Anniversaries of Traumatic Events Can Be Tough. Treatment Helps.
Do you remember the day – the actual date – of your trauma? When that time of year comes around, do you feel more on edge or stressed? Whether the event is something specific only to you or one that gets a lot of attention – like D-Day, 9/11, or Hurricane Katrina – you may feel sad and on edge. These feelings are called an “anniversary reaction” and they may be hard to deal with.
You may feel like you are going through the event again, as if you were back in the past. You might go out of your way to avoid people, places, and things related to the trauma. Negative beliefs and feelings – like guilt or shame – may be more common. Or, you may feel more on high alert, nervous, and on edge.
Anniversary reactions are different for everyone, and there are many ways of coping with them. Here are some strategies you could try:
- Reach out to friends and family ahead of the anniversary
- Plan relaxing activities that you enjoy
- Mark the occasion by visiting a memorial or the grave of a loved one
- Volunteer in your community
Remember that there are good trauma-focused treatments that can provide a long-term solution to the PTSD symptoms that anniversary reactions can bring up. Cognitive Processing Therapy, Prolonged Exposure, and EMDR all address the beliefs and feelings that cause so much pain to people with PTSD. They also equip you with tools to use in the moment when an anniversary reaction comes up.
The National Center for PTSD has many resources to help. Videos from Veterans explaining how treatment helped them are available at AboutFace. And you can learn about and compare effective treatments with the PTSD Treatment Decision Aid.
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