend laughed when explaining where I got my shoes from, I said, "You know, that cheap shop, only £4 a pair. I bought 3 pairs."

It's true. I don't really like shopping. I find it a bit traumatic but sometimes it's unavoidable and yesterday was one of those times. My daughter is heading back to University next week and obviously needed some new stuff. Parents who have just spent a fortune in Ikea to kit their 18 year old out for a year in halls need to know that there will be more stuff to buy for the second year. They will be in a student house with a double bed, so they will need new bedding; their wok will have been used by all 20 of their flat mates in halls, never washed up, gone rusty, smell of meat; their sharp knife will have gone missing and they won't have been able to buy another one because they are not 21. Parents won't necessarily have to pay for all this because a year away, learning about the cost of pot noodles, will have fostered a small sense of financial independence but you will still be required to be present for the trip, if only to carry the bags and buy the knife. 

If I was being forced to shop then I thought it would be a good idea to buy some new clothes.  My winter wardrobe is looking tired, shabby, a bit holey and someone seems to have tightened the waistband on all my trousers and skirts. (listen to me - winter wardrobe - I sound like a fashionista) 

The main problem with not shopping very often is the shock at how much everything costs. £50 for a pair of trainers! The last time I bought trainers they were £30 and I thought that was expensive. 

When you are used to shoving a top in your trolley as you dash round Tesco for the weekly food shop everything about buying clothes properly seems alien. You shuffle round a crowded shopping centre bemused by so much choice. There are beautiful, well cut clothes in material that won't develop holes, in shops staffed by women with hair and faces that don't move, that you need to take out a mortgage to buy. In the shops staffed by young gum-chewing slim blonde girls there are clothes that probably cover less than my underwear. There are dresses that would be great but someone seems to have cut a hole to expose the least flattering part of a woman.

A dress designed for love-handle splillage

 Even the mannequins look odd in these shops. Then there are the cheap shops, with their jumble sale atmosphere, material so thin you can read your newspaper through it (newspaper! - I mean i-phone, of course) and surprises when you get to the till as the bored sales assistant tells you that your £5 shoes only cost £4 after all.

If you are lucky enough to find something that you can imagine wearing then the changing room becomes another trauma. You strip to your bra and pants in a tiny curtained box, with the gap, so that everyone walking past can see you. The bright lights and full length mirror show up every lump, bump and particularly the dark circles under your eyes. You wonder if the shop got their fittings from a Fair's Hall of Mirrors. You struggle into the clothes, thinking that it can't get worse as you bang your elbow on the only solid wall and then you look in the mirror. Who do they make these clothes for? How can a dress make you look worse than you did in your underwear? If that wasn't traumatic enough then there is the issue of struggling out of the dress. I don't know if this has ever happened to you but when you are in a tiny changing room with a dress stuck, half on, half off, covering your face, blocking your nose, preventing proper breathing panic does start to set in.

I did manage to buy something. A nightshirt, more £4 shoes and a book. A book can keep you warm and your feet dry through the winter, right?