PTSD influences moods, thoughts, and behavior, but for me it is primarily a physical (or physiological) experience.
My essential optimistic can-do attitude was never reduced by trauma; I was changed irrevocably by the events of my early life, particularly what happened on August 1, 1988 – but I was a determined person when I went up that mountain, and remained so when I came back down again.
Some people drug themselves, others ask for prescriptions, many find solace at the bottom of a whiskey bottle.
I run errands, fill out paperwork, ride my bicycle.
The adrenaline is going to flood my body regardless of what my rational brain would prefer, and I have learned that it is best to just keep moving.
I cycled furiously about moving large unwieldy objects from one place to another, cooked, cleaned, opened months of unread mail, indulged all the obsessive desires that soothe my damaged brain.
When I ran out of tasks and trials I decided to go to the movies as a final effort at distraction – strangers, in public, normally scare me in these circumstances, and that keeps all the rotten stuff from spilling out.
Except I didn’t reckon on the fact that I am a lot healthier than I have ever been in my entire life, and that I am on friendly terms with everyone who works at the movie theatre. I feel safe there.
I had a three minute charming conversation with one of the cute youngsters at the counter, turned away to walk to my seat, and the panic struck without warning.
I started to shake, Logical Mind watching with detached criticism reminding me that I find it humiliating to lose control.
It is really too bad that Logical Mind is running a federation instead of a dictatorship. My limbs were in open rebellion for a period of time I found intolerable, though nobody around me seemed to be paying too much attention.
Panic attacks are intrinsically private, and underscore the solitary nature of existence for everyone. We really are all alone, no matter how much we try to connect, nurture, provide.
When the fright chemicals finally subsided I turned to Byron and said: I’ve spent my entire life saying I am fine, and now I am surrounded by people who refuse to believe anything else even when I ask for help. True or false?
He shrugged dismissively. True.
I had elected to see the sort of film where the audience laughs throughout, then people start to bicker as they leave their seats. While my main criticism was that the lead was too preciously hip (oh look, he lives by Jaguar Shoes), various other threads of conversation were sparked by the movie.
Mostly I was still fixated on avoiding a return of the panic, and convinced that if I could just make it to midnight everything would be fine again.
Circumstances intervened and I fell apart while crossing the Jesus Green, and ended up sobbing hysterically I want Marisa! I want Mark!
Byron is not especially interested in being a sensitive caring person and he pointed out that none of my friends really take care of me, or want to listen. He said that Mark would just make fun.
I replied That is fine! I don’t want to talk! I just want to be distracted, I just want to forget!
Going along with the theme of the movie (and probably in reference to the fact that my younger traumatized self was a lot more voracious and erratic than the protagonist of the film) he went on Plus Mark wouldn’t want to sleep with you. Marisa probably would though!
This just made me cry harder and wail I want to go home!
Home.
Where is that, exactly? I brought most of the people I care about along when I moved to this country, but this place is not my home. The other people who love me all live between the Cascades and the Pacific ocean, but that does not make the Northwest my home. I miss the peninsula of my childhood, the landscape of the Puget Sound, with a wrenching urgency – but it is not, could never, be home.
The accident took away so much – breaking bones, smashing brains, delivering a death blow to youthful idealism.
If I learned anything, it is this: there is no home except what I carry inside me – good, bad, or indifferent.
Twenty years later I can still taste the blood, but I am alive. I was not destroyed, merely diverted.
There is no way to guess what would have happened otherwise, and that does not matter.
Happy twentieth anniversary to us.