Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You usually hear about that related to folks who’ve been in war and combat, or from those coming out of domestic violence situations.
Recently though, I’ve seen people on Facebook and NextDoor who went through Hurricane Ian mentioning that they feel like they have a touch of PTSD as they prepare for Hurricane Nicole.
Honestly, it never occurred to me to connect PTSD and me in the same thought. Now though, as I write this, we are expecting Hurricane Nicole to make landfall on the Atlantic coast, directly across Florida from where I live. And I’m feeling very on edge, a prominent symptom of PTSD. A woman on Facebook made a good point though. She said it’s perfectly normal to feel anxiety like this after a big storm like Ian, but that feeling post traumatic stress doesn’t necessarily mean you have the Disorder. Good point!
Phew!
Nicole ended up being a cakewalk compared to what we went through 6 weeks ago. Still, I did feel anxious and out of control, emotional states quite foreign to me. When I look back, I do recall the first few occurrences of severe midwest weather after the tornado being very stressful for me. Having “the next storm” behind me now, I feel confident I can get back to a much less stressful response to future approaching hurricanes, without the palpable fear I had yesterday. Next year, though, please. We’ve had enough in 2022.
It’s true, you learn something new every day. But I coulda lived without this lesson.
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