Wisdom from the Trenches

It started out relatively small. For reasons related to trauma, I have harbored a deep-seated distaste for country music and a hatred of Valentine’s Day, both of which have taken ownership of significant chunks of my life. How did something so little grow to consume such a big portion of my life? Easy…the answer is through avoidance. Trauma triggers don’t ever make any rational sense. It’s never a thing you choose and it’s not something you logic away. So how did Valentine’s Day and country music even begin to fill me with dread, panic, and fear?

I was assaulted on Valentine’s Day. I wasn’t dating the guy. I wasn’t even attracted to the guy. I went to a country music bar that allowed 18+ with my friends in the neighboring suite connected to my barracks room to dance the night away and the guy was there. He was drunk and since no one could wrestle his car keys away from him, I was asked to help get him home safely because I knew him longer than anyone else and he would only trust me to drive his car. I drove him back to the barracks. We fought. I went to my room and prepared to go to bed. He broke into my room and made my life a living hell. And that’s how it starts. The mind experiences trauma, latches onto anything loosely related to that memory, and begins to run with it.

Initially, when country music would play, it irritated me. So I walked away. Over time, hearing country music began to panic me and I would experience anxiety attacks. I began leaving parties when country music played. Then, I steered clear of anything reminiscent of a countrified lifestyle because it was sure to have country music playing nearby. That is why my chest began to tighten if I simply saw a cowboy hat or boots. My symptoms grew worse. Over the years, friends recommended going to listen to country music here or there and I could feel a migraine coming on, my heart sped up and skipped beats, my breathing shallowed and grew rapid. I would exit the conversation as soon as possible – over the mention of country music. My fear had grown to astronomic proportions and was beginning to rule my life.

It was the same with Valentine’s Day. Early on, I refused to celebrate Valentine’s Day. My husband thought I was toying with his mind but really wanted to be surprised. When he tried to celebrate it by creating a beautiful surprise, I flew off the handle. So he made a note to never get me anything on Valentine’s Day. In wanting Valentine’s Day to pass as if it was any other day, I deprived him of a lovely day where we could focus on our relationship and all that we liked about one another. What began as a personal avoidance of Valentine’s Day grew even more when I had kids. Because that day triggered past memories of trauma, I began dreading February, had panic attacks near Valentine’s Day displays in stores, and vacillated between rage and grief. One dreaded day expanded to one week of depression, which gave way to one month of despair. The desire to avoid the memories of one day swallowed the entire month of February with a crippling, month-long depression.

This last February, I was invited to a Barbie-themed movie party among women veteran friends. I so badly wanted to go, but it was on Valentine’s Day. I hemmed and hawed about it, knowing full well how that day had historically gone down for me, but fighting with myself logically that it was just A DAY like any other day and I should go and enjoy myself in the safety of women friends. I contacted the organizer privately and told her I want to go, but I explained that I might have to stay home and I didn’t want to be seen as flaky…so could I RSVP as “tentative” privately so no one would expect me there? She totally understood and encouraged me to attend, but put no burden of pressure on me. As usual, February progressively got worse for me. The day of the party arrived and I…had a mental breakdown in my car, which was parked in my garage and never went anywhere. I spent that night bawling because trauma was still destroying my life and I didn’t know how to make it stop. I wanted it to STOP.

In counseling one day, I blurted out all the things I had recently missed out on because of these stupid little fears that had become uncontrollable. I broke down and cried, something I do far too little in front of my counselor since I put on a brave face every time I see her. I lamented how two little things have overtaken my life and I couldn’t understand why. Logically, it didn’t make any sense. It’s just a day! It’s just music! I know this. What the hell is my problem? Why would my mind single these things out to blow out of proportion when they are only loosely connected to my trauma and seemingly so insignificant on that day? She listened and then asked me if I had celebrated Valentine’s Day or listened to country music prior to the day I was assaulted. No, I had not. Then she explained something to me that I wanted to share with all of you: Triggers are worse when we have no happy memories to associate with something and our brains are left with only one bad experience with that thing! This is the amazingly rapid learning ability of the brain, gone horribly wrong. My brain had no good experiences to keep the one bad experience in context, so it had logically concluded that Valentine’s Day was abusive and country music was only used to usher in apocalyptic-level doom. By avoiding those things, their power in my life had expanded and was now out-of-control.

Avoidance was the fertile soil that grew my anxiety like a weed, and it was now choking out any hope for beautiful, new memories.

My therapist explained that I need to create positive memories associated with those things – or at least neutral memories that don’t result in trauma. This is why I began exposure therapy, something I never quite understood the purpose behind until now. I thought the concept behind exposure therapy was dumb. Why would anyone want to relive trauma by facing their biggest triggers head-on?? Now I know why: to drain them of power and make them tolerable, innocuous, and irrelevant.

Valentine’s Day is a ways away, so we turned our attention to country music. My therapist asked me to set a goal and I said I would listen to a country song 2-3 times the first week and each morning while brushing my teeth the following week. How hard can this be? I had no concept of a realistic goal and I figured just knowing that this is no big deal should help me power through, right? RIGHT?!? I was dead wrong. I did not meet my goal. I didn’t even come close. The first time, I sat on the floor of my bedroom next to my dog. I searched online for a country song, but when I went to play it, I didn’t even make it further than a few notes into the song before turning the volume down to almost inaudible. But even that was too much for me. My heart raced, all of my muscles tightened, my neck hurt. So I turned it down even further – to ZERO. I was very aware that the song was playing on my device and it irritated me, but I was entirely unable to hear it. I didn’t feel good at all. Not only did I not even come close to my goal, but I spent most of the first two weeks condemning myself for being a sissy and beating myself up with the knowledge that I would never get better if I couldn’t actually hear the country music on my phone. Self-hatred is strong when facing trauma.

I want to share my journey with you because I want you to know I’m not an expert, but a fellow traveler journeying with you toward healing. I am learning that avoidance creates more anxiety, facing triggers head-on is hard to do and it’s okay if our first attempts fail, and it is possible to heal by creating positive or neutral associations with common things in life that should not trigger us. I wish you luck in rooting out those weeds that have grown, unchecked, in your life. Know that I am weeding alongside you.