Remember in the movie Groundhog Day how Bill Murray’s character was stuck repeating the same day over and over and over again? Every morning when he woke up the same song was playing on the radio, he met the same people on the street, ate at the same cafe, and just repeated everything again and again and again. No matter what he did, he couldn’t escape that day. He was literally stuck there.
This is what happens to me every day. There’s a loop that plays over and over again in my head of the events from 3 a.m. on Friday, October 8th to 2:37 p.m. on Saturday, October 9th. The scene plays repeatedly in my mind like an endless loop, and no matter how hard I try I cannot stop it from playing. It’s like one long, continual horror movie that I never wanted to see and I can’t get up and leave the theater because I’m chained to the seat.
I try to think of other things but it’s always there. It’s like a steel plate in the front of mind that I can’t move. I’ve used that description of it before and it’s still very much true. That steel plate is comprised of all the painful memories of that day and a half when our lives were ripped apart by an event we never saw coming and still to this day can’t believe happened.
I try to think of happy things but the loop comes right back. I try to push it out of my mind with more happy thoughts but it’s no use. It’s relentless and shoves everything else out of the way so it can be front and center. It haunts me all day, every day. It haunts me in my sleep. There is no reprieve, ever.
I want this loop to stop playing. I don’t want to see it playing over and over again anymore but I don’t know how to make it stop. Some days I’m afraid this loop will continue to play repeatedly till the day I die.
People tell me I need to smile more. To be happier. It’s hard to be those things when all you can see inside your head is this traumatic loop playing over and over and over again. If they could be inside my head they’d understand why it’s so excruciatingly hard to smile or to be happy, when all I can see and hear is the repeating images and sounds from that horrific day and a half.
I know others see the heaviness in my face and body language. It’s hard to hide. I know they see the pain and sadness in my eyes. If they were viewing what I am every day in my head they’d understand.
I imagine this kind of loop plays in the head of all people who’ve experienced extreme trauma. My heart bleeds for every single person who’s ever endured this because I definitely know their pain. It’s unbearable and at times seems unsurvivable.
This trauma is real. I feel it. My children feel it. My grandson feels it. I wonder how long this will last, or if it even ever goes away? Only God knows that answer and He hasn’t told us when this ends. All I do know is that the events of those 35 hours are seared into my memory and I can’t make the repeating loop of it stop.
Every day seems like Groundhog Day to me.