Reflecting on My Real Life Experience with Trauma

An impulsive change of emotions came over me which was irreversible. All over sudden, concerns and questions of worldly prestige, life success, and financial status become irrelevant all at once. The increased wave of flames and smoke, caused congestion in my lungs affecting my normal breathing system. Consequently, my breath became labored due to the secretions pooling in the back of my throat. I started gurgling, yawning and felt the coldness in my limbs causing numbness in legs, feet, arms, and hands.

Subsequently, I felt restless, agitated and a sense of unconsciousness creating confusion and distress making it difficult for me to cry out for help. Circulation of blood within my body system slows down causing dark bruising at the base of my spine. Afterwards, I wasn’t able to speak or breath normally. Instead, I took a rasping breath through my open mouth which sounded like a loud snoring making my mouth dry. Then, my breathing path would suddenly change causing alternative breaths between loud rasping to quiet breathing.

After a few seconds, I would only breath periodically. I would take an intake of a loud rasping breath succeeded by no breath for a couple of seconds and then a further intake. Finally, I could hear a rattling noise at the back of my throat and then not able to cough or swallow causing a pooling of saliva in the back of my throat. Consequently, my pulse will stop. My skin tone and facial expression would loosen up making me look remarkably at peace.

Having a thought about the very last moments of my life is hard and devastating. This is because of the anxiety of not knowing what to expect during those moments and consequently the changes that might happen nearly the time of death. Nonetheless, it’s important to develop a greater sense of appreciation of life, as well as mortality during those last moments. Therefore, I will handle the final moments of my life by using positive thoughts and emotions to shift the attention away from death.

Essentially, the use of positive imagery and words is crucial during the very last moments of a person’s life. This is because the use of positive thoughts and emotions will not only give me a greater distal defense but also demonstrate a sense of gratitude to life, as well as death helping me suppress the death-related thoughts and feelings during those moments. As you take your last breath, you feel relieved making your final moments very peaceful.

Life is the period between birth and death of a person. Thus, it’s essential for every individual to have a purpose in life and subsequently live a meaningful life. Therefore, it’s critical to determine the significance and purpose of living, why we were born and by extension be able to evaluate what life is all about. Having understood my purpose in life, then I would describe my life as a meaningful and determined. This is because I lead a life of satisfaction making a greater contribution in utilizing my personal strengths.

This is demonstrated by my abilities in mastering challenging tasks in life and being focused and resolute to full engagement in activities. As a result, my life was full of pleasure and happiness because I had adequate knowledge of who I was and my primary role in life. Additionally, I enjoyed a greater sense of significance and gratification which enhanced my responsibility with regards to self-determination and by extension my pursuit of a worthwhile goal in life. Thus, at this point, I would describe my life as meaningful and worth living.

Often, experiencing traumatic events can be emotionally disturbing especially to those people who do not have proper emotional support at the time of the trauma. As a result, they became more distressed and experiences addictive tendencies. On the contrary, traumatic events can also pave way for opportunities for growth on a personal level. For instance, traumatic events strengthen our relationship with others through social support in the time of the event deepening our bonds with families and friends and consequently giving us an opportunity to see how deeply people care for our welfare. This instills a sense of appreciation to the victims enabling them to realize the importance of trust, care, and help.

Additionally, traumatic events pave way for new possibilities. Many research on posttraumatic growth has demonstrated that experiences of trauma play a significant role in leading people to new possibilities that make their life more meaningful and satisfying. New possibilities such as a change of activities, relationships and lifestyle open people to new networks. Subsequently, they enhance the skills and strength of a person helping him/her feel stronger and connected.

Finally, experiences of trauma lead people to have a greater sense of appreciation of life they have. After traumatic events which are usually characterized by distress and major life stress, people begin to recuperate back to their normalcy when they connect with simple pleasures of life such as hanging out with family and friends and having nature walks. This provides new hope and meaning of life. Consequently, it provides an opportunity to enable people to do things differently. For instance, survivors of trauma who realized how they came near to dying, they became more grateful for the gift of life. To many people, surviving a traumatic event is more of a second chance given to them to redeem themselves by rebuilding their lives and implementing the lessons learnt.

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