Does anyone know why you may get scared when remembering some close to you passed away?

[tictac321]

My cousin was murdered earlier May, he was only 17 and I turned the same the week after his death. Hes resting in peace now, but ive been getting frightened when remembering him or looking at pictures/videos of us together. We were bought up together since childhood and even went to the same secondary school & sixth form till his death, now I'm just scared to remember someone who had been in life every day literally.

[loggerslot]

Sorry to hear about your cousin. He sounds like a good friend as well as a cousin. are you scared to remember him because of the circumstances under which he passed away or trying to deal with the empty space left behind by your cousin?

[Gambit62]

I am really sorry to hear about what happened.

It does sound as if you could be suffering from a thing called PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). It is a condition that affects a high percentage of people who have been through a traumatic event and is, in very simplistic terms, a common 'filing error' in the brain - can't remember the exact figures but I think it is somewhere around 25% of people who are susceptible but it could be higher. Basically something in the brain short circuits and rather than remembering your cousin you are actually reliving the moment when you heard about his death over and over again. Fear is also a normal part of the grieving process - that horrible gut rendering sense of loss that you never feel you will get over ... and on one level you never do though over time the frequency of the feeling gets less and less, and sometimes its intensity gets less.

There are techniques that can be used to encourage the brain to start filing the events properly but I'm certainly not an expert ... but there are a couple of communities on Health Unlocked for PTSD sufferers and you might want to think about joining one

healthunlocked.com/ptsd-global

healthunlocked.com/healmyptsd

You could also try talking to your GP and see if they can refer you for counselling ... or if there is a counsellor at college you could approach them.

[tictac321]

I'm not scared of the circumstances he died, it makes me angry thinking about that and I was there when washing his body and putting clothes on before his burial. These things don't scare me at all idk tbh just remembering moments we had together makes me shake inside and I want to change the subject when thinking or seeing something related to my cousin

thank you for listening