Yes, anticipation anxiety is a challenge that does happen with PTSD. Most people experience it on aniversaries and holidays especially. It is good that you are recognizing it, that is the first step towards learning how to slowly make choices in planning your own private way of overcoming it.

You remember how you said "I don't know where to begin" when you talked about therapy and talking about your past? I suggested talking about this part first because it is the trauma that tipped you over the edge to where you are struggling as you are now.

Well, what it ususally boils down to is "loss of control" in a given scenario. A lot of anxiety is about "how is self going to handle something" because "self somehow failed to control when a trauma took place".

Also in many cases what it also boils down to for many people is how they could not figure out how to control/protect/ defend against others. With you, this seems to be an ongoing challenge because you gravitated towards participating in doing things that had to do with just that "protecting and defending against and controlling others".

One of the biggest challenges about your father's BD, is not about the actual birthday at all now is it? No, it is about recognizing him, his life, which is what now hurts you badly because of how he chose to end it. For someone like you who invested a lot of your time "protecting and defending the lives of others", this was one situation you never expected to face, not you, because you were supposed to be able to "prevent" things like that right? And no one could possibly know how very much this has affected you on such a deep level, and the last thing you want is some kind of "just deal" comment or ANYTHING that implies that response. That is one of the big roots to PTSD anger. Well, having some therapist or team tell you "you are not ready" for therapy is SUCH AN INSULT and to be honest with you, it is also cruel too because if a person REALLY KNOWS ABOUT AND UNDERSTANDS PTSD, they NEVER say something like that to ANY patient. Well, right now you don't know that, not YET, because when you do realize it, you are the kind of individual that will want to "protect and defend" in a very different way.

Trace, you know why I am here typing this to you? Because I DO KNOW where you are and I can tell you without a doubt, IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT. You know, it's bad enough that a person experiences a trauma where they did not have any control, but to then experience PTSD where they are faced with an internal battle they don't understand and feel they have no control over is EVEN HARDER. And if a person doesn't get the right help from a PROFESSIONAL that understands this, it only makes it even worse. Well, I know all about that myself, because I HAVE EXPERIENCED IT FIRST HAND. Well, that is not your fault either, but it sure does add insult to injury and at a time when that is the last thing someone struggling with PTSD needs to experience "lack of support/help/understanding and desperately needs A RESCUER." And that is where the "complex" comes in for an individual. That is when all the crap that got put on a shelf somewhere in our mind comes into play and begins to present itself, it represents all the individual's history where something happened to them where they had no control or skills to "self protect". And the challenging part to that is that these experiences are stored in such a way where it is at the age and experience level the individual happened to be.

Trace, EVERYONE has that shelf though, and EVERYONE develops ways to protect whatever is on that shelf too. Most if not all human beings actually practice disassociation too, it's how we are designed to survive and thrive. We all have life experiences that we did not know how to deal with, so we end up storing whatever it is on a shelf in our mind and that shelf often has very little "language to it". What "is" in that particular life experience is "freeze" because what had happened is at the time there was often "no knowledge or life skills" to even understand what the experience meant.

Another way to think about it is having some kind of multiple choice test. Well, when we come across a question that we don't understand or have any real answer for, what do we do? We learn to skip it and move to the next question and try to answer as many questions as we can in the time we are allowed to do the test. What we learn to do is get as many questions answered as we can and if we have extra time we can go back and see if any of the questions we skipped can be figured out and answered. Well, that is what people actually learn how to do, they move forward in life and when they don't really have an answer for something they learn to "skip it" and do their best to keep going forward to answer whatever questions they "can" answer. So, everyone learns to push aside things they don't "know" how to answer and DISASSOCIATES from them. This is how we are designed to be so we survive and thrive. However, when a major trauma happens we are driven to want to not only pay attention to it and focus on learning about it, but to also sound and 'ALARM" so we inform others about it.

Trace, you have not had a chance or help with finding your way to grieve what you experienced with your father. Somehow, inside you, you need to find your way to learn that what he did was "his choice" and you just did not know he was going to make that choice. This is a VERY hard challenge, especially for someone like you where you have done a lot of things in your life that are really about "protect and defend". But Trace, this is not only a challenge YOU HAVE. Every day there are individuals that are trying to learn about WHY individuals do what he chose to do. Every day someone is studying "depression" and what creates it and how to help people who struggle with it. Also, you are a fighter, you always have been too, so for someone like you this is especially challenging to understand.

However, you have a challenge going on with yourself, a challenge you don't understand "yet" either. Well, you "can" learn to understand it better, it's will take time, but it's doable. PTSD is an injury and it takes time for everyone who struggles with it to understand what it means and how to slowly see whatever it is in them that contributed to that "injury". When I talk about having PATIENCE, what I mean by that is slowly learning how to understand your own personal "triggers", often a person really doesn't actually KNOW what these really are or even how to articulate them. You need to learn to wait out triggers because they "do" all mean something, they are all coming from your own personal injury and whatever you "did not know" how to fix that is on that shelf that you did not really know you had, that NO ONE really knows they have though either. Once you begin to slowly see whatever is there and the general pattern that is "your own pattern" of how you managed to survive and thrive in "spite of", you will slowly learn to recognize that you actually did a pretty damn good job at surviving "in spite of". You were never perfect, but the truth is NO ONE EVER IS. Well, it's ok to NOT BE PERFECT, Tracy, but you have to find your own way to settle into accepting that you are not perfect and giving yourself some slack, yet at the same time allowing yourself to continue to learn and grow in your life too. And slowly also learn to understand that with your father, it was not your fault that you did not know he was going to make the choice he made. If he had the ability to talk to you, he would tell you that too. That is what you need to get to in your own mind when it comes to his BD too. Well, there is no "just" to that, it's a process and that part is included in "our mourning and grieving", and that is something each person does differently too.

So in the healing process, again we do learn how to resume doing our best to find our way to pass over the questions we cannot answer, and move on to the ones we can and not to "be ashamed of or self punish for or stress over" whatever ones we may not have the answers to as well. Life itself is very "humbling" and all we can really do, is our best to live each day, "one day at a time", and keep learning and growing and gaining, but also do our best to appreciate what we can too.

((Hugs))
OE