For most people, anniversaries mark milestones — birthdays, weddings, holidays. For those living with trauma or grief, they mark absences.
The calendar becomes a quiet trigger. A date that once held meaning now reawakens pain.
In Israel, where collective memory is woven into daily life, these anniversaries carry heavy emotional weight. The memorial days, the return to October 7, the sounds, the sirens — they reopen wounds that never fully closed.
Mental Health First Aid Israel calls this period the echo season — when grief and trauma resurface in waves, and suicide risk silently rises.
MHFA Israel teaches the principle: "Don't assume memory is harmless." The date on the calendar may be invisible to you, but for someone else, it's a battlefield.
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