Who Needs the News? Everyone Is Talking About It.

Boy was I glad to have off Sunday.  I talked in my previous post how the Boston Bombings had really triggered my PTSD.  Well, I did what I said I was going to do and I turned off the news.

Too bad it made absolutely no difference whatsoever.

Every day I went to work, people wouldn't stop talking about the latest developments in the bombings.  Yippee.  Everyone knows I am a veteran and this situation was the first time I wished people didn't know.  Everyone wanted my opinion on the situation.  Everyone wanted to tell me about it and hear what I thought.  People kept on telling me they were afraid it wasn't over - that something was going to happen again, and soon.

Not exactly the type of thing I needed to hear.  So, work became trigger after trigger.  The only thing that's kept me from hiding in my hole is my love for my family and my advocacy work.  The gym has TVs suspended in front of every piece of cardio equipment.  Any guesses as to what was on every one of those TVs?

I couldn't escape it until Sunday, my day off.  I took a break from things all morning and early afternoon and just spent time with my wife and daughter.  We met my sister-in-law and her two Blue Tick Coon Hounds and we went for a walk in the local park.  It was really nice just to get away and enjoy a cool spring day.  I felt revitalized and came home and got to work on website design for the non-profit.

So what happens now?  I need to rethink my strategy for coping with this and not getting triggered at work.  I can't keep this up or I am going to exhaust myself.  I guess I can talk about it in group therapy this week and see what we come up with.