Through
years of trial and error, accumulated experiences and slow maturing, I am quite a
different person to the frog years. It's almost like they never happened. If it wasn't for
the PTSD-like episodes (which I haven't described yet, in case you were trying to remember
what I said), I would marvel at how completely God must have shielded me during that time.
I am still very thankful, and know that His presence with me allowed me to grow inwardly,
even while I was outwardly struggling for life.
Rather than lose
momentum and look at what lessons I learned through the years, I want to zoom straight to
now, the year 2000. Grant and I have recognised the effects of trauma since just before we
married. We have always prayed together about it, but much of our attention has been
diverted by the physical symptoms we've had to deal with related to ME. (That's Myalgic
Encephalomyelitis, remember.. not me.. as in me, myself!)
Recently we were
lent some videos of a seminar on a counselling and prayer technique which has proven very
effective in helping people with trauma-related problems. We identified with it
immediately, and after only watching one of the four videos, we were ready to pray and ask
God to lead us to some effective solutions to my annoying 'reactions', as we call them.
Oh, I wish I could
tell you ALL about it... That's me - I love to tell all the details of anything God has
done. I get so excited, and it all seems so amazing! I wish life was like that sometimes -
nice and simple and we could be free to just tell the world how we feel about God... but
it just doesn't work out that way. Not very often anyway.
I have to limit
myself to a few well-chosen words on this one. Do you think that's possible!? I'll
try.
When I have a
'reaction' there is always a trigger. It is generally a situation which, in some way,
reminds me of something that traumatised me. The reaction takes the form of intense
feelings, quite unrelated to the triggering incident. Where once there was a certain
extremely traumatic event, followed by the resulting intense feelings of fear, and
emotional turmoil, now there is just the reaction. All it takes is the memory to be
triggered and it all comes back. This sounds simple and easy to recognise, but in
my case it isn't. Some people have picture flashbacks - mine are just feeling
flashbacks and it's not always obvious what is happening.
I suspect that
this is happening to me now because at the time I didn't have the ability to protect
myself and help my husband at the same time. In order to support him, I had to look
after him, and there was no time for me to get the help I needed. I wouldn't do it
the same way again, but at the time I did what I thought best, and coped the only way I
knew how.
Fifteen years
after the first traumatic incident occurred, I finally saw the truth about how God viewed
my situation. I literally saw Jesus calling me to Himself, and leading me away from
the source of danger. To some people, this is so basic as to be ridiculous. To me it was
pure, liberating revelation!
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