9/11 traumatized us all, in many ways. For me, it also marked the beginning of personal healing.
My name is Marcia and on 9/11, I was 53 and living in Vermont. On that day, with every replay of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center, the towers seemed to change from an inanimate building into a living organism. Its shining skin, grotesquely gashed by dark mortal wounds, exposed the people inside to excruciating suffering and death. Imagining their choice between the inferno and jumping from windows, I trembled with terror and vulnerability. The only comfort from that feeling came days later while watching a short black and white animated film, depicting a couple holding hands and leaping from the towers into transcendence. Back to 9/11, I watched in horror as the first tower pancaked and collapsed and I dissolved into wailing grief and helplessness. I was like an egg broken open. When I was 14, I experienced a trauma that I immediately repressed. I did not remember it for nearly 40 years. In the weeks following 9/11, as the United States prepared for war in Afghanistan, I listened to many Afghan women recounting being kidnapped and raped. I began having vivid, relentless and overwhelming flashbacks of my trauma. I sought help, learned I had post traumatic stress disorder and learned how it operated and how to manage it throughout my life. 9/11 traumatized us all in many ways. For me, it also marked the beginning of personal healing.
Marcia
