My heart hurts so very much for Dylan and is filled with compassion for her.
My first cousin was in his early 20's when his best friend was murdered right in front of him.
The crime occurred in the home of his best friend (the victim) when the victim started arguing with his girlfriend.
He pinned her while she was standing, she reached grabbed a knife that was on the counter stabbing him several times. My cousin and the 2 others were horrified at what was unfolding right in front of them. But they were frozen, unable to comprehend. It was some time before the 911 call was made by a neighbor.
So in the aftermath, my cousin was never ever the same. He was a fantastic worker prior to that, he could never hold down a job and a few years later did not work again. He continued to live with my Aunt and Uncle.
He drank and did drugs more than he did prior to that incident. A lot more.
He was an avid hunter that always hunted every season with his father (my Uncle). He hunted only one time after that then never hunted again,
The deer carcass was in the back of the pickup, once home, they were both in the process of removing the deer and my cousin "flipped out". My Uncle said that he was shocked and had no clue at the time why that happened. Later, my Uncle finally found out.
The smell of the blood.
My cousin had smelled blood from deer hunting each and every time he hunted and removed the deer from the back of a pickup truck since he was old enough to hunt. But on that day, it all changed.
He associated that smell with the day his best friend was killed and the scent of blood he had to smell.
Sorry so long of a post and there are a lot more incidents that occurred with my cousin after. So many everyday things ringing his mind back to that day.
A scent, certain words, a person he passes in a store or anywhere in his life the resembles anyone in the house that day.
There was no way he would speak to a therapist. One time he did try on the prompting of my Aunt and Uncle, but he did not go again. According to my Aunt and Uncle, he felt there was no way that a therapist could help him because they have never experienced what he did, he just lived with the horror on his own.
He has guilt and so many other emotions. No, he could not have prevented what happened even though he has been told that there was nothing he could have done, he lives with guilt.
I could go on and on about the things in our every day life that we think nothing of, but to a traumatized person, it is utter hell.
I want to stress that the incident my cousin witnessed and mind state is nothing at all what Dylan is enduring.
I am just trying to say that Dylan experienced trauma like no other and throughout her lifetime, there are going to be trauma memories that can happen in an instant that no one will coincide and connect with that horrifying night.
She could be shopping one day, see, smell or hear something from her memory of the time of the murders and break down right then and there and no one would think at that moment it time that has anything to do with her traumatic experience.
Huge cyber hug to Dylan and so very much compassion to her.
