NDE Sixth Anniversary, August 2018

Editor’s note: For health reasons the progress on this document is suspended indefinitely. It will likely remain incomplete but, now that it’s posted here could still be completed later.

It’s July 15, 2018. In less than a month, on August 12th, the sixth anniversary of my near death experience (NDE) will arrive. In this case it was a bicycle accident with a car near Boulder, Colorado. It’s one of two major traumas I must plan for each year which, if I’m not particularly self-aware can prove disruptive. I’ve dubbed these two time periods Trauma Season, as they have no exact beginning or end but there’s no mistaking the initial disruptions and the final ones, too.

The week of February 13-20 is the second such trauma, carrying with it the potential for reliving the nightmare of being brutalized alone in the Arizona desert by a lone federal ranger.

Interestingly, these are built upon a lifetime under the Sword of Damocles of incremental childhood trauma, known today as a symptom of complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (cPTSD).

cPTSD is an ex post facto condition, hence it’s name “post-traumatic” stress disorder. Had the experiences of my youth not been so harsh, perhaps the anniversaries on August 10 and in February might ‘just’ be limited to PTSD.

The difference to me now is irrelevant; my six year old NDE has put its indelible stamp among the long list of tinier traumas. Perhaps its severity is what makes it stand out above the others.

That said, I’ve learned to anticipate its aggravated cPTSD symptoms as potentially arising at any span near that time. This can range rom four to six weeks beforehand and, depending upon the associated ailment, eg physical sickness or an increase in seizure activity, recovery may take up to two weeks afterward.

For the past week I’ve been vigilantly looking for signs. Did the bite on my tongue, for example occur during a seizure or when I was eating Cheerios? Hypervigilance is, in itself an symptom of the memories. I may never know, so I can only conclude it’s not very important.