
Psychological recovery from a burglary, one year later.
cw: burglary, ptsd
I’d be lying if I claimed this year was easy.
One year ago, it was 2nd September 2017. As the clock ticked from Friday to Saturday, I had fallen asleep peacefully in my new flat, excited to start a university module the next Monday.
That all changed when I woke up at 05:30 AM.
It’s a pretty powerful product of evolution. Despite being in a deep sleep, your body is still sensing danger. In an instant of detecting it, it reflexively jerks into action. Except I was frozen. Clutching my duvet, I tried to calm my anxiety down, thinking I was overreacting again. But when I spoke to the darkness, it spoke back to me.
“Hello, who’s there?”
“Your worst fucking nightmare.”
Before I figured there was a strange man crouching by my bed, I thought it was a housemate sleepwalking. Or one of them pranking me. I never thought it would be someone who wanted to hurt me.
I never thought my irrational anxieties would ever be justified.
People still ask me how I coped in that situation. They’ll comment on how they would never have known what to do. Funnily enough, I didn’t either. I had no clue on how to defend myself. All I could think about was the fact he’d found my dissection kit and that I was mentally preparing for a trip to the hospital.
Somehow, though, I got out. I probably used a combination of reason and stopping him becoming aggressive.
This day one year ago was a total blur. I had police and the landlord at my door by 06:30, my mum had arrived by 10, I was giving a statement until 3. The last detective left by midnight. I can’t recall ever being that emotionally exhausted in my life.
I know I was lucky, in a way. I wasn’t harmed, and I had nothing taken from me. The burglar didn’t take any material possessions, but he took away a sense of security. What he did resulted in me being diagnosed with PTSD, and if I hadn’t had exceptional mental health care at university, third year could have looked very different.
That’s why graduation meant so much to me this year. I got a first class honours degree despite being on sleeping medication, breaking down during laboratory sessions, and instinctively waking up most nights terrified that someone was going to hurt me.
This year, I felt like my emotions were shoved through a PCR machine. I’m grateful to everyone out there who has supported me. To my housemates, family, friends (both on and offline), academic staff at Swansea University, the NHS — thank you.
I can’t promise you this year has been easy. I don’t like this version of myself; my God, I can’t tell you how much I yearn to be confident. However, the reason I’m marking this anniversary — and the point of this whole evocative essay — is because the frequency of PTSD flashbacks has decreased over time. Almost like I had been hit by a tsunami, and the water’s retreated, but the damaged debris is still left. I’m confident I will recover and rebuild, but one year later, it’s still taking time.
I promise you, I’m trying.
> Amy
