I repress it and try not to think about it as best I can; because the one time some of it did come back when I didn’t expect it, I wasn’t right in the head again for a week and that was one panic attack.
If it is cropping up enough that it bothers me but not enough to a full blown panic attack, I try to distract myself as best I can. I have a terrible memory for things when they’re not phrased as though they’re in a story – I can regurgitate aggressive fact-giving tumblr posts (like the One Post about the ghost army in WWII and the Oatmeal comic about mantis shrimp) almost word for word, but ask me how my day went and I couldn’t tell you – and given a distraction, I’m just as likely to forget the trauma currently bothering me and why it cropped it as I am to forget what homework I have.
If I can’t get a distraction on my own, I go bother my brother, best friend, and soulmate rolled up in one person – @/leviantacatastrophe. And he generally makes me feel better. He’s also singlehandedly curing my seasonal affective disorder, but that’s another story. If you’ve got a person like him, smother them with affection and get them to reciprocate if they feel like it and it’ll generally help.
My best answer for you would be to research how ‘endotrauma’ (trauma from this life n stuff, opposite of exotrauma, don’t wanna say ‘actual trauma’ or smth) victims deal with it, and see if their methods don’t work for your case. Past that, distract yourself to the high heavens, remove everything that can trigger it from your life, and see if you can’t get over the trauma itself somehow.
Hopefully that helps.
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