The Trauma Hangover

When it All Comes Crashing Down

What I really want to address is what I call The Trauma Hangover. Imagine big emotions, the size of an ocean slopping around inside of you. Along comes a seismic event, some possible bad news you are bracing for, or the sudden shock of loss. The force of this emotional trigger sends a shockwave through your system, building momentum as it hurls towards the shores of your conscious cognition. When the force of the tsunami finally reaches the shore, it might be a beautiful sunny day just moments prior. The reaction in the moment outsizes the whatever nominal situation happens to be at play. Then the rush of water and the breaking of trees and the chaos of feeling. I used to think of emotional processing as “death by a thousand cuts,” as if trauma were keeping an accumulating score. It seems to be less organized and more chaotic than that. There is no scheming calculation at play here.

I have known for years now that I am a slow processor when it comes to emotions. It feels like squeezing all the feelings through a Play Doh food processor, sending it upward into my brain to analyze and sort before it can form into words, or manifest as a decision. Remember pushing with all the might of your little three year old muscles on the fulcrum of that yellow plastic food processor arm, the partially dried out dough toughening from repeated handling and improperly sealed lids? How can this thing take meaningful form, to become something knowable that I can make an informed decision on, when it feels like my mind is clogged with wheaten glue?

I’m so envious of my friends who cry at movies. Who cry during commercials even. Who cry when the news is happy or sad, or some cloud crosses their memory over a dinner together. I am befuddled by the availability of their tears. I know these people enough to say this is not performative, but genuine feeling. And I wish that the tears were a contagion sometimes, that the moisture could transfer by air and convey some kind of stirring in me. It is not that I’m cold and unfeeling. On the contrary, I feel deeply. It’s so far down under the murky brackish waters, under the decaying leaves and silt. On the surface is listening and understanding. It manifests as emotional caretaking and reflective listening. I wait for the little blub of a bubble, the stirring of feeling. In the presence of another person’s emoting, I may quietly acknowledge my response and think, “Interesting. I will explore this later.” Always later. Later.

What prompted my most recent trauma hangover is related to something my friends in the cancer community know well. We call it scanziety. It is mid-November 2025. We have endured the longest government shutdown, tariffs and trade wars have sent consumer costs are through the roof, and depending on who you talk to, we have either the smartest most successful and wonderful president in the office, or a convicted rapist and pedophile leading the country.

To refresh you on the arc of my story, I had lost my employer based health insurance in 2014 just months before discovering a lump in my left breast at the age of 36. This happened to be the same year as the launch of the Affordable Care Act which allowed me to purchase insurance through the New York Marketplace. It was a long and challenging process for me, even though I pride myself in being an admin savvy person. This new insurance resulted in having to assemble a whole new team of doctors, from my primary doctor to my gyno and more, thus prolonging my inevitable cancer diagnosis. But thank god I had insurance, right? I got the surgery and treatment I needed, and was able to be here for my family, watching my son grow to be 15 years old now.

Fast forward to the present. Like so many, I wait in suspension to find out if the government is letting the Covid-era health insurance tax subsidies expire. It is these subsidies that make my monthly premium affordable. To put this in actual numbers, for 2026 I am looking at a difference between a monthly premium payment of $312. vs. $1450. These premiums are just so I can basically pay into a discount plan, never actually meet my deductible and buys me admission into this overpriced Ponzi scheme, just in case another cataclysm comes. So I decided, like many people I know, to do ALL the things this year, while I can, and in case I can’t afford to be enrolled in health insurance next year. I was due for all of these things anyway… the colonoscopy, the MRI of my pancreas and an ultrasound of my uterus.

My primary doctor knows my cancer history, right? So I’m waiting for two weeks and still no results on my recent MRI and Ultrasound. I call the office once, twice… I get a call back from the office saying that the doctor needs to speak with me tomorrow, either in person or over a telehealth visit. Here, my protective rational mind kicks in. “They just want to attach a billing code to this conveyance of—all clear!” But as night falls and drags on, and turns sleepless, I think, “but surely there must be something. Why put someone who has a cancer history into this dramatic pause?” Laying in bed that night, I’m conjuring all the faces of friends who have had metastatic cancer, and I feel like I am falling away from my family. I know on some level, we are all slowly dying, but suddenly I have lost mass. I am slipping through Joey and Julian’s fingers. No one can grasp me. There is nothing to hold onto.

Morning comes and time for my 9:30 AM Telehealth visit rolls around. No call. I delay driving to work so I can be close to home and my husband should the news be bad. I wait patiently for an hour and then call the office. “Oh, the doctor is running late on her first appointment. She’ll be calling you soon.” By 11:30, and still no call, I am furious. How cruel to leave someone in suspense like this! I am starting to spiral. It’s definitely bad news! I have pancreatic cancer. I have months to live. How will I tell my Mom?! Fuck it, I’m going to work. I can’t sit here all day like this.

I’m driving in the car when she finally calls at 12:30. My pancreas is clear! There was some code related to a detection of fluid in my lungs, which she didn’t quite understand. I tell her I was just getting over a drawn-out respiratory virus. I tuck it to the back of my mind. Maybe I’ll get to meet that new oncologist in January and review this just to be sure. I want to tell her off, and tell her how painful this waiting has been, but the fury is starting to simmer. Maybe it was paralysis or bracing for bad news, but I must have pushed it down under the muck. I was calm and professional. I mean, it’s good news, right?

It wasn’t until 2 days later that it all hit me. Julian still can’t wake himself to the alarm clock. He can’t find his glasses. My jeans are too tight! We’re rushing and running late. Our anxious and reactive rescue dog is freaking out about the neighbor’s dog barking at her. I am fucking keyed up to 9.5 on the fury scale. I snap at the dog and start to direct her body homeward after a short goodbye to my son. It’s windy and I’m suddenly fighting back tears. My breath is shallow and tight. None of these little things merit the response that my body is offering up. Then it hits me. This is the storm surge, the rising tide of all the pain I have been wading through. That small acknowledgment allows me to be a little softer towards myself in that moment.

Therapists who deal in complex trauma and PTSD can speak more eloquently about the trauma response and the brain’s protective mechanisms. I’m still trying to understand what is self-preservation, and what is paralysis. The automatic door to my trauma response isn’t opening and closing smoothly anymore. I pause. I question everything. Feelings jam up so easily now. I don’t really know what is on the horizon for any of us, and exist in this half-baked buckle up & hands up rollercoaster ride-feeling. Wheee! All I know for sure is that today, the sun did rise.

I’m trying out a new platform and may decide to switch all my musing over to Substack entirely. Will you please join me over there? Your support helps me keep my hands glued to the keyboard and maybe there will be a book out of all of this, once and for all! https://substack.com/@melissaeppard