Trauma affects everyone differently whether the event happened to you or someone you loved. When something bad happens to someone you love, you go into a state of shock. It may be brief or it could even last days. Maybe you deny what's happening, you cry, or you shut down completely. Kat, Chris, and I all had a loved one who was hurt or even died and we all handled ourselves completely different.
Explain the traumatic experience you were involved in.
Kat: In my friend's accident, he was driving home and the roads were icy. He didn't see the black ice in the middle of the country road and drove straight into it, losing control of his car. The car hit a tree and my friend was rushed to the hospital. He fought for three days and passed away.
Alexis: One of my best friends was in car accident while driving home from California with one of the friends. While he was on the side of the freeway in front of his car fixing it, another car rammed into the back of his car making his car hit him.
Chris: The second semester of my senior year of high school, as my dad was deployed through the U.S. Air Force, he had a seizure, was brought back to the States, and was diagnosed with a stage 4 brain tumor. Immediately, the tumor was removed and he started radiation and chemotherapy.
How did you feel when it first happened?
Kat: It didn't make sense to me; I was confused. How could someone so selfless and kind be gone -- just like that?
Alexis: I ended up calling his phone because I was starting to get worried. His friend answered and told me he was being life flighted to the hospital as soon as she said that my heart dropped. No matter how many time she said he was fine I couldn't help but think I was going to lose one of my best friends, and I broke down crying.
Chris: The whole situation felt unreal, and even for the first four months of his sickness, it felt unreal. The end of that summer, he had another seizure that I actually saw, and that’s when it got real for me. I felt pretty scared for him, for my mom, and for our family, but I knew there was nothing we could do to stop it at this point, only slow it. So I felt terrified and depressed.When he actually passed away, two and a half years after diagnosis, we were all with him in his last moments. All of the emotions I felt leading up to it and while it was happening were pretty dull and numb until he actually took his last breath. There was a strange sort of panic that set in, but because there was so much lead up to it and we saw this coming for so long, there was also acceptance.
After the initial shock did your
feelings change at all?
Kat: After the initial shock, I was just numb. There was really no one for me to blame. No laws were broken and no one had hit him. I kind of hated myself for wishing there had been someone to be angry at because for me it's easier to blame someone than accept the fact that I'll never see that person again.
Alexis: My feelings didn't really change they were only stronger. Which means I was worried, mad and sad. I was worried I was going to lose my best friend, worried he wouldn't remember me, and just worried in general for what this was going to do to him. I was mad because I couldn't be there since he was taken to a hospital in California. I was sad because all this was happening and while I was getting updated from his friend I still couldn't believe he was hurt this badly and I wasn't there to help.
Chris: After he came back from his second seizure, he was still pretty coherent, so some of the fear subsided knowing that we still had more time with him. I gained a sort of different sense of hope, not one that things would get better, but one that maybe he’d be around long enough to do some more of his children’s major milestones and do one or two last big things with him. Again, after he passed, my feelings did change. There wasn’t panic, just pain. But the second my friends all found out, we were all flooded with immense support and that felt amazing. It really helped lift my spirits knowing I had so many people to help me stay standing. It’s been almost a year now, and there are still waves of intense sadness that come and go, but they’re getting less and less frequent. Now, I don’t look back and feel so sad about the whole thing, but happy and thankful I got so much time with him. He wasn’t supposed to live past 11 months, but at 13 months he was still walking and talking and barely showing signs of sickness. The whole thing was the best it could have been and I’m so thankful for that.
Did you do anything to make yourself feel better? Did it work?
Kat: To make myself feel better, I kept in contact with his mom who gave me all the run downs of where his organs were going. I was able to help her and be strong while we watched him save people's lives. She would send pictures and videos of little boys and girls saying thank you and telling me that they would be my best friend. The idea that someone I held so dear was saving lives, something he always wanted to do, made everything a little easier.
Alexis: One of my other best friends, Jenessa, came over after I told her what happened. She stayed the night, took me out for dinner that night, watched TV with me, took me to a movie and pretty much held me while I cried (which was a lot the first night). Honestly, without her being by my side I would've gone insane, so yes having my best friend around to keep me distracted did help.
Chris: I surrounded myself with as many friends as possible, and I tried to keep myself occupied as much as I could. It was absolutely the best thing I could have done because I don’t think I could have come back from it otherwise.
When did everything calm down for you? How did you feel once the “storm,” so to say, passed?
Kat: The initial storm was over almost a month after his passing, but for me and his family it is still happening. We're still battling. He's not going to be here for Christmas or Halloween. No more stupid egg jokes on Easter or "I-haven't-seen-you-all-year" jokes on the first day of school in January. But we're getting through it thanks to the power of love and community.
Alexis: The storm passed fully for me when two days after he had been home, Jenessa called me and told me we were going to see him. I was so scared I was going to cry again when I saw him, but I didn't at all. He was laying in bed and just looked like he was being lazy, which is so something he would do: just lay in bed doing nothing. It was normal and made it easier. He was a little banged up but he was there, alive, and smiling at me. I felt total relief my best friend was going to be fully OK.
Chris: I'd say after finding out, and after each major seizure, it took a few weeks but things got back to normal. After he passed, it was like sets of waves, progressively getting less and less intense, but lasting longer and longer each time.
Did you in any way feel guilty or in any other way connect yourself to the incident negatively?
Kat: I never felt truly guilty about the accident itself, only when I found there was no one to blame. I started digging, grasping at straws, and trying to find anyone to blame. I wished, for a moment one night, that there had been another involved in the accident so I could focus my anger on them and that's the lowest I ever sank. I feel guilty for that moment.
Alexis: I did feel guilty about the accident when it first happened. He texted me saying not to worry, but the car overheated. They were fixing it now and I shouldn't worry. I was looking up car towing companies and trying to find a way to get him and his friend home. I texted one of my friends what was going on and they offered to go get them, but by that time it was too late, the accident already happened. I felt like if I had told my friend what was going on sooner, he could've gotten there or if I could've found a towing company they could've gotten out there. I know now it's not my fault and no longer feel guilty, but I did.
Chris: I never felt guilty or like anything was my fault, but I still feel like I didn’t do enough or say enough to him while he was still lucid, or I didn’t spend enough time with him because I had to go to school in another city. I will always have these regrets, but I’m getting to the point where I know I have to accept them.
Crying, denial, or just plain getting used to everything that was happening. That's how we dealt with our traumatic experiences at one point or another. Our ways of dealing with what was happening changed as the situation did. Sometimes we were in the same place and dealing with it the same way, sometimes we were dealing with what happened to us in completely different ways. Kat got videos for little kids who's lives are changed forever because of her best friend, meanwhile I still get texts from my best friend. Chris has regrets while Kat and I don't. No two people go through the same experience. Even if it's the same person or event everyone still handles things differently, at their own pace, and their own way. There's no one way to handle trauma whether the event happened to you or not.
