From the Inside Looking Out

(A piece of writing which attempts to convey to others what the phenomenon of trauma, PTSD, and brain injury feels like from the victim's perspective.)


Soul Crashes and Dark Nights of the Car

I’m an injured person. We are all injured people, however it manifests itself in different ways in each life. I’d like you to know that I too am an injured person and even perhaps a bit more injured than you. A few years ago I could have been just another dead twenty-something year old Catholic saint; without the saint part. I have a brain injury. Things just don’t connect quite right upstairs. However, despite this I have a Mensa level IQ. It is hard feeling dumb when you are not. It wasn’t my fault. The accident. It is not like I was drunk or high or even being stupid. I’m twenty-something, not stupid. I’m not stupid. I was rear ended. Terror. Noise. Blackness. Hypergosia. Things haven’t been the same. It’s hard feeling dumb when you are not. It’s worse feeling crazy when you are not. I knew I wasn’t dumb. I wasn’t so sure I wasn’t crazy.

When you are young you trust doctors. Doctors know what they are doing. Doctors have your best interest at heart. Trust doctors. Doctors are adults. Adults know what they are doing. But why do some of these doctors look the same age as me? Doctors are supposed to be adults. I don’t feel like an adult. Why don’t I feel like an adult? The doctors said there was nothing wrong with me. That is wrong. Wrong. Wrong. I feel wrong. They make me feel crazy. Am I crazy? I am not crazy, though I felt crazy for a while. For a while the doctors all told me I was fine. I am not fine. I’m anything BUT fine. I’ll never, never, never be fine again. I’m NOT FINE! No one listens. The doctors say I am fine. It’s hard feeling dumb when you are not. I felt dumb. I felt crazy. Alone. Dumb and crazy…and all alone. Alone, so very alone. And crazy. Crazy alone. Alone, alone, alone. Lonely. Crazy. Confused. So confused. I don’t understand. Maybe I am dumb. Crazy. Crazy, crazy. Crazycrazycrazycrazycrazycrazy. It hurts.

Confession is like a giant Band-Aid. The priest says it sounds like trauma, not crazy. He knew I wasn’t crazy. I’m glad somebody knew. I sure didn’t. A new doctor discovered the brain injury. Perhaps crazy is off the table now.

Damage to the brain is permanent. That is what I have learned. That’s a pretty bum deal since it wasn’t my fault. They say the key is therapy. Therapy to work around it. To learn to do old things in new ways. It still sucks. I also realize that I am BORED out of my mind. NOT crazy. Lonely. Bored and lonely. So very alone. I know what Chesterton said about being crazy. Thinking that I am crazy proves that I am not. I may be a little crazy, like everybody, but not in THAT way. I’ve done Gilbert proud. My head in the clouds but not clouds in my head. Unless you count the brain injury. There things feel a bit cloudy. But THAT is okay now too. A holy Polish priest prayed over me one day and the fog in my head stays mostly dissipated now. Then suddenly I remember how lonely I feel. I sometimes want the fog back. No one understands. People get angry and frustrated with me when they don’t understand. That isn’t fair. It’s not my fault. Why don’t they remember it is not my fault.

I’m trying to be normal. I’m pretty good at acting. This may be the biggest role of my life… playing “normal”. I don’t think it’s working very well. They still look at me… like THAT. I wish they wouldn’t look at me like that. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. I’m trying to be normal. It’s NOT my fault! I wish they wouldn’t look at me. Not if they are going to look at me like that. If I avoid them, then I won’t have to see them looking at me. Looking at me with their pity written all over their face. Looking at me…like an object…like something…something broken. Something less. Less than themselves. I’d like to shove their pity up their nose! But their expressions, they brand me. It hurts and all I want to do is cry. People should not be allowed to wear expressions that make people cry. So I don’t look. I don’t talk. I just follow with my head down and my hair falling out.

There is another sort of look. One I dread more. I shudder. I don’t like thinking of it. It’s worse than pity. Pity, at least, is a twisted sort of love. Maybe. I don’t know. I can pretend. But that annoyance… that frustration, it inevitably spews anger all over. I hate that the most. I hate it. I am not trying to be annoying. It is not fair to be annoyed at me. I’m trying not to be in the way. I’m trying not to be a pain. I’m trying not to be so broken. I’m trying very hard to be normal and to speak straight and to not burst into tears and not jump at sudden noises or flinch when people touch me or zone out when I’m overwhelmed! I try to stifle my panic when you all drive too fast or brake too fast or turn too fast. I know the passenger side brake pedal is broken. I know, but I can’t help using it. I can’t help it. It is not fair to be annoyed. It is not fair to be angry at me. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. I’m not crazy. It’s not my fault. Don’t be angry. Don’t make me feel like a burden. Forgive me for throwing paint brushes at you. You frightened me. I can’t handle your anger. It is not fair to be angry. It makes me frightened and ashamed. It makes it hard to remember that “ashamed” is wrong. Because it is not my fault. And I am NOT crazy. I’m just broken.

Unfortunately, I have learned that being broken is the worst thing to be if you are American. Broken is the ultimate evil. Broken gets in the way of efficiency. It gets in the way of fun. It gets in the way of fun fuzzy feel good fictions. Brokenness destroys fictions. People don’t like their fictions destroyed. They would rather destroy the broken. Or make them go hide themselves away. But I know a secret. You are all broken too. Hypocrites. You are all broken too, yet you shove each other out of the way to be able to throw the first stone at me. Just because I can’t hide my “broken”. Just because my “broken” shows. I have another secret though. I am probably smarter than most of you fiction addicts. I am not stupid. I am VERY much not stupid. Go flush your stupid annoyed angry faces down a toilet. You make me sick.

I am lonely. I miss my best friend. I can’t even remember when we stopped talking. She doesn’t know about how I almost died. She doesn’t know about the brain injury. She just stopped calling. Then stopped visiting. Then I gave up on trying to reconnect. Perhaps I am glad she isn’t around to see the difference having a cracked brain makes. I’m not who I would have said myself was. And when I say that I miss my best friend, I am not entirely sure if I mean her or the One I used to go visit in the chapel. He is another victim of the accident. I can’t bring myself to go there anymore. I don’t know why. Maybe I don’t want to know why. But I do miss Him. Sunday’s are just so formal. What is wrong with me? Please don’t answer that.

My friend walked away! I can’t DO this alone! Was there something wrong with me? The cracked brain came AFTER. If I wasn’t worth knowing anymore, then I’m really screwed now. I don’t smile anymore. I noticed that. I never smile. There is no levity. I never even feel the urge to laugh. Nothing is funny. My brain is cracked and I’m terribly lonely. I am not crazy, but tell that to my parents. I hate my life. My best friend ran away and I can no longer face the man in the chapel. Why didn’t he save me? I can’t DO this alone!

I seem to have traded all my smiles for tears. And my hair is falling out. Two things can be counted on; my hair falling out all over everywhere, and my tendency to burst into tears. It wasn’t my fault, but I’m stuck with this forever. The friends that are left won’t say it to my face, but I have changed… and it is awkward. Scars in my soul. Scars in my head. Scars on my arm. When did this happen? This cannot be me! This cannot be real! I don’t know who I am anymore! Will I wake up at any moment? It’s hard feeling dumb when you’re not. And the pain… it is just too much. Silence echoes from the heavens. And my hair is falling out!

And I’m bleeding. It frightens me. The doctor, the head injury guy, I told him. He said “hemorrhoids” and dismissed it. He was wrong. He was very wrong and it almost killed me. That came later. Later I found I was much more broken that I knew. More pain. So much more pain. I didn’t really know what broken meant until later. One’s body isn’t supposed to betray you. I don’t want to think about it. No. NO! Nonononononononono!

I’m avoided. I can’t do this alone. I am so tired of needing to be strong. So very tired of needing to be strong for myself. There is no one to be strong for me. I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired of being sick and tired. If I stop being strong… I’m afraid. I’m afraid to stop being strong. I have no choice. They all leave me alone, broken brain and all. I’m not crazy, but I’ve changed. I don’t recognize myself. No one notices, but there is a stranger in my head and it is me. There are cuts that no one notices. The presence in the silence is gone. It is hard to pray to an empty silence. Where did the living silence flee too? Did He flee from me? I’m sorry. Please come back. Don’t leave me too. Has He gone, or was He ever there? I no longer go to the chapel. I don’t know why. Or maybe I’m afraid that the silence there is empty also. I don’t want to have been mistaken. I can’t do this alone. He’s the only one I ever truly had. Oh God! Please be real!

There’s no one to talk to. It is too hard for some to face. The difference. The difference is too much for them and I often can’t figure out the words. The thoughts are still there, but the words come out funny, if at all. I’m an inmate in my own skull. If eyes are windows does ANYONE see the prisoner staring out? There is no way to escape it. I’m lonely and scared. More scared than ever before. Mothers know. Mom says I’m not used to being the broken one, the small one. My prolific pen was quit speaking. My journal lays empty. Perhaps she is right.

Why don’t I draw anymore? Why is the silence so empty? Why does the world punish the innocent? Why does our spirit remind us that we are not so innocent? And the silence, THE WRETCHED SILENCE IS SOO EMPTY! I cannot take anymore emptiness. I am filled up to the top with it. The silence has never been empty before. Does God take vacations? If angels were allowed to plug my ears and screen my eyes, is THIS how the world would seem? So, so very empty?

I’m stuck in the stream of time and the world swirls in eddies around me. Past me. I am stuck. There is a broken clock in my head. I feel no older than the day the car struck. Years trickle down the drain and if I blink I might miss it all.

I can’t sleep.