Symptom Free After the Storm

Last Friday, the area where I live experienced a bomb cyclone. As someone whose PTSD resulted from a storm, any kind of weather event with the word bomb in it doesn’t exactly sit well with me. I decided to stay home that day and keep myself occupied with things I enjoy doing, namely cooking, writing, puzzles and reading.

Initially, the forecast predicted a lot of rain and 1-3 inches of snow in the afternoon. When I looked out the window at 8:30am and saw that the snow was falling fast, thick and heavy, I knew Mother Nature had other plans.

I noticed how the snow stuck to trees and utility lines and it reminded me of the October snowstorm of 2011. That was the first major snowstorm Mike and I experienced in our home in Randolph, NJ, and naively we had been excited about hunkering down and watching the snow cling to the colorful leaves that remained on the trees. We ignored the warnings that snow on these leaves would lead to falling trees and limbs. That excitement quickly turned into fear, damage to our house and no power for nine days. I suffered the worst flashbacks and anxiety since my PTSD first developed in 1997. Those symptoms and others lingered until I saw my therapist. 

Up until that 2011 snowstorm, any kind of severe storm put me on edge, and many times I’d experience flashbacks to my traumatic experience. Thankfully, I managed to move through this past bomb cyclone completely symptom free. This was the first major storm where I was able to do this.

And though I was reminded of that October snowstorm, I didn’t feel like I was reliving it.

How did I get here? For years, I was extremely vigilant about storms and hollow trees. When springtime came, I’d think of it as “thunderstorm season” and that I just needed to get through the first few storms and I’d feel better, like riding a bike for the first time in a while. Even though I was highly functioning and very good at hiding my symptoms, the life I really wanted to live didn’t manifest until I put in the effort to get better, which didn’t happen until I started writing my book in April of 2013.

Before writing Peace with Trees, I could tell someone about my traumatic experience with shakiness in my voice. Having written my story over a dozen times, I can now stand in front of large groups and walk people through my trauma, my symptoms and how I moved through them.

And thanks to that effort, last Friday was just another day, even though we lost power and a tree fell on our property. Amazingly, Mike and I didn’t even know this tree fell until we looked out the window the next day. Had I not written my book, I’m certain my symptoms would have flared up significantly because of this storm.