Delayed reactions

[Bermuda]

Most of my trauma didn't feel traumatic when it happened. It just was, and it was accepted.

Sometimes I am triggered and it doesn't seem very triggering, until later... sometimes much later.

Today it was a simple question, which I answered plainly.

And five hours later, I suddenly burst into tears in the shower over something that I now realise is very traumatic.

...It's almost as if I have to be so far removed from the event that it is only a story for me to be able to realise that it is a very sad story. There have been times where I've felt like everything is a story that I didn't connect to at all. It just was. It just is. It's not me.

I don't know why I am writing this, but somehow it feels like a significant puzzle piece. Derealisation → delayed response → C-PTSD response. Maybe someone has insight.

[woodsgnome]

Bermuda, your perspective on these 'delayed' sorts of reactions rings true to many similar incidents in my life. To me it's a great illustration of how deep our inner world of trauma has plunged and become entangled in much more than the surface way of understanding what's going on.

That this can happen makes this whole 'recovery' process more than worthy of being called 'complex'. There's so many twists and turns that seem to linger just beneath the surface of our thoughts. Sometimes the simplest reactions (at the moment) are not fully realized until much later. Only then do we understand that something awful is bubbling up through the psyche.

Tracing this all back, if possible, it sometimes seems as if perhaps what's resurfacing resulted from dissociation, a natural reaction from when the original trauma might have occurred. Having dissociated, the memory somehow becomes stored and/or stuck inside but can, as you point out, pop up in the future (now).

It's incidents like these that make me wary of thinking that there's some magical point at which an individual is fully free of cptsd symptoms recurring. It's like a hyper-vigilance sets in at one point but it's too sad or awful to  fully register at the time stuff happened.

These delayed reaction surprises can be irritating, but once we recognize them perhaps we'll be able to at least realize that the real trauma is a bit easier to leave behind, despite the current discomfort at rediscovering them. 

[Bermuda]

That this can happen makes this whole 'recovery' process more than worthy of being called 'complex'.

That is how I feel too. Things will always resurface, they may not debilitate me, but they will resurface. It's also unlikely that I will continue to live the rest of my life without anything traumatic ever happening. Will my brain register those things as traumatic? I don't think so. Will they also resurface later? Probably.

In the situation that drove me to panic today, in the moment the tauma occurred, I was so occupied with playing the part. I didn't want to cause trouble, to stand out, to speak up. I didn't realise I had a choice. I didn't see myself as a victim. In that moment I couldn't see what was happening as traumatic, I was busy externally mitigating and behaving how I thought was appropriate in order to control the situation.

That is how I handle things. I have learned to control myself when I cannot have control. Maybe that is something that leads to this C-PTSD response. ...Years later, I see the event like a movie, and as an emotion that I didn't feel at the time, as an on-looker.

It makes me think that maybe the root of the problem is my initial lack of a response, and how can you retrain something that you can't know has happened until years later? How can I teach myself that I am not the enemy, and am rather a leading character?

I don't know if my waffling makes any sense. It seems like such a simple problem, but it is indeed very complex. 

[Armee]

This all rings very true with my experience too. My biggest reactions are all to things that I think of as no big deal, and have no negative thoughts or feelings about, OR I will have no idea what underlies a huge trauma response. Some of my worst reactions remain a complete mystery to me. The surprise can be very upsetting and there's nothing to process really.

[Gromit]

This is fascinating. I have delayed reactions too, sudden tears which come out of nowhere. I am in awe of people who can react to things when they occur. I think perhaps, in my case, it was safer to not react, way up the situation as an observer, try and make sense of things before working out what the safe way to react was.

I hope that makes sense.
G

[Blueberry]

Bermuda, thanks for bringing this up. I can't write more except what you write is not 'waffle', it makes total sense.

[Dante]

Hi Bermuda, thanks for sharing.  I have a similar experience, but not exactly the same.  For me, my delayed response is anger.  In the moment, I am the peacemaker.  I pacify and defuse the situation and fawn.  Hours later, once the fight has settled down, I become very angry, and it takes me days to get over it.  I think it's because anger feels not safe in the situation, and only once I feel safe am I able to express those emotions.  I guess it's good that I can experience at some point, though healthy and appropriate anger during the confrontation would have been better.  I suspect your delayed reaction is also your body waiting until it's safe to process the feelings you're feeling.  Like some sort of dissociation in the moment that once it passes floods you with unpleasant emotions.

Thanks for sharing this!  It feels like another piece in the puzzle!