Trauma doesn’t tremble…

… it breaks; it twists; it shatters; it make you doubt and question.

And when its feeling settled, it breaks through without warning. That’s what happened tonight.

I was finally getting to sleep, enjoying the novelty of actually being tired ang sleepy enough to surrender before 11; I closed my eyes and listened to the distant sound of a motorcycle passing, thinking what a great serenade, and that was my last thought.

But pounding on my front door startled me out of bed and into a sprint minutes later; it was the sound of urgency that took me down the stairs-a flash of red lights seen through the window that spiked my fear and my fight or flight response.

“Who is it?” I called. A hundred scenarios raced in my thoughts. My pancake (youngest child) was out camping with friends but my other children, were home.

Was she OK? Was it my brother that prompted this late night visit? Kevin’s? One of my friends? Wtf is happening?

“It’s me.” My son. He had gone out and had decided to walk.

And this is where trauma is a pain in my ass… I jumped head first to worst case. I flashed through what I knew immediately before bed- pancake is camping, the vehicles belonging to my others kids are parked, Kevin is here-and I clocked an urgent pounding on my door and red lights out my window.

Trauma response engaged.

It’s been 20 minutes since then and here’s what happened and what I see now: the knocking wasn’t urgency-it was firm enough to wake someone to open the door; my son didn’t have his house key. The red lights outside-my son making sure the lock was engaged on his car before he came in. I can make out the outline and color now that I think on it a little.

My heart was still racing so I curled into Kevin who briefly woke and reassured me I wasn’t being silly by defaulting to fear; he fell back to sleep while I took several deep breathes and tried to slow my heart rate. And that fight or flight thing? It means I’m now too warm to sleep and still over thinking.

When I said trauma doesn’t tremble it breaks? What I mean is that things that used to be simple, things that I used to wait to worry over? They’re all they’re on a loop now, like a thread waiting to snap…but the body remembers what the mind forgot so…the anxiety, the fear, the accelerated heart rate… they all act in ways meant to protect, all perfectly, natural responses; what’s broken is there isn’t always a reason for them. And when they happen now, and it is something simple…well, that’s why I’m still up writing.