Flashbacks are like looking through a kaleidoscope at a world that is, at once, distant and too close. It’s organised chaos, befitting the organised chaos that exists in me. I think of particles crashing together out in not-so-empty space, picking up the curve of time and taking it along with them down some new trajectory. Down. In the face of them I am a sinker well attached to the line. (trigger warning, please stay safe.)
I hear a woman down the street telling someone, in full strident operatic tones, just what a shit they are. That could be me, I think – the shit, not the woman. I don’t shout. Well, its been a long time since I screamed like that. Really let someone have it. The last time was a train platform with some guy stinking of weed and a 3 day bender. Is that my voice? My mind does backflips to the dirty pavement of the station.
“Bastard,” she yells. And it’s a word that bounces round the inside of my skull. A piercing word that almost falls from my lips. Quietly now. Don’t wake the sleeping dogs – they’ll bite. But I’m staring into the half distance, the place where feelings go, sucked into a whirlwind with the last best hope of my salvation. When did my breathing stop? What new sin is this, that fits between one instant and the next, the sits, cradled by memories of strained tea without sympathy. I remember now. Oh, god.
I see bits of old posters and gum, and the flash of an arm. Some darkness that could not have been darkness then. I taste blood. You lose hope, only to grab onto something stronger. Something swift and furious drives your mind towards the edge of everything. And if rage born of helplessness doesn’t cut you loose from gravity’s grip then nothing will. It’s one last chance, the speed of desperation driving you to act before all possibility of thought.
And I wonder, how could this be different, now? Perhaps the answer is that it takes a great deal of time and care and many awakenings before one is finally awake.
How do you help? If you see it — the fear, my almost here glance, the yes/no/i don’t know responses, skipped heartbeats and jarred moments in time — why then, you hold my hand. Maybe not literally but you talk to the heart, and eventually the heart listens. You offer something distracting, maybe. Something present. It goes a little like this:
“Where did you go just now?”
“Oh, nowhere,” and I’m still not sure where I am so I couldn’t tell you anything else.
“What would make you feel better?”
“I, I don’t know.” *shrug* because there’s no lifeline any more, no visible, tangible way back to the ‘future’ from the no-man’s land of PTSD.
“Would you like some cold water to drink? Are you too cold? I’ve got a blanket I can get you.”
“No, no, I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
*laughing*
“I’ll get you a blanket, OK?”
“OK.”
Then I’ll breathe again, and suddenly feel the cold and the tingling that had been there all along. My mind notices my body, and memory is sleeping once again. Quietly going on with the day as if it hadn’t been interrupted at all: It takes an equally vivid interruption now to quell the storm that rises up from the past.
It really is that simple. It isn’t a cure but it is how you get back and how you begin to deal with whatever happened. How you find the will and the word again. Is that strength or is it just that the enemy in the mind has finished for the day, gone home and left you to wonder when he’ll kick the door in again?
He flips the pause button on, and I am made a skipping stone across an icy pond. There is nothing but rags, gathered together to form the glue with which to make something a little closer to living, a little less like a war on reason. If only I were better with the details.
I’ve been sitting here for the last 10 minutes staring at your post.. Trying to think or will my mind to work well enough to put together the response thats lurking in my head. And I still can’t get it together b/c I’ve btdt and It’s just not going to work for me right now.
Good post!
Interesting how distant yet so close your neighbors voice is. I hear something similiar too….over and over. So, ya, I relate.
Why do you now roar anymore? I know why I don’t allow that to happen. Simply put, loss of control…but damn, it feels good to release that volcanic energy when it does happen. Naturally, it isn’t safe to explode like that, in fear of never returning. It’s all about control…and wearing the right shoes of course! Kickboxing, whether in the gym or air kickboxing requires proper shoes or one lands on their ass on the grungy pavement, like you mentioned.
Speaking of shoes…my daughter bought me a pair of shoes a few days ago. Nice of her, yes? I think so. But they had WINGS on them! Like I need any help flying. :)
The conversation you describe with someone who has waltzed into that “zone” is good. It made me chuckle a little. Similar words and actions in a different place. But please don’t touch me, so I don’t embarrass myself and go off. See, I think that’s how people get committed. They are dancing into the memory zone and then some well meaning person, touches them, and they go off on this well meaning individual either physically or verbally. I could easily justify this violence…..but I’m crazy after all.
I noticed you referred to the memory asshole as a “he”. Yes. It figures he’d have the fucking remote on that too!
A good strong cuppa tea, a hug (if its not too freaky)… just something human and kind. These are the ways to recover I find. For the interim.
The bigger picture of bringing flashbacks to an end is something else though, of course.
And I wonder sometimes if they ever stop all together. Like, maybe you can get the really big and obvious ones to go away. But then you’re left with the smaller, subtler ones and they’re harder to identify, don’t happen as often and don’t look like the bigger ones… makes them harder to handle and more devestating, too.
But yeah, just hold my hand and tell me you care. It helps a lot.
I remember this…vividly, shall I say? May I also say some things are never…forgotten?
I should tell you about an idea, strategy I came up with regarding becoming non-verbal. Didn’t get a chance to…talk…