Ever since the Paris attacks, PTSD symptoms have been re-appearing: short-term memory loss, dysthymia, sleep troubles, and nightmares.
The night of the attacks and after listening on NPR about the hundred plus young people who died at a concert hall, I had a 9/11 nightmare. I was my college classmate who worked across the street from Ground Zero, looking up at the World Trade Center as the plane crashed into it and screaming, “No! No! No!” People jumped off of the 100th floor preferring not to burn to death. The next night, I had another dream that I quickly forgot. It was another 9/11 dream. That’s all I remember. It was as if the coping mechanism I had learned over the years to become numb to nightmares had restarted.
I don’t want to get out of bed in the mornings. I have trouble finding motivation. I feel more irritable. It’s as if the attacks in Paris reopened a neural pathway to a part of my brain that mapped to my trauma.
I try to regulate my emotions and feel tension in my head, choking in my throat, and then the sensations being pulled down to my stomach where nausea sets in. I feel a little better though. Can only wait and see now if the symptoms subside.