So a while ago I was in the kitchen making a sandwhich. My grandad was 10 feet away sitting in his chair watching TV. I start hearing weird noises, which registered to me as my grandad was laughing really hard at whatever he was watching, and stomping his feet. I look back at him to find that he's having a massive heart attack. Me and my mom are the only ones there, so after pulling him out of the chair and calling for her, I manage to jam the autism switch into full dissociation gear and remain calm while on the phone with emergency services. I'm told he had like six more heart attacks on the way to the hospital. He has a pacemaker now. Some time later, I attend a first aid class for my temporary job as a security guard. There's a section on heart attacks, and I am completely mentally checked out for the rest of the day. My mind is full of my grandad lying on the floor, and the deep, rumbling, not-breath sounds he made, and all the things I did wrong. Still later, I'm heading upstairs (my family lives in the basement). I've been gaming most of the day and I wanna get some human contact in - say hi to gramps, maybe grab a snack. I hear splashing sounds as I climb the stairs - weird. Is grandpa dumping something in the sink, maybe? No. He's seizing in his chair, vomiting on the floor as he keels over. I am alone in the house. I do a little better this time. I get him on his side. I make sure he's breathing. I call emergency services, then my mom, then my stepdad. At least, I think I do. The two events, though months apart, seem to have blended together in my mind. I definitely recall my first words to my mom over the phone were "He's still alive. Unconcious, but alive." With no context at all. Now whenever I find him sleeping in his chair, I watch very carefully to see if he's breathing. I was thinking today about all this. It started with "I've now seen my grandad nearly die twice, so how come I only remember one?" And then I remembered the other, and the next several hours I felt a core of anxiety I couldn't identify the source of. So now I'm asking, is this what trauma feels like? Have I been traumatized?
Not an expert on trauma, but I think two near death experiences of a family member, one of which you were *alone for and had to handle yourself* could and probably would result in trauma. For what it's worth, you did a damn good job, keeping your head and doing what was necerssary to save your grandfather. That makes you a total badass in my book.
Bear in mind: the diagnostic criteria for PTSD specify what type of trauma needs to have occurred, but those specifications are not the definition of trauma overall. Additionally, "being traumatised" doesn't have to mean "having PTSD"; it's only one of many, many ways that people can respond to mental trauma - and, for that matter, some people go through a traumatic event but are not traumatised by it. None of this reduces the importance of your mental wellbeing or the legitimacy of whatever you are, or aren't, experiencing. Also, seconding South-lands: you did a great job.
witnessed, seconding both these peeps. that was a lot to go through-- i hope you're doing better, my dude.
Very definitely, yes. Experiences like that leave echoes in you, especially since both instances were completely unexpected. I think you'll probably be checking your grandfather's breath for awhile, if not for the rest of his life. And also agreeing that you handled all of it amazingly.
Yeah, that's very much what trauma is like (gonna echo Elph here: not necessarily PTSD, just trauma). It's like a negative experience not only exists as a memory, but leaves a sort of permanent echo that you often want to avoid, but that you return to, unthinkingly, from time to time. When you're exposed to an outside trigger (for example, the sight of your grandpa sleeping on that chair again), for at least some time, on some level of your consciousness, it's like the traumatic event is happening all over again, or could happen at any moment and so you mentally prepare for it. This might help to explain why the two events, months apart, blended as one in your head: on a mental and emotional level, the first one wasn't truly over and the second one was just the first one happening again.
thats pretty traumatic, if the symptoms are significant and start intefering with your day to day life id suggest getting checked for ptsd too
Repressing and/or condensing memories into another, similar instance is something I've observed in those suffering from trauma several times, which sounds like what you're describing when you speak of difficulties disassociating the two events. Further, I think that event certainly merits a belief that you may have been traumatized in and of itself; there are fewer things, in my experience, that can cause trauma quicker than an brutal interruption in otherwise pleasant and amiable circumstances. Have you sought treatment for this? I apologize for bringing things to a dire standpoint out of the gate, but trauma has a tendency to rear its head in nasty, unexpected ways when the brain makes any kind of connections between the event and seemingly random events that can remind one of any aspect of the event in question. I wouldn't want that to be something you experience.
