Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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TW
Last night I posted support to another member's thread here at DS PTSD saying their situation reminded me of when I was a kid in a war zone overseas and I saw a guy get shot and die. I still read the daily newspaper of the country overseas where I grew up, and I was reminded that this week was the anniversary of his death and of the other "student martyrs" who were killed at the university by the government back then.
http://www.republica.com.uy/los-martires-estudiantiles/
What a coincidence. No wonder it came back to my memory.
When I was a kid down there, my parents used to take me on their rounds to translate for them because I was fluent in the language and they weren't. That's how it was that I happened to be downtown the day this happened. I'd been translating for my dad at several places downtown, but when he went into the bank he didn't need me, so he left me in the car. I was 10 years old.
Everything was calm when my dad left me in the car. But then suddenly, just how a tornado can hit, the street behind the parking space our car was in turned into turmoil. What was happening was that students were marching down the city's main avenue, the one my family car was parked on, toward the presidential palace to protest killings that had already happened at the university that week.
I was in my family car's front passenger seat, and all of this was happening behind the driver's side left fender. I was craning my neck to see out the back car window when it happened. Policemen fired into the front rank of the student group that was marching, and all hell broke loose. I saw students go down and then the rest break ranks in a panic to run for their lives, with police charging.
That's when to my right I saw my dad sprint out of the bank's front door toward our car to get us out of there.
That day stuck in my mind forever. Not as a political memory, because I didn't have politics when I was 10. I haven't developed politics around it since then, either. It was just a horror for a 10 year old kid to watch. I processed it some when I dedicated a page to it in my history book I wrote on the times I lived through, book published way back in 1994. But it still grieves me now, I can't put my finger on the motive of the grief itself, it just still grieves me.
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I haven't written in my diary on my computer since May because I thought that my computer was dying. I got away from writing but my computer is hanging in there. I think that I will start writing in it again. It's so therapeutic.
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Years ago, I won a mirrored armoire from my job. It's in my bedroom but I rarely stand in front of it. Yesterday, I had to have a dexascan done so I had to change into a gown. There was a full length mirror in the changing room. I'm aware that I gained 5 to 7 pounds over the last year from cheating on Keto but I didn't know what it looked like. It was a reality check.
I read the article & with your memory of that as a ten year old child. (((hugs))) I don't see how you can not feel tremendous grief this is only my opinion,I grew up on a farm and have seen the cycle of life/death. I was sexually abused when in fourth grade & that shattered me. but I have not seen nor want to -death that close. I can only think that once seen & experienced,it can't be undone and how all that trauma lives on in memory and body. I try and put myself in your ten year old shoes . To see violence,chaos and death/murder ......So I am glad you are here muji. I think your a survivor and witness experiences that most of us have not. I also think that by your talking about it from your view point.feelings that it is a way to go on with life ahead in spite of all that has happened.
But 6 to 12...remembering swimming (or drowning) and so on...
I'm not sure that I'm making any sense at all.
Where's arfie? She's so good at saying things that are hard to say...
I salute your spirit. I don't think I have that intestinal fortitude you had at such a young age. I'd probably be jabbing my veins full of heroin, or just would have exited, stage left long ago.
In Texas, it is extremely common to see immigrant parents from many different cultures using their elementary aged children as translators. My heart bleeds for many of these children. They often grow up to have language and other phobias from the stress of it. As a wrong-color Spanish speaker, I am privy to both sides of those conversations when they are in Spanish, but seldom feel safe to alleviate the child's discomfort. Wrong color people are often attacked for even understanding Spanish. How ironic is it to turn understanding into a civil crime?
Dunno. . . Something niggles. . . Sorting. . . Another plea for forgiveness if I am totally OT.
Continued support on your recovery from the war zone.
I don't have a whole lot of words of wisdom about this. Just echoing Leo. Grieving is a process, it changes over time. My opinion is traumas that happened to us leave their scars.... forgiveness or no forgiveness- moving on or no moving on, we'll never forget.
Patti, what you say about ages 6-12 sure applies to me. The Tupamaro War went from 1966-1972, and I was 8-14 during it, so my childhood development years and the dates of the war overlap. That explains it.
Mojo, thanks for reminding me that your overseas experience was like mine, and that there are lots of others like us who had such childhood experiences in many countries. I appreciate what you said about my having fortitude; I, too, don't know why I didn't self medicate. Thanks for your salute, and please receive my salute in return, amigo.
Finally, Leo, thanks for that concept of "evolving grief." I guess as I evolve as an adult, something about that day gains another layer of meaning for me or something. So I go through those 5 stages Kubler Ross describes to acceptance all over again. And again. Instead of being angry at myself as much as I used to, I'm coming to believe that "repetition brings mastery." So I'm grateful to have you all at this place at DS PTSD when evolving grief visits me once again.