Gun shot last night - shakey!

I live in a pretty quiet area and last night at midnight there was a gun shot right out side my house. I've grown up around guns, everyone in my family know how to shoot including me, and I was taught at an indoor shooting range. So i know the sound well. First there was the bang, and then there was the richtoshay sound against the houses and I hit the floor out of instinct. I had a moment's indecision and then called 911. I couldn't even move off the floor, it was like my body was running with out me. My cat was freaked out and watching a sound in the hallway which had me even more freaked out and I stayed on the floor until the cops showed up in the driveway. I like in a complex where everyone shares walls, so this could have come from anywhere or even the street below and the next complex down. Course, the cops came to the door and i couldn't have looked younger and more niive; wearing a floor length charcol skirt, white top, dusky plum cartican and my long hair down, hugging myself, i probably looked 12 instead of 30 and i get the feeling the cops probably thought i heard a car backfire and didn't know the difference. But i couldn't get my voice to tell them what I am typing here. They looked around outside and down into the next street, while i watched from the window and started shaking and crying! I dunno - I didn't expect any of these reactions, since I am used to guns. I'm amazed that my body automatically took cover. And amazed that i was so shaken by it. The cops left and I was more scared. I didn't want them to leave. I went back upstairs and jumped at every noise - my cat going back to sleep, my fish jumping in their bowls. Started crying again and was trying to get myself to call a crisis line so i could just talk to *someone*. But, really the crisis was over and I didn't feel my upset was worth calling about. THis morning, i called my mom (usual roommate -spending the night with her b/f) and started shaking all over again.
All this came after an already emotional draining night.
Now I have to get ready for work. Kiya

(((hugs)))... That must have been terrifying....what a terrible experience.....

Kiya, it's one thing to know a gun is going to go off and that you "see" the shooter and/or are the shooter and another when it goes off unexpectedly and in the "wrong" place!

i know how it is to be scared like that. ..it happnes all the time in my moms neighborhood... and scary part is my mom sees the person/people with the gun.. but by time the police finally show up they r gone....

(((((((Kiya))))))))

Sorry that happened. I know some of that feeling you felt. I've been held up at gunpoint a few times. Two of those times the gun being fired.

I hope you've calmed down some from this. And hope its not hitting you in your sleep.

hugs,
chalmette

Yeah - a bit more calm now - tho still jumping at sounds. My mind is going a mile a minute. No dreams around it, thankfully. I think i was most surprised by my body's drop to the ground before my mind gave the decision. It made me think about when I was taught to shoot - I spent half a day in class and then we went to the firing range. As soon as people started firing at the targets, I found myself bawling! I didn't even know guns upset me. My dad was humiliated (bless him, the *$*%& that he is) and I had to be taken aside and calmed down by the instructor. When i did finally get a grip (and some ear plugs inside the ear guards) I did fine and "proved" myself. It's just one of those missing puzzle pieces where I find myself wondering what that hole would look like if I knew what was there... make any sense at all?!

((((((((((((hugs to all that have had gun stuff happen to them))))))!!
Kiya

Babies startle at loud sounds; who knows if your parents had a car that backfired a lot and woke you, etc. LOL Maybe you were along with others firing guns or hunting, etc. and didn't like it at first but were too young to really remember the details.

I had a good friend who grew up in a rough neighborhood and she and I were travelling through a wealthy neighborhood on our way to a specific store and we were stopped at a light with a country club on the corner and a gun went off. She hit the floor of my car but I was merely puzzled because there was no way a gun was going to be fired in the middle of the day at that location to my way of thinking. I worked at figuring it out and finally realized it had been the country clubs swimming pool starter's gun for swim races!

Did you see the movie Sea Biscuit? They had to work to get him use to the bell ringing. Your instructor had to work with you at first to get you use to guns firing and here one fired when you weren't expecting it after all that time. I don't think we get "over" what scares us, we just get so we can function better in spite of the fear but in a sudden incident like you just had, that's like an emotional trigger is and you had no time to "prepare" yourself.

It does always help me to be able to understand something rationally - thanks, that helped the brain to file it away differently.
I do have a very faint memory of my dad teaching my mom to shoot on the property, and me standing waaaaaaaay away from them. The dad kept saying I could come closer, but I just shook my head and watched from a great distance. I remember feeling a little alone and unprotected, but I couldn't go any closer. I remember i ketp looking behind me to make sure nothing was sneaking up on me and wanting the parents to finish up.

Ive heard many gunshots out in the street in my life and i think its really just reflex to get low and make as small a target as possible. Its actually a pretty good reflex. The stress and shock of it to you which happens after the initial reflex and being vigilant and expecting the worse is what comes after and what causes us so many problems.

Hi Kiya,

I am sorry you have such a severe reactions to the sound of gunfire. One of my triggers are guns, not so much the sound but the image which sets my PTSD into motion.

I was held hostage by my father as a child after he committed a horrid crime, I had wiped it from my mind until I was robbed at gunpoint at a store when I was 20. The nightmares began afterwards, and when I told my mother about the image I was having in my dreams, and how I was confused as why I had a gun in my face with the image of a cop behind it instead of the guy who robbed me, she told me about what had happened when I was 6, and suddenly images and memories flooded and I ended up in the hospital in shock.

But it took the robbery to set off the long buried memory of the cops trying to get my father to release me as he held a gun to my head.

Just thought I would offer support in understanding that the body remembers, it truly does.

Safe journey Kiya...you will be in my thoughts..

Eva

aye - sooooooooo much fun living in the aftermath of events that shake us up. I've noticed at work that when things fall and make a bang sound this week i've been jumpy and then do that space out thing. Then ppl wonder why i'm "Staring off into space" and i wonder why suddenly i've got a migraine.
kiya

Thank you Eva.
That must have been very scary - both the original event and the later one. I'm sorry you went through that, too.

Kiya

Thank you Kiya. When I read your thread it really hit home on somatic responses and I thank you for sharing and hope you find support and understanding here.

My experience during the robbery did not involve emotional responses, I don’t remember feeling anything not anger not fear, everything was so automated, afterwards when I locked the door behind him, as he told me to do. I went right back to doing what I was doing like nothing had happened, I noticed police cars zooming by, with light flashing, but it did not register mentally, and then the policeman jumping up and down banging the windows outside all upset.

I recall everything moving so slowly and wondering why he was so upset, but I just couldn’t move…the staring affect you have been describing... He actually had to crawl in thru the tiny window for customers to pay for gas, because I still just kept buffing the floor like I had been doing before the guy came in. Nothing really was kicking in I think at that point I kind of just had shut down. I don’t recall anything much afterwards, and actually showed up the next day to work and did not understand why they told me to go home and rest.

After a few weeks of nightmares, and headaches I talked to my mother when she told me about the childhood incident and they flooded into my conscious mind, only after that did I end up in the Emergency Room with a horrible migraine, which affected my ability to speak and move, the poor Doc thought I was having a stroke, I recall him trying to reassure me or himself, I am not sure at this point that I was not having a stroke because I was to young, since all of the tests were coming back okay that’s when they referred me to Psyche.

Anyway, my main response is freeze, neurological symptoms, but I used to get horrible migraines 3-4 times a week, now with therapy I feel so grateful they have improved dramatically and usually will occur during trauma processing or if I have an environmental trigger response and start to dissociate. Kiya, I hope you take it easy and get some rest until your reactions calm after being set off by the sound of gunfire.

Eva..

You know, I never put that together - but I too get migraines (and have since i was 7), especially when there are triggers; a mean customer, a BANG in the shop when someone dropped something, a man's colonge that he evidently took a bath in... the smell of an old woman that reminded me of my gran. Actually, that reminds me - I forgot that a woman came in who i *thought* was my gran (who i am not speaking to, or her son); had the hair, the coat, the slacks, even the shoes. Panic attack right on spot and i fled the room into the back where i could hopefully calm down. Naturally, calm is not what happened, but crying - until I called my mom who had just gotten off the phone with my gran, so that news made me see my reaction was not based on anything really happening right then. My gran's french and sadly there were already 2 french older ladies in the store before i saw the apparation-gran, and then french music in the store after that - migraine central.
Thanks for posting - you added another puzzle piece for me.
Kiya
Hope you're doing well.