NYE Trauma and its Lessons

I shared about a month ago about going on a first date with someone. And it's very hard to share today how that unfolded. Despite my knowing that this person had a lot of problems of his own, I decided to open up and get to know him. 

For about a month now we've talked, had a second date recently. He made me laugh more than anyone has in a long time. It felt easy and comfortable. And when I got upset, telling him this is all so weird for me because I miss someone else, he just hugged me tight and said "of course you do, and you'll always miss him". His understanding was a gift. A small bit of hope that someone can understand my love for Drew and not be threatened by it.

On NYE we went out with friends and ended up staying at a friend's house. Things happened. For the first time I invited a new man to touch my body. For the first time, I asked someone new to kiss me. We didn't go all the way with things, but plenty far. And in the moments that I became upset, he was kind. When I began to have an anxiety attack, he breathed deeply with me, and brought me down from it quicker than anyone ever has. His energy felt safe. Grounding. Dependable. I could not believe myself... I was actually deeply enjoying this whole bizarre "first" event.

It sounds lovely. And it was. Except that In that moment, I became bonded to him on a much deeper level. This was no longer a casual thing - and I imagine he felt the shift too. 

And that is when he tells me he absolutely can't do commitment. He knows his issues and he knows he would hurt me if we dated, and he doesnt want to hurt me.......

Too late.

No sooner had I bonded to someone was it ripped right out of my hands. By morning, he was distant, and he left early, saying a friend of his ended up in jail and he had to go bail him out. And so he says goodbye, and the door closes behind him, and I am left alone. 

ALONE. 

With all of these emotions. With all of what just happened. Alone.

The trauma of Drew's death returns... Slams back into me with brute force. It is the first time in well over a year anything has brought me back to that horrible week. And honestly nothing since he died has brought me back to it so painfully.

I cannot breathe. I cannot think. I'm trying to crawl out of my own skin for how much pain and fear is surging through me. Suddenly nothing else exists - and every cell of my body is overwhelmed by the excessive resurgence of trauma. I am in shock.

I leave shortly after he, because I cannot face my friends - a couple - who are curled up together in the next room. I cannot bare the reality that they are there safely together and I have been left out in the ocean of my pain alone. 

I end up driving to the cemetery, and lying in the back seat of the truck in the freezing cold. I just lay there - talking in circles to a friend of mine on the phone - with shock permeating my bones.

Whether he made up an excuse to run away or had a real reason, the very worst of it is that he never bothered to call. Or text. Despite the fact that I was visibly upset when he left. No apology. No "are you ok?" Nothing. And still days later, nothing. He has run like a coward. And I have been broken open - left to pick up my own pieces of all of this and try to sort through the mess.

A few days later and some of the emotions are finally beginning to settle. I've had to take Xanax every day, and its been well over a year since I've needed that. But as things settle, I know, part of me pursued this because he was an unavailable person too. Because I knew it couldn't go anywhere. My counselor says that made it safer somehow to actually give me a chance to just try the next step, without any worry about more. It makes sense. I guess I just didn't expect to actually like the guy so much. To click so well. To enjoy each other's company so much. I didn't expect to want more.

I'm trying to find my peace with it. To find the gifts in it that I can learn from. I'll never feel it was the right way to handle things - hiw he disappeared on me - but maybe his way of leaving was for the best. At least this way I understand acutely who he is right now and know to listen to that and walk away. It is possible that a clean - though deeply traumatizing break - was the best he could give.

In the end, I'm really proud of myself for trying. And for choosing to trust someone new with a bit of my heart. I risked again in order to experience life, affection, laughter. 

I risked even knowing full well there was a strong chance I'd get hurt. I didn't quite realize just HOW much that was going to hurt. And how traumatic it would end up being. But in the end I think I am still glad. Because for the better part of it - he was actually kind and gentle. And for that time I did actually feel very safe and respected and cared for. 

It is excruciating to make the choice to walk away from those feelings - from all the things I miss so much and haven't had for two and a half years. It hurts to walk away from a person I actually did very much like. 

But at least the "firsts" of dating and intimacy are over. At least I learned that I do still want a relationship, and that with thenright person I can see how it could work. And at least I learned I'm also probably not quite there yet either... But that I will be again someday. Those are all huge lessons. Maybe in the end, it was his job to show me this.

Post Traumatic Growth

source

One thing that's been hard for me to think about, much less talk about has been the growth I've experienced since Dave died. It seems wrong, somehow that such an awful event would spur me to experience positive emotional growth unlike I've ever before experienced. I suppose I feel some shame about that. Shouldn't someone who's lost her spouse feel that nothing positive came from or after it? (Says the shaming part of my brain.)

I was watching a TED talk today, by Jane McGonigal. In it she explained how she was nearly suicidal after a brain injury had her bedridden for months. Because of her low point, she came up with an idea (an app that helps people develop resilience) that is now helping people everywhere and she explained that some scientists might call this experience of hers post traumatic growth.

She said that some people who have suffered a serious trauma say that it changed them for the better.
The five most common ways they mentioned changing are...
1. My priorities have changed - I'm not afraid to do what makes me happy.
2. I feel closer to my friends and family.
3. I understand myself better, I know who I really am now.
4. I have a new sense of meaning and purpose.
5. I'm better able to focus on my goals and dreams.

When I saw this list, I burst into tears. It was a list I've mentally compiled in the past 20 months for my own growth. It was like seeing a mirror held up to my development. I cried because I was grateful for all five ways I've changed and yet how can I be grateful for it if it came about because the person I loved most in the world died? Holding both of those ideas in my brain hurts.

Then, she said that what's really amazing is that this list is almost exactly the opposites of the top five regrets of the dying, which are...
1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I didn't work so hard.
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I'd stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish I'd let myself be happier.

It's as though for some people, the traumatic event unlocked their ability to live in a way that would reduce regrets.

So, something that I wish hadn't happened and that broke my heart also somehow managed to reset me so that I finally, for the first time in my life, began to live more in line with what REALLY truly matters.

I still worry about what others think of me, work too hard, forget about my purpose and waste my time, hide some of my feelings, and feel like a grumpy jerk off and on, but I can honestly say that since Dave died, I've made growth in all five areas. BIG growth.

And while I'm sure I have a touch of post traumatic stress disorder, too, I think I also have a huge dose of post traumatic growth.

I suppose the reason I struggle to admit this is that a part of me thought that if I loved Dave I wouldn't be able to equate anything positive with his death. But, here's the thing. His death and how it's affected me are two completely separate things. There isn't anything positive about his death (obviously).

It might be similar to the strengthening of your other senses if you lose your sight. Going blind is not good. No one could argue that there's anything positive about the FACT that your eyesight is gone. But, your super human hearing and sense of touch are positive things. They don't make the loss of your eyesight okay. They don't make you glad you lost your sight. They're separate entities.

Dave's death was a terrible traumatic thing that happened to him AND to me, and to so many other people in his life. But what has happened to my emotional landscape since he died has been both bad and good.  I'm traumatized. I'm still exhausted all the time. I miss him. My heart is broken. There are chunks of my brain just missing now, AND I'm noticing how much closer I hold the ones I love. How much more I allow myself to be vulnerable, ask for help, offer my help and just generally open myself up. I don't take things as seriously, complain as much or allow myself to worry endlessly about that which cannot be changed. I don't work quite as hard as I did unless it feels good to work hard. I feel a greater sense of purpose and I have been able to see my worth in ways never before possible. I have begun to care for myself and treat myself lovingly in ways I never before could.

What's really sad is that because I have this shame around admitting any positive changes in me, I don't get to talk about it much (except with my therapist, and now with you). I don't get to revel in it much or be truly proud of it. It makes me cry to talk about it, and not necessarily a happy cry, either. It's linked to his death and that makes it hard to acknowledge. It makes it hard to hear others tell me how well they think I'm doing, or how much I've changed for the better.

But it's undeniably there, and hearing that others have experienced it too makes it easier for me to admit that it's there. And anyway, it's not as though I need to add shame to my list of hardships. The best way to ease shame is to get it out in the open so it can't fester in the dark, so that's what I'm doing. I'm telling you.

Have you noticed any post traumatic growth of your own?

Wandering or Lost?

source

I was talking to my therapist about the ways I've been moving slowly toward starting an honest-to-god dog-walking business and while I was telling her, I noted the flat, bored tone in my voice and I knew she'd take notice too. And she did.

She wanted to know what it was that was keeping me from feeling excited about it all and I thought and thought and thought. All I could dredge up was "I have no idea".

I tried to think of an example of something I was excited about, that lit me up and I couldn't think of anything at the time. I figured (and so did she) that maybe the dog walking thing just wasn't really what I wanted to do.

She asked me if I liked walking dogs.
I do.
She asked me if there was anything I didn't like about it.
Not really.

I still couldn't access any excitement. For that venture or any other.
And I wondered, what DOES make me really excited? What really lights me up?

My lifelong passion has been animals. They light me up.
I love to sing in a choir.
I can draw and paint and feel very much in "the zone" when I'm doing it.
I love to read.

But as a purpose? A reason for living? True drive and passion for a project of some sort? Nothing feels quite right. Nothing really gets me jumping out of bed in the morning ready to tackle a goal.
Did that die with Dave? Will it come back? Do I just wait around for some sort of inspiration?
Why don't I even know what it is I really want to do?

I feel restless and frustrated.
There isn't much I really want to do.
Except to feel the way I used to, when he was alive. Like I had direction.

I'm not suicidal or even deeply depressed. It's getting easier to be alone, overall. I'm sleeping and eating okay and laugh easily again, despite bouts of grief.  I even enjoy quiet nights at home with take out and a movie when I used to dread them. There are many things I'm doing and trying as I learn about myself as a single person. I'm slowly meeting new people and spending time with old friends. I have fun travel plans in the works. I don't feel hopeless, I just feel passionless. Purposeless.

But I think part of it is that I compare too much. I compare myself to people who seem to have satisfying occupations and find myself lacking. I tell myself stories that I'm lacking because I don't trot off to a formal job each day all filled with industry and good work ethic. Or because I'm not going to school to get another degree.

I'm not contributing or busy or industrious enough somehow, and I feel aimless.

There's that story-telling again. The stories I tell myself are almost always wrong or at least misled. I am contributing, it's just not in the way I used to. I used to KILL myself to perform as close to perfectly as I could at my job. Did that make me a better person? Did having that kind of (slightly nutty) drive make me worthy? More worthy than I am now?

I can also understand logically that I'm still healing and that all my energy is going toward that kind of growth so I don't have much left over for a great work ethic and a "go get-em" attitude.
Understanding all of that doesn't completely stop the feelings I've been having though. I still wonder when the hell the purpose will come back and what that purpose will be. I still wonder if my brain will come back online again and if it will always be altered by this trauma. I still wonder if I'll be able to support myself long-term. I still wonder if I'm ever going to feel grounded and certain again.

I know though, that the one certainty is that we can't see around the bend. We can just take the next step we think is right. As I look back on this time, I'm sure I will see how much I grew and how much I actually accomplished and how every little "next right step" took me in the direction I needed to go.

It's just hard to ignore the feeling that I'm missing some integral part of me now. It's like I lost my internal compass and now I'm just aimless, wandering, lost. Again though, the things I tell myself! I'm not "lost".

Lost and wandering are two different things, right?  I'm wandering around as I learn about myself, this new self. I'll find my way. I am finding my way, I'm just too close to see the big picture.

So much easier said than felt, though, huh?

The Text

from here

Flashbacks are terrible. Simply terrible. I hate them. And I certainly don't want to bring them on, and yet they remind me of those bruises I sometimes get that hurt to touch, but that I keep touching anyway. Can't help myself.

Thinking about the "dark day" is pain beyond words. And yet, my mind seems to want to play those memories across the backs of my eyes like a movie on repeat.

Some parts are lost to the segments of my brain dulled by shock, but other parts are crystal clear.

Sometimes I want to talk or write about the memories of that time regardless of how much it tears me apart. Sometimes I don't think I have the energy to.

All the time there are triggers. An ambulance shrieking past, a character dying in a movie, the sounds and sights of a hospital. 

The flashbacks don't surprise me as much as they used to and they don't seem to undo me quite as easily as they used to, but trauma has etched its patterns in my brain.

The other day, my childhood friend's husband texted me. When that text popped up, the previous text from June 4th, 2011 showed up too, right behind it. The last time her husband texted me was on the day Dave died. In fact, now that I look at the time stamp, it was about an hour after he died.

I don't remember ever seeing that text before.  It read "Cass, I don't know if or when you will read this but Stacey is on her way to be with you. Stay strong and know we are thinking about you and Dave."

When we knew that things were looking very bad for Dave, my local friends notified my long-distance friends. When Stacey found out, she booked a flight from Ohio to be with me, and her husband sent that text, not knowing that Dave had already slipped away. By the time she got to the airport, she'd gotten the news that Dave had died. 

Reading that text that seemed to travel right out of time, out of nowhere to my phone almost 11 months later, made everything around me to dim to a gray, silent blur. My ears rang and my mouth went dry. For a split second I forgot where and when I was.

And then, I was right back in that hospital, seeing him conscious for the last time. Then, the last time I would see him at all, lying unconscious in an impossibly bright exam room, his face swollen and  almost unrecognizable.

I remembered holding his wallet in my hands and knowing, regardless of the doctors' efforts, that he'd never use that wallet again. I remember curling up on that horrible waiting room couch, cradled by my friend, begging my other friend to pray for Dave, just in case I was wrong about my terrible premonition. Just in case there was anything we could do with our powerless little selves to save him.

(As I type this, my hands are shaking and my pulse is speeding up. It's hard to get enough air, but I'm so strangely compelled to continue.)

I remember the doctor's words. The words the last few hours had hinged on. The words I wished I could stop in midair and redirect, back into the man's mouth to be changed to "We have him stabilized and he's going to be okay". The words that brought my life to a screeching halt.

I remember. I remember too much. Even shock couldn't save me from remembering those nauseating moments.

It might help to press that bruise from time to time. It might help to purge occasionally. But, damn if it doesn't feel like I will fall apart at the seams to think of it.

If Dave had survived me, I'd want him to focus on the 15 years we had together and not the last 7 days of life. So, I don't dwell there too much, but on the other hand, maybe unearthing those memories helps to dull their edges just a little every time until their edges don't cut quite as easily.

Lost

Photo from here

There are days when I am still astounded that he hasn't come home.

6:30 pm rolls around and I find myself listening for the distinctive note of his car pulling into the driveway.

I find myself looking for him in the shed, expecting to see him fixing something on his workbench.

My brain hasn't worked out that he is gone.

I am like Red Dog, searching high and low for the one he loves. Searching faces and seeming to ask "have you seen him?" Going from place to place, determined to find the person who he loved above all others. Never stopping.

On the day Greg died, I looked for him in the faces of the policemen, expecting them to tell me where he was ... when they had already told me where he wasn't.

I searched the faces of his friends.

I search for him every night in my dreams .... and sometimes I find him.

I found him in my dreams last week and I asked him WHY he had to go. (That question that we all wonder: WHY did they die, WHY are we left here without them, WHY they were taken long before their time???)
In the dream, he just carried on making a sandwich and explained (as though repeating himself for the umpteenth time) that "there was a car accident".

....and even though that is the truth of it, it doesn't seem to stop my subconscious mind from searching for him every day and every night.

Because I have lost him, and I still have this desperate need to find him.


.
.
.
.
.
.
... I know the word "loss / lost" annoys a lot of widows and I want to assure you that I do know exactly where his body is, but "lost" is a word I often use because it describes how *I* feel as well.

Layers

from here

Maybe what grief triggers do is peel back all my layers to where my original pain lies.
I might be constructing a new life for myself out of the rubble his death left behind and really kicking ass. I might go days or even weeks without losing hope or crying. Then, something will happen that may or may not be a big deal and all the progress I've seemingly made is peeled away to show me, in sharp contrast, what I am still grieving. Sometimes, the layers get peeled back to before the most recent tragedy and remind me that I'm still grieving old losses, too.

My own recent trigger peeled back the layers of growth to the original pain I carry with me - the loss of my mother and the ensuing childhood raised by someone who always seemed burdened by my presence. His behavior managed to program my child's brain to believe that I was a hardship. Many years of my own work on myself and a 15 year relationship helped to restore much of my self-worth. When Dave died, I continued to see proof of my inherent worth when the people who care about me freely gave of their love and kept me afloat during my darkest times.

But a recent grief trigger that got at my sense of worth seemingly unraveled much of this work. Not permanently, of course. And it won't take years to weave it back together again. It'll take days, maybe weeks, tops. But it's a reminder of how I carry old pain with me. Not just Dave's death, which takes up most of the space in my heart right now, but ancient hurts that aren't fully healed.

I think that's why grief triggers can be so insidious. I think they're just triggering the grief of my most recent loss, but it might actually be a compounded pain they trigger. One pain leads to another, leads to another, leads to another. They get all wrapped up in each other and almost indistinguishable.
Add that to a chronic worrier and over-thinker and it's a grief storm extravaganza.

Fortunately, with the help of dedicated friends, I know I can weather the storms. In the middle of the storm I forget this fact and need to be reminded, but after having ridden many out, I have proof that they are not permanent and that there is an end in sight.

Triggers are a part of everyday life. They will find me even if I don't open myself up to them. Unfortunately, just living life makes me vulnerable to them. And living life without letting fear rule me REALLY opens me up to them. Rejection or further loss can be powerful triggers.

But they'll be there in mundane places too. My mailbox, my iPod, my kitchen, the realty sign in my yard. All unavoidable.

Each time a trigger gets me, it builds my strength. The next trigger might not hit quite so hard and my recovery from it might be quicker and easier. None of that means it won't hurt just as much as always, or even MORE than ever before, though. That's another realization I've made. To be reminded that the pain won't last doesn't resolve the pain itself. It might give me enough hope to ride out that current storm, but it doesn't eliminate the pain and the pain grinds me to a halt. And that is okay. It's okay to feel too heavy to move. It's okay to admit that the weight of the grief is too heavy to bear standing up under and to let it take me down.

As soon as the weight lessens, though, I have to take my chance to stand up again and run with it, getting my feet underneath me again and readying myself for the next hurdle life sends me.

So today, the weight lessened enough to stand up under it and make some plans for moving forward.
Now I can build up strength again and attempt to live life without the fear of the next storm's arrival.

That is my daily challenge.

give me one reason

In any tragedy, early loss or hard lesson, we look for a reason behind it. The "why". Over the last three years I have searched for the explanation, or rationale, for Jeff's death and all the aftermath of his loss. Not the reason written on his autopsy certificate or the coroner's report. Something deeper. Something less concrete but still as real...and "good". I have searched for a sort of justification for his loss. Some signal that the repercussions for his death were not all negative and in vain. I have felt the flicker of atonement when an acquaintance had heard that Jeff's reluctance to go to the doctor resulted in his death and insisted her husband go to the doctor for a persistently bothersome throat...only to find out that he had cancer and possibly had a chance to catch it in time. I felt some sort of rationale - maybe Jeff saved someone else's daddy in a round about way. While signing a co-worker's life insurance papers as a witness after telling them of our life insurance debacle and how life would be so different for the kids and me if I didn't have to worry about money, I felt an acknowledgement for our loss. Someone wouldn't have to face widowhood with children and not know how they would provide for them financially. After singlehandedly installing six fence posts correctly in our backyard with only the help of a postpounder, a level and a ladder (plus an extremely zealous four-year old boy), I wondered over whether I would have not only been able to do this before Jeff's death and if I would have had the confidence to unquestioningly tackle the project alone. I certainly feel that will never be a good enough reason for losing my beloved...But there may be some other purpose behind his loss. A string of positive happens that would not have happened if I were able to hold him just a little longer. Hopefully, each loss of each of our spouses has caused some amount of positive to ripple through humanity. Because I need some amount of rationale. Some amount of explanation. Some amount of knowledge that my love's life did not go unnoticed.

still?

Photo from here.....

I was asked yesterday how Jeff died. I am often able to tell the awful tale involving the screams, the CPR in the parking lot and the confusion of two little ones without flinching or crying. It is now just regurgitated information that I have been required to tell so many times that I think I could tell it in my sleep.
But there is one part of the story that always makes me cry...if I tell it. It's a strange part. It's not the part where I watch the nurse lead my little daughter away by the hand with my tiny son on her hip.It's not the part where I am begging the doctor to help me do CPR. It's not the part where I realize that Jeff is gone because his eyes have gone cloudy. It's not the part where I am begging the doctor to help me do CPR.
The portion of events that make me sob happened during all the crazy and terrifying moments. As I attempted to breathe live back into my husband, I would take a breath and look up. Each time I lifted my head I'd scream out with fear and anguish. Each time, my eyes would meet a man in the parking lot.
He was holding his cloth grocery bags. Watching. Being entertained by the last moments that I ever spent with my husband. He was most likely not enjoying what he saw, but he wasn't, couldn't, help in any way...And still he watched.
Each breath, he was still there. Over the shoulder of one of the doctors I'd see him staring. Witnessing the most intimate moment I have ever shared with my husband - the moment he left this world.
And for that, I illogically and possibly unkindly hate this man with all my might. I can still imagine all the things I would love to say to him. How I would tell him to get better cable service.
I realize that I may be pouring all my anger surrounding this terrible event into one unexpecting being....But I still can't quell my fury.
To appease myself, I ensure that I NEVER stare at car accidents when I am unable to provide any assistance. I beg others to do the same.
But still, when I tell the story, this is the part that makes me cry. That one person was entertained by the loss of my husband. And that still hurts so very badly.