Trauma Anniversary

August 1, 2026: Exactly one year ago today I slipped on a muddy beach, twisted my ankle, fell on top of it, and heard it crack loudly as two bones broke in half. What a horrible experience!  The year has gone fast, but the trauma still haunts me. Anytime I encounter a wet surface, I panic, assess the situation, and proceed cautiously. The hardest part of the total experience was realizing how alone I am in the world. No matter what happens to me, there is absolutely no one who would ever help me survive it...other than complete strangers who through their own humanity and compassion would volunteer to assist. I had to figure out how to get out of a foreign country, how to drive with my left foot, how to fight with health care to get the care I needed, how to drive across country without being able to get out of the van, how to survive the horrible physical therapy bitches, and how to work through the pain to be able to walk again. That experience accentuated how vulnerable I now feel living in a van especially as I age.

On the positive side, I can walk! There were times when I wasn't sure if that would ever be possible again. I can even hike! I'm not always walking comfortably due to the pain of the hardware and stiffness caused by cold weather freezing that hardware, but I can walk! I survived one of life's challenges and that makes me feel self-reliant as hell!

Other than wet and/or slippery surfaces that now make me pause and give me a nervous breakdown, this made me ponder what other trauma recalls do I have? What little quirky behaviors do I exhibit when confronted with a not-so-good past memory? 

For instance, I hesitate when I walk on wood, especially old wood. I'll usually stop, assess the surface, maybe give a little tap or careful bounce to see if it's stable. Why? When I was eleven years old my father told me to get something out of the barn. As I recall he was in the middle of castrating a bull so he wanted me to do it quickly. I took off like a bat out of hell, ran up the rickety flight of outside stairs to the second story of the barn. I grabbed whatever it was he wanted, turned, ran back across the second story, jumped through the door archway over a piece of wood that went across the floor at the base of the archway, and landed on the stairwell's landing. The landing broke and I fell through down one story into the chicken coop underneath the stairs. I was bruised, but not injured. With the wind knocked out of me, I was unable to move for several minutes as chickens clucked and nervously fidgeted around me. I guess it made a loud sound because my whole family came running. Any kind of rickety wood: boardwalks, stairs, planks, decks, walkways, etc., and I freeze for a minute, assess the surface, tap my foot, and carefully proceed. 

I also run if a man asks me to get something for him. I get adrenaline spikes if I hear a dog bark. I'm always hesitant to swim in ponds and lakes that are not crystal clear. Hmmm...what else?

What trauma recalls do you have?