Caution: Triage Alert

Triage - The assignment of degrees of urgency to wounds or illnesses to decide the order of treatment of a large number of patients or casualties.

Trauma - a deeply distressing or disturbing experience.  

Medical professionals have the incredible task of assigning the different triage roles in a traumatic situation. Sometimes in our own personal traumas, we forget to assess where we rank in the triage area. Are we in minor distress, delayed, immediate, or deceased. Sometimes we not only have physical trauma, but emotional trauma as well. I find myself in a different level of triage based on the trauma of Hurricane Harvey. 

I found myself saying many of the following things and discounting the trauma that took place. 

• We survived the hurricane. 
• We didn't lose our entire home. 
• We only lost one car. 
• We only had to cut the sheet rock out 22 1/2 inches. 
• We only lost what was in the garage. 
• We didn't lose everything. 
• Thankfully, we had insurance. 

There were many waves of emotions that took place as I watched my Sunday school class help cut out carpet, sheet rock, and throw our belongings to the curb. It was traumatic. We evacuated for the hurricane not really expecting to come home to a sense of devastation. I know that people had it worse than we did, but I can't discount the feelings that came from this trauma. I find that in crisis we put up barriers to secure our emotions for survival. We try to protect the vulnerability that we already are experiencing. The exposure as people go through your belongings, make assessments of their worth, and toss them on the debris pile. I cried that day. I cried off and on for a few days afterwards. Then I tried to seal up the tears and hold it together. When people asked how I was doing, I replied with simple phrases not willing myself to divulge any more than I had to. I didn't want to be exposed any more than I had to. I even began to close my emotions off to friends, family, and my spouse. I didn't want to have to feel that exposed again. My triage state went from minor to immediate over the course of a few months. I didn't want to deal with the emotions that I was feeling. I didn't want own them, dig them up, discuss them, allow them to be real. Life doesn't work like that. 

Now I find myself in a more immediate triage state. I didn't assess myself properly during the trauma and now the emotional cup is spilling over. I not longer can hold back the tears, the raw emotions, etc... Whether I wanted to deal with them or not, I now have to.