TW - Possibly Trauma Activating Content
I’m visiting my home city of Perth. I went to get some dinner in the central city early this evening and realised a group of police officers were going past me in body armour, some carrying hi tech automatic rifles. I have never seen that before in this city. It was like something out of a movie and seemed unreal. I’ve been reading online this evening of others seeing the same thing across Perth in recent weeks, including at markets in the park by the beach near where I grew up and the shopping centre we used to go to. Basically a heavily armed presence has become normalised since the awful event at Bondi. Then when I arrived here on Monday I got off the train and I was redirected by police after an improvised explosive device was thrown into a crowd of people but fortunately didn’t detonate. I am seeing things I never expected to see.
The reason it’s especially affecting me is I’m dealing with complex ptsd and already processing flashbacks and really disturbing material coming up from my past. I’m already trauma activated a lot of the time and so it’s really impacting me. Added to that are feelings of grief about the loss of what now seems a more innocent time. Even my safe places where I would go to escape as a child, such as my favourite ocean spot in Perth, is being patrolled by heavily armed officers.
Tomorrow I return to my town where I also feel unsafe and have been subject to social bullying for some time now. I’m dreading going back there but can’t sense anywhere else safe either. I guess my bearings are lost at the moment. What I have to hang onto is a great concert I went to that had such positive energy and lovely friends I caught up with while here. I’m trying to maintain a connection to the good in the world.
Is anyone else feeling really lost like this? Has anything helped you find a sense of stability and normality in it all? My internal world is harrowing enough on a daily and nightly basis, but the external world is also feeling threatening in new and strange ways. I guess I just want to feel something safe and familiar.
