It’s been a week now since the PTSD first appeared at work, and nearly a week since I reacted in any significant way. The ten hour shift on Sunday came and went, and I felt… dare I say it, relatively unscathed.
I’m walking to my car, having a conversation with my co worker. The co worker who has expressed to me that he’s against religion because of all the hypocrisy in the church, the co worker with whom I’ve had some tension, but the co worker who just now wanted me to wait for him so that he would have company walking to his car at 1am.
I’m just about there… and then I hear it.
LOUD.
… a train.
The horn.
It’s really, really loud.
The walk to my car is maybe halfway over when I first hear it. As soon as it sounds, I’m not immediately triggered – I’m just pissed. Really, really pissed.
Why did it have to come? Why did I have to hear it now, as I’ve almost made it through the night unscathed?
I hear it again.
The anger in me rises.
I can’t handle it.
I just can’t.
I continue the conversation like nothing is wrong. I don’t say anything about it to him. In all honesty, it’s probably a good thing I was with someone when I heard it.
The long, cold walk is over, and I get into my car. I sit for a bit… reflecting. Stewing.
As I said, I’m angry.
This whole thing has left me incredibly angry.
Why does my safe place, my workplace, the place that brings me such JOY… why does it have to go and get spoiled simply because the train nearby is making noise?
The phrase repeats itself in my head, the phrase that’s been swirling around since this all began last week…
“That is who You are.”
Okay God, but this is just so… so stupi-
“That is who You are.”
It’s just so frustrating, nearly everything that formerly was a suicide trigger now triggers a very real trauma response. Textbook PTSD.
“My God… that is who You are.”
Fast forward nearly another week. Preparing for my work week, I’m grateful to be feeling… normal again. I haven’t felt this much like myself, this depression free in weeks.
But as my last night before I work again draws to a close… the anxiety sets in again. Perhaps because I’m thinking about it, reaching out and asking people to pray. Is this all in my head? Am I making it worse than it needs to be?
“That is who You are.”
I can’t get over that phrase. I don’t know why, but it just will not leave my brain.
So I ask myself… who is God?
- Way maker – when there is no way, He does it anyway. He makes the impossible… possible. 2019 was my impossible, and yet it happened.
- Miracle worker – after what God did a year ago, I firmly and fervently believe that He is still very much in the business of miracles, they just might look different than when He walked this earth.
- Promise keeper – what He says, He will do. It’s as simple as that. I could look at just a small portion of my life and I would be able to tell you so many ways in which He has kept His promises.
- Light in the darkness – even in the darkest of rooms, the darkest of nights… the flashlight or candle that, during the day, seemed incredibly dim? Suddenly that light is brighter than anything I’ve ever seen. He is the light that wants to shine in on our darknesses.
As I write, thinking to myself about how all of those names and titles for God apply in my own life… am I still anxious for work?
Yes.
I don’t want to hear that train.
I really, really don’t want to hear that train.
I don’t want to get triggered.
I want to just… get over this.
I want to enjoy my job, I want to continue finding great joy in it.
That joy… the joy that, a year ago, I feared would never come.
So my heart still beats a little faster when I think about work tomorrow, yes.
“That is who You are…”
It slows again.
So does my breathing.
“You are here…
Touching every heart.
Healing every heart.
Turning lives around.
Mending every heart.”
God doesn’t promise that I won’t hear the train tomorrow.
He doesn’t promise that I won’t react, that the trauma response won’t come.
I will carry Immanuel with me to work tomorrow.
And I will be okay.
Because my God?
That’s who He is.
