So what do you do? After painfully watching each movement of the clock tick......breathe... tock...for the first time in your life you are helpless...not able to go in and pull him and your friends out....waiting to see if your 9 month old twins have a father....your friends are still alive?...Your world is shattered into a billion pieces...with no safe harbor in sight.
do you cave? do you cry? do you bury yourself in day to day life...fearful, waiting for the other shoe to drop?
I knew for years something was going to happen...it was in the back of my mind always. But that is another story.
Well I did the opposite, drove on....I decided If I don't stand up and live (regardless of who is at fault) then would I would rot away and get hit by a cab never choosing to live again...how...pathetic....how just wrong...how boring...that was not who I was meant to be.
So I stood up, threw my shoulders back once again and flipped the terrorist world the proverbial middle finger:
Got on a plane with the kids on a planned vacation a few weeks after. Went to DC during the anthrax scare to visit friends.
Pushed my limits on what I believed: hired a Turkish, Muslim au pair (didn't work out, not because of her religion for other reasons) to show that it is only the loudest 1% of EVERY religion, political groups etc. that get's the major news media to cover them simply because sensationalism sells.
Sold the house, moved back into NYC across the street from the WTC center after clean up so my kids could see their dad while growing up...50k less jobs in lower Manhattan w/ 2 towers gone made his commute go from a little over 1 hour to over 2....when you work from 5 am to 9pm...not much time for anything else.
Got a beautiful apartment on the 6th floor knowing the NYFD ladder companies go up 8 floors in Manhattan. But just in case they were busy else where had the windows prepared to pop out with two twists of a screw driver..emergency back pack, exit strategy, 5 point harnesses to hook the kids to me and repel in my harness and out of my 6th floor window to safety.
Sent my husband to work with a chem-bio suit a few rolls of duct tape and thick mil plastic sheeting, MRE's....
Positively crazy to some....risk reduction in my mind. But what I hadn't realized was.....
I'm not super woman....The PTSD decided to rear it's ugly head to raw, too close, too real once again, too much previous trauma bubbling to the surface ...
So I pushed harder: took the kids on the subway, central park, museums, I wanted them to live, breath and see everything the world has to offer....Choosing LIFE...
The loud sounds made me cringe....throw myself over their stroller hit the ground...look for every exit, egress point of cover in a room...scanning, watching, sensing everything....I'd try to calm myself and tell myself that all was ok. The noise, the lights, the sirens, the overwhelming desire to protect was exhausting....wondering if the mounted police were ok.... Needed anything...surely if I was feeling it...they must really be screwed tight.
I started to spiral into exhaustion...If this was living (which is what I thought it was)..constantly in battle mode, hyper aware,vigilance completely trying to protect the most precious things I had to give to this world....I became a hermit in a sense...in my own head...Not knowing how to help, fight or not be crying after every siren sound...hoping that everyone was going to be alright.
Trying to keep my brain from exploding...when the kids safely went to sleep....trying to sleep period not sleeping for more than a few hours, waking with vivid recollections of the past, night terrors and dreams re living the present...all the permutations, combinations...What am I missing...I must be missing something....feverishly trying to solve the puzzle.... and then somewhere around then....
I must have popped...I don't remember many things during that time....I'm pretty sure my brain must have just put itself into waking sleep mode....I try to remember...sometimes when I'm reminded it's too painful and makes me feel worse.
Every Christmas I still think of all the kids who lost parents, spouses, parents who lost kids....I still worry and feel sad for them...
I think one of the best things I did post 9-11 was to get rid of my television. At least I knew that was huge trigger in my head. I still can't look at a picture of the towers, walk through the subway station down there, feeling like the lost souls in the buildings I failed them some how....I feel their presence, pain and my anguish knocks me down to a blubbering woman who can barely breathe....the tears flow and I can't stop them...
I avoid looking at the site..Some say face your sorrow, fears etc...I am fabulous at looking fear straight in the face doing damage control, and getting it all on track, doing triage for chaos...but what I have learned about myself is that my heart aches forever....and I'm still not ready 10 years later....
do you cave? do you cry? do you bury yourself in day to day life...fearful, waiting for the other shoe to drop?
I knew for years something was going to happen...it was in the back of my mind always. But that is another story.
Well I did the opposite, drove on....I decided If I don't stand up and live (regardless of who is at fault) then would I would rot away and get hit by a cab never choosing to live again...how...pathetic....how just wrong...how boring...that was not who I was meant to be.
So I stood up, threw my shoulders back once again and flipped the terrorist world the proverbial middle finger:
Got on a plane with the kids on a planned vacation a few weeks after. Went to DC during the anthrax scare to visit friends.
Pushed my limits on what I believed: hired a Turkish, Muslim au pair (didn't work out, not because of her religion for other reasons) to show that it is only the loudest 1% of EVERY religion, political groups etc. that get's the major news media to cover them simply because sensationalism sells.
Sold the house, moved back into NYC across the street from the WTC center after clean up so my kids could see their dad while growing up...50k less jobs in lower Manhattan w/ 2 towers gone made his commute go from a little over 1 hour to over 2....when you work from 5 am to 9pm...not much time for anything else.
Got a beautiful apartment on the 6th floor knowing the NYFD ladder companies go up 8 floors in Manhattan. But just in case they were busy else where had the windows prepared to pop out with two twists of a screw driver..emergency back pack, exit strategy, 5 point harnesses to hook the kids to me and repel in my harness and out of my 6th floor window to safety.
Sent my husband to work with a chem-bio suit a few rolls of duct tape and thick mil plastic sheeting, MRE's....
Positively crazy to some....risk reduction in my mind. But what I hadn't realized was.....
I'm not super woman....The PTSD decided to rear it's ugly head to raw, too close, too real once again, too much previous trauma bubbling to the surface ...
So I pushed harder: took the kids on the subway, central park, museums, I wanted them to live, breath and see everything the world has to offer....Choosing LIFE...
The loud sounds made me cringe....throw myself over their stroller hit the ground...look for every exit, egress point of cover in a room...scanning, watching, sensing everything....I'd try to calm myself and tell myself that all was ok. The noise, the lights, the sirens, the overwhelming desire to protect was exhausting....wondering if the mounted police were ok.... Needed anything...surely if I was feeling it...they must really be screwed tight.
I started to spiral into exhaustion...If this was living (which is what I thought it was)..constantly in battle mode, hyper aware,vigilance completely trying to protect the most precious things I had to give to this world....I became a hermit in a sense...in my own head...Not knowing how to help, fight or not be crying after every siren sound...hoping that everyone was going to be alright.
Trying to keep my brain from exploding...when the kids safely went to sleep....trying to sleep period not sleeping for more than a few hours, waking with vivid recollections of the past, night terrors and dreams re living the present...all the permutations, combinations...What am I missing...I must be missing something....feverishly trying to solve the puzzle.... and then somewhere around then....
I must have popped...I don't remember many things during that time....I'm pretty sure my brain must have just put itself into waking sleep mode....I try to remember...sometimes when I'm reminded it's too painful and makes me feel worse.
Every Christmas I still think of all the kids who lost parents, spouses, parents who lost kids....I still worry and feel sad for them...
I think one of the best things I did post 9-11 was to get rid of my television. At least I knew that was huge trigger in my head. I still can't look at a picture of the towers, walk through the subway station down there, feeling like the lost souls in the buildings I failed them some how....I feel their presence, pain and my anguish knocks me down to a blubbering woman who can barely breathe....the tears flow and I can't stop them...
I avoid looking at the site..Some say face your sorrow, fears etc...I am fabulous at looking fear straight in the face doing damage control, and getting it all on track, doing triage for chaos...but what I have learned about myself is that my heart aches forever....and I'm still not ready 10 years later....
2 comments:
Susan, Whatever does not kill you makes you stronger.
Carry on.
Indeed it does. I'll always plow the road and carry on...just a bit slower on occasion than others :D Thanks and smiles.
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