Acknowledging Trauma
I left off writing about my burn accident at the emergency room on the morning of my hypoglycemic episode. There is so much more to tell. So much of it has remained inaccessible within the recesses of my brain that I'm surprising myself as the memories emerge, and what I have realized is that the body remembers trauma even when the mind doesn't.
I experienced a poignant example of this recently, when an ex-partner appeared at my place of work with second wife and family in tow. This man was a formative part of my adult life, and I made decisions based on our relationship that shaped my future as it appears now. It was an intense connection and traumatic break-up--one that took me a good deal of time to recover from. I had the opportunity to finally make peace with its demise about a decade after, when he got back in contact with me after his first marriage failed. We reconnected long distance over Skype, and I was careful to keep things strictly platonic during our weekly chats. The situation escalated when he sent a suggestive text message one evening. I didn't engage--it seemed too risky--I had been profoundly hurt, and instinct told me to protect myself. I brought up the text the next time we spoke and asked whether he was interested in seeing one another in person to explore the possibility of rekindling, and he faltered. The following weekend, he waited until the end of our hour-long conversation to say that he was no longer interested in communicating. Period. I responded with a caustic email. It was scathing--not the most skillful response--but it guaranteed that he would never contact me again, and that was my aim. I finally had closure; his behavior reassured me that he was not the person I once thought he was. To this day, I believe I dodged a painful bullet that would have ended in divorce. And so that was that; I was finished with him mentally and emotionally, and I seldom thought of him over the ensuing years.
Fast forward to two weeks ago, when down the stairs into my place of work walks this person. I literally work on top of a mountain--the location is a bit remote. Granted, hundreds of thousands of tourists from around the globe pass through annually--but still, what are the chances that we would cross paths? I only moved to the state a few months ago, and he lives elsewhere in the country. I first saw him out of the corner of my eye; actually--I didn't so much as see him as I sensed him. I'm pretty sure my heart began racing before I consciously recognized him. I could see from his body language that he recognized me as well, but he disappeared into the museum before I could say anything. This is when things got interesting for me on a physiological level. My reaction was visceral. As the realization sank in, my mouth became dry, breathing shortened, thoughts scrambled. I experienced a splitting of my perception; I was somewhere outside my body, hearing my voice speak to other visitors while my head reeled in the background. I had zero control over these responses. They were completely physical. Being in his presence--someone with whom I'd experienced significant trauma--launched my body into fight or flight mode. It was a primal--"being chased by a lion through the savanna"--type of experience. Even though my conscious mind had been come to terms with the situation years ago, my body laid bare any unresolved emotion that existed in my psyche.
I've talked a bit in my blogs about how important it is for me to be seen authentically right now, because I spent a very long time hiding pieces of myself due to the shame I felt. This encounter was an important crossroads, and I knew I would feel significant regret if I didn't engage him. So I did. I called his name, spoke to him, and was perfectly pleasant despite my internal storm. He was extremely awkward, and I conversed more with his wife than with him as they stood before me. There is no doubt in my mind that had I not called his name from across the room he would have waltzed out without saying a word, and it felt important to demonstrate that I existed and that I was not comfortable being used as a pawn to spare his discomfort. Having been as close as we were at one point, I think it likely that he too was having some sort of amped-up physio-emotional response to the situation. It's evident that his reaction to this was an attempt to hide and deny--from me, from his wife, from himself. This just happens to be something I've made a conscious effort to stop doing.
Circling back to the present, I know that I did the same thing--hide and deny--much of what I experienced around the time of my burn and after. In the hospital, I became unnaturally upbeat--the "perfect patient." My reaction felt absolutely genuine. I told myself it was because of the outpouring of support that came in from friends and loved ones and how thankful I was to have come out of the episode with only a burn, when I could have paid with my life. I truly felt like I was being hospitalized as a formality. The hypoglycemic episode was temporary--I'd suffered no detectable brain damage from it--the burn was manageable, and I really wasn't in that much pain--the morphine I had coming through the IV drip helped with that. Sure, I was in Massachusetts General Hospital for two weeks on the burn ward, but I wasn't really sick.
Just like in my mind, it wasn't really a big deal that I had two major surgeries within the span of a week's time--the first to have my burn debrided, then covered in pig skin that was stapled in place and had to be kept moist around the clock with silver nitrate solution--the second for the graft itself. I took in stride that during the second surgery, the equivalent of a cheese grater removed the top layers of a two-foot swath of skin on my left thigh--my donor site--just deep enough to expose all of the nerve endings located there and make it impossible to move that appendage or sleep on my left side for many weeks.
I put away that for days after the harvested skin was once again stapled to my arm and shoulder, my injured arm had to remain immobile, elevated at 90 degrees to my body, my elbow locked in a bent position, supported in a brace that had been custom made out of hard molded plastic and thick metal pipe. I didn't let it bother me that said brace became so heavy and constricting where it was supported at my waist that it crushed my rib cage and caused stomach pain so severe that a new brace had to be made. This one was constructed of dense foam blocks and while lighter, was so huge that I called it the barcalounger, as I was by that time an expert at using humor to deflect uncomfortable situations.
I made light of the fact that coming off of multiple days of post-surgical morphine led to symptoms of withdrawal that happened to coincide with constipation so extreme that I had to take four different forms of laxative over a six-hour period to be able to eat again. That day was the only day I expressed anger, hobbling around the halls of the burn ward with my cane (because I couldn't move my left leg), bloated, in pain, and completely pissed that the shift change among the nurses impeded my receiving subsequent doses of laxative. In the future, I spun this memory too, and when I recounted it, I focused on the other patients I saw in their rooms as I passed through the hallway--the patients that were actually sick--immobile in beds draped with plastic sheeting from ceiling to floor, so profoundly burned that that the air itself could cause them a fatal infection. It was ungrateful and unproductive to feel anything but lucky I wasn't them, so I didn't.
I glossed over the fact that the healing of my donor site was weeks long and excruciating, as a thick, two-foot long scab formed and became one with the yellow cloth of the wound dressing, forcing me to sleep on absorbent pads to contain the fluid weeping out of it. I put away that one day during the healing of this wound, the itch was so intense that I could no longer stand it, so I gritted my teeth, and began to pull, and pull, and pull to rip off the dressing, impregnated by the scab, separating it from my body--because at that point I favored pain over the discomfort of the incessant itching.
I also put away the memories of the loathed compression garments I wore for a year-and-a-half after my second surgery. They were custom-made stretchy mesh half-shirts that zipped up the front, whose sleeves ended at my elbows in constrictive elastic bands and had ridiculous-looking Madonna-bra cups to accommodate my breasts. Hot and uncomfortable, their compressive nature made me look like a twelve-year-old boy, and I began wearing padded bras over the outside of my burn garments, under my normal clothing, just to keep a part of my femininity intact.
I tried not to notice how painful and annoying my burn scar would be for years after, as I endured laser treatments to enhance healing for as long as my insurance would cover them (not long enough) and wore long sleeves and tubular bandages at the beach to keep my delicate new skin protected. The scar was tight and zings of pain would radiate down my arm if I brushed against something or went over a bump while riding my bike, but I would quickly dismiss the feeling, because what could I do about it?
I noticed, but quickly put away, how I felt when after finally allowing the scar to peek out from under my t-shirt sleeves, I saw people 's eyes dart from my face, to my arm, then back to my face, and I knew they were wondering what happened to me. I put away the sinking feeling I would have when shopping for clothes and seeing a cute sleeveless top, only to remember that wearing it would put my ugly red scar on full display. And I tried to dismiss the sense of deception I felt when I revealed my scar to a man after we began dating. I mean--what was I to do--put it front and center on my match.com profile?
But most of all--I put away how this burn signified the night that I almost died--and how it hadn't been the first time. I had two other severe hypoglycemic episodes that landed me in the ER in the two years prior--both after nights of binge drinking--this one just happened to leave me with a physical reminder. I could not take to heart the gravity of my situation--how close I came to not waking up or suffering disfiguring burn damage on my face. It was too scary; I was not equipped. Our culture applauds "survivors", the independent, the stoic. Nobody likes a whiner, so I put it all away. If we are looking at the five classic stages of grief--I entered denial and got stuck. I skipped anger, bargaining, and depression and seemed to jump immediately to acceptance, only it was a complete sham. It wasn't acceptance, it was another of those false scaffolds I spoke about a few entries ago. I struggled with seeing people on the burn ward who were so much worse off than I was; what right did I have to complain?
Acknowledging one's own hardships and recognizing those of others is not mutually exclusive. Grieving one's own trauma doesn't negate the severity of another's struggle, because at the end of the day, it's not a fucking contest. At the time of my burn, I felt I had no right to be angry, and grieving what had happened to me was unproductive because it wouldn't change the situation. As humans, we don't know what to do with this lack of validation for what we feel. To deal, we compare ourselves to others, oscillating between feeling relief that someone else's pile of life-shit is deeper than ours and trying to prove that our struggles are real, justified. This tenuous tug-of-war is merely a distraction--a mental mechanism of convenience that allows us to avoid feeling vulnerable.
This avoidance of vulnerability has become a lifestyle for many of us--a lifestyle in which, in our minds, we are winning. And seemingly, it works, for a while. But as was so clearly demonstrated to me the moment my ex-partner literally walked back into my life, the body's memory for trauma is far longer than the mind's and has a penchant for manifesting at inopportune times. While skipping the steps of grief seemed like a convenient shortcut to deal with my burn accident and get back to normal life, there really is no such thing. Anger and depression simply took a different route to be expressed--dismantling my relationships, making me feel helpless and bitter, and at times making me question my entire existence. This is not winning; in fact, this is barely a life.
In order to begin to strip away the facade I built around my own vulnerability and fear surrounding my lack of control over my dangerous disease, I had to dismantle other false scaffolds in my life. For me, this entailed a major move out of an urban area to embrace a lifestyle that is more in line with my core values and writing about my trauma, fears, and insecurity in a public venue, but it's different for everyone. Embracing vulnerability is the means to authenticity, and authenticity can set you free, but you must first begin by acknowledging vulnerability to yourself.
Fast forward to two weeks ago, when down the stairs into my place of work walks this person. I literally work on top of a mountain--the location is a bit remote. Granted, hundreds of thousands of tourists from around the globe pass through annually--but still, what are the chances that we would cross paths? I only moved to the state a few months ago, and he lives elsewhere in the country. I first saw him out of the corner of my eye; actually--I didn't so much as see him as I sensed him. I'm pretty sure my heart began racing before I consciously recognized him. I could see from his body language that he recognized me as well, but he disappeared into the museum before I could say anything. This is when things got interesting for me on a physiological level. My reaction was visceral. As the realization sank in, my mouth became dry, breathing shortened, thoughts scrambled. I experienced a splitting of my perception; I was somewhere outside my body, hearing my voice speak to other visitors while my head reeled in the background. I had zero control over these responses. They were completely physical. Being in his presence--someone with whom I'd experienced significant trauma--launched my body into fight or flight mode. It was a primal--"being chased by a lion through the savanna"--type of experience. Even though my conscious mind had been come to terms with the situation years ago, my body laid bare any unresolved emotion that existed in my psyche.
I've talked a bit in my blogs about how important it is for me to be seen authentically right now, because I spent a very long time hiding pieces of myself due to the shame I felt. This encounter was an important crossroads, and I knew I would feel significant regret if I didn't engage him. So I did. I called his name, spoke to him, and was perfectly pleasant despite my internal storm. He was extremely awkward, and I conversed more with his wife than with him as they stood before me. There is no doubt in my mind that had I not called his name from across the room he would have waltzed out without saying a word, and it felt important to demonstrate that I existed and that I was not comfortable being used as a pawn to spare his discomfort. Having been as close as we were at one point, I think it likely that he too was having some sort of amped-up physio-emotional response to the situation. It's evident that his reaction to this was an attempt to hide and deny--from me, from his wife, from himself. This just happens to be something I've made a conscious effort to stop doing.
Circling back to the present, I know that I did the same thing--hide and deny--much of what I experienced around the time of my burn and after. In the hospital, I became unnaturally upbeat--the "perfect patient." My reaction felt absolutely genuine. I told myself it was because of the outpouring of support that came in from friends and loved ones and how thankful I was to have come out of the episode with only a burn, when I could have paid with my life. I truly felt like I was being hospitalized as a formality. The hypoglycemic episode was temporary--I'd suffered no detectable brain damage from it--the burn was manageable, and I really wasn't in that much pain--the morphine I had coming through the IV drip helped with that. Sure, I was in Massachusetts General Hospital for two weeks on the burn ward, but I wasn't really sick.
Just like in my mind, it wasn't really a big deal that I had two major surgeries within the span of a week's time--the first to have my burn debrided, then covered in pig skin that was stapled in place and had to be kept moist around the clock with silver nitrate solution--the second for the graft itself. I took in stride that during the second surgery, the equivalent of a cheese grater removed the top layers of a two-foot swath of skin on my left thigh--my donor site--just deep enough to expose all of the nerve endings located there and make it impossible to move that appendage or sleep on my left side for many weeks.
I put away that for days after the harvested skin was once again stapled to my arm and shoulder, my injured arm had to remain immobile, elevated at 90 degrees to my body, my elbow locked in a bent position, supported in a brace that had been custom made out of hard molded plastic and thick metal pipe. I didn't let it bother me that said brace became so heavy and constricting where it was supported at my waist that it crushed my rib cage and caused stomach pain so severe that a new brace had to be made. This one was constructed of dense foam blocks and while lighter, was so huge that I called it the barcalounger, as I was by that time an expert at using humor to deflect uncomfortable situations.
I made light of the fact that coming off of multiple days of post-surgical morphine led to symptoms of withdrawal that happened to coincide with constipation so extreme that I had to take four different forms of laxative over a six-hour period to be able to eat again. That day was the only day I expressed anger, hobbling around the halls of the burn ward with my cane (because I couldn't move my left leg), bloated, in pain, and completely pissed that the shift change among the nurses impeded my receiving subsequent doses of laxative. In the future, I spun this memory too, and when I recounted it, I focused on the other patients I saw in their rooms as I passed through the hallway--the patients that were actually sick--immobile in beds draped with plastic sheeting from ceiling to floor, so profoundly burned that that the air itself could cause them a fatal infection. It was ungrateful and unproductive to feel anything but lucky I wasn't them, so I didn't.
I glossed over the fact that the healing of my donor site was weeks long and excruciating, as a thick, two-foot long scab formed and became one with the yellow cloth of the wound dressing, forcing me to sleep on absorbent pads to contain the fluid weeping out of it. I put away that one day during the healing of this wound, the itch was so intense that I could no longer stand it, so I gritted my teeth, and began to pull, and pull, and pull to rip off the dressing, impregnated by the scab, separating it from my body--because at that point I favored pain over the discomfort of the incessant itching.
I also put away the memories of the loathed compression garments I wore for a year-and-a-half after my second surgery. They were custom-made stretchy mesh half-shirts that zipped up the front, whose sleeves ended at my elbows in constrictive elastic bands and had ridiculous-looking Madonna-bra cups to accommodate my breasts. Hot and uncomfortable, their compressive nature made me look like a twelve-year-old boy, and I began wearing padded bras over the outside of my burn garments, under my normal clothing, just to keep a part of my femininity intact.
I tried not to notice how painful and annoying my burn scar would be for years after, as I endured laser treatments to enhance healing for as long as my insurance would cover them (not long enough) and wore long sleeves and tubular bandages at the beach to keep my delicate new skin protected. The scar was tight and zings of pain would radiate down my arm if I brushed against something or went over a bump while riding my bike, but I would quickly dismiss the feeling, because what could I do about it?
I noticed, but quickly put away, how I felt when after finally allowing the scar to peek out from under my t-shirt sleeves, I saw people 's eyes dart from my face, to my arm, then back to my face, and I knew they were wondering what happened to me. I put away the sinking feeling I would have when shopping for clothes and seeing a cute sleeveless top, only to remember that wearing it would put my ugly red scar on full display. And I tried to dismiss the sense of deception I felt when I revealed my scar to a man after we began dating. I mean--what was I to do--put it front and center on my match.com profile?
But most of all--I put away how this burn signified the night that I almost died--and how it hadn't been the first time. I had two other severe hypoglycemic episodes that landed me in the ER in the two years prior--both after nights of binge drinking--this one just happened to leave me with a physical reminder. I could not take to heart the gravity of my situation--how close I came to not waking up or suffering disfiguring burn damage on my face. It was too scary; I was not equipped. Our culture applauds "survivors", the independent, the stoic. Nobody likes a whiner, so I put it all away. If we are looking at the five classic stages of grief--I entered denial and got stuck. I skipped anger, bargaining, and depression and seemed to jump immediately to acceptance, only it was a complete sham. It wasn't acceptance, it was another of those false scaffolds I spoke about a few entries ago. I struggled with seeing people on the burn ward who were so much worse off than I was; what right did I have to complain?
Acknowledging one's own hardships and recognizing those of others is not mutually exclusive. Grieving one's own trauma doesn't negate the severity of another's struggle, because at the end of the day, it's not a fucking contest. At the time of my burn, I felt I had no right to be angry, and grieving what had happened to me was unproductive because it wouldn't change the situation. As humans, we don't know what to do with this lack of validation for what we feel. To deal, we compare ourselves to others, oscillating between feeling relief that someone else's pile of life-shit is deeper than ours and trying to prove that our struggles are real, justified. This tenuous tug-of-war is merely a distraction--a mental mechanism of convenience that allows us to avoid feeling vulnerable.
This avoidance of vulnerability has become a lifestyle for many of us--a lifestyle in which, in our minds, we are winning. And seemingly, it works, for a while. But as was so clearly demonstrated to me the moment my ex-partner literally walked back into my life, the body's memory for trauma is far longer than the mind's and has a penchant for manifesting at inopportune times. While skipping the steps of grief seemed like a convenient shortcut to deal with my burn accident and get back to normal life, there really is no such thing. Anger and depression simply took a different route to be expressed--dismantling my relationships, making me feel helpless and bitter, and at times making me question my entire existence. This is not winning; in fact, this is barely a life.
In order to begin to strip away the facade I built around my own vulnerability and fear surrounding my lack of control over my dangerous disease, I had to dismantle other false scaffolds in my life. For me, this entailed a major move out of an urban area to embrace a lifestyle that is more in line with my core values and writing about my trauma, fears, and insecurity in a public venue, but it's different for everyone. Embracing vulnerability is the means to authenticity, and authenticity can set you free, but you must first begin by acknowledging vulnerability to yourself.
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| Doing some solo hiking about four months after my burn accident, compression bandage visible on my left arm (it was too hot to wear the full compression garment). Acadia National Park, Summer 2009 |
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| My burn, a few months after grafting surgery. There was question as to whether the bloody spot at the top would take the graft--luckily, it did. Marks from where the staples held it in place still evident at the perimeter. Summer 2009 |
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| My donor site, a few months after surgery. Because I wanted to reduce the possibility of the scar being visible when wearing shorts or dresses, I asked the surgeon to take the skin from the area up over my hip joint. This made for more difficult recovery when the scab began to form, as it restricted my ability to move my leg. This image is after the scab and dressing had been shed. Summer 2009 |
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