9/11 & Post-Traumatic Stress

Towers, towers, towers

     The year is 2001. George W. Bush is President; reality TV is a little over a year old; I didn't yet own a cell phone; and, DVD players were just becoming affordable. September 11th occurs and the world is changed and feels intensely connected. It is a day that, after 13 years, is still seared into many minds.

     Many remember their helpless feelings while viewing television footage of two dragon-size airplanes decimating seemingly indestructible high-rise towers. It felt like a nightmare and looked like a Godzilla movie. A big, scary bully was knocking down a carefully crafted tower of building blocks.

     A bully, however, is so grade school. One bully image I recall: a boy named Besca, in the 6th grade. He was huge, at least twice the average 6th-grader size with a Herman Munster shaped head, small eyes, wet lips, and crooked teeth. His looks scared me. He lived in a set of apartments near our home and sat in the back of the classroom. At times I'd turn around at my desk and catch him with an Elmer's glue bottle tipped above his mouth, squeezing the thick liquid onto his tongue. Glue does have a pleasant smell, but drinking it? I wonder what happened to him. He was actually a harmless puppy dog.

     Terrorists are not puppy dogs and they are not bullies. They represent the essence of evil. And 9/11/2001 was real and so was its feeling of panic. The ensuing unstable weeks were, indeed, frightening times. Will terrorists attack again? Will we ever feel safe?

     Like the current ISIS threat, trepidation exists. World leaders are confused and uncertain. 9/11 feels like it occurred just yesterday. Families still grieve their losses. One moment their vibrant loved ones lived and breathed; the next moment, they were prematurely gone. Like a mortal car wreck. There were few deathbed farewells or neatly-tied closures. And the media won't let us forget.

     Pivoting to a personal level and addressing post-traumatic stress, how does one ever forget fright after smoldering in-home events, that occur on a regular basis? Feeling like the walls will cave in, with hazy cigarette smoke everywhere. With amplified sounds of pounding, and quarreling, and stair steps that go creak in the night. Feeling fear and paranoia and panic. And ammonia-like, putrid odors. And seeing literal and figurative naked humanity.

     And, because I was old enough to do so (aged 6) pulling covers over the head; lying in the fetal position, hiding to drown out the madness. The brain shifts gears, to heightened awareness… to survival mode. Because all is not well in the home during jumbled, eruptive, paranoia-fueled "crazy-cray" dark episodes. In the morning there is evidence. Empty bottles and cans of alcohol thrown into the kitchen trash. And the feelings seem thrown away as well. But more damaging than the events of the dark night is never talking about the episode. Like nothing happened, so it is never discussed. The mind tries to move on; but the senses (like the 9/11 media memorials) will never forget.

     A variety of scenarios. mimic the repeated events. that cultivate Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. and the effects seem quite similar. especially for. sensitive or un-soothed... toddlers and infants... in alcoholic "crazy-cray" homes. who years later. re-experience inexplicable fight-or-flight sensory responses.

The Jaws of Life extracted Dad in 1990; Mom died aged 62; I was just 35

     I write because I optimistically believe in a a Light that brilliantly outshines world disasters, mortal car crunches, and dark childhood nights. It is bright and effervescent. It is a Light that can bring closure and hope after a beloved one's sudden death in the 9/11/2001 disaster... and after my mom's sudden and mortal 9/11/1990 car wreck.

     I will not forget "crazy-cray" childhood nights, Mom's quiet, artsy, complicated, "naturing" essence, nor my heartache following her premature departure from this earth. She left before my earnest questions were asked or answered.

     I write in the Light, and He soothes my soul as well as troubled and echoing childhood trauma. He provides sensible and needed closure...the puzzle pieces finally somewhat smash together (but they will never quite create the fulfilling snap that I expect)... even after bonfires of blogging.

     But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God (John 3:21).

     And, Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together... but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching (Hebrews 10:24-25).