Fatal Happening

Post-trauma stress isn’t something I caught like the flu; it’s something that happened to me. The word ‘stress’ seems like an anemic word to describe the slurry of near-fatal despair that robbed me of the awareness and capacity to find my way out. Post-trauma stress is usually attributed to the calls we manage, but many factors often contribute to this potentially fatal condition.

The paramedic in this image is far beyond a checkboxed weekend course on mental health that encourages him to fix himself. Clarity came to me by chance and saved my life, just like removing a deadly stinger from an anaphylactic patient; removing the poisonous trauma from my life, along with help from a team of mental health professionals, resulted in my recovery.

Remapping my brain and removing the entrenched pathways of trauma is difficult but doable. The work toward post-traumatic growth is a better alternative to what the poor paramedic in this image I created is about to experience.

FatalHappening