I have wasted months feeling guilty because of the pain I feel everyday. I felt like my experience wasn’t as bad as what so many other have suffered, that I have no right to be in pain or acknowledge how I feel. So I push through. I go to work and try to do my best, but I’m not at my best and I realized that just tonight.
I was watching a television show where a young woman went through a horrific accident, so much worse than mine. And I found myself weeping, almost on the verge of hysterics, as I saw her go through the same treatments I experienced. What I saw wasn’t the lovely young surgeon, Torres. It was me hearing the words to ‘I think I’ll join the Army’ – it was me driving with my daughters to my mother’s funeral singing as loud as I could to the radio to block out the grief I felt. And that’s when I realized that what happened to me is valid. I felt all those emotions and fears and when the adrenaline dissipated and I suddenly felt cold and sleepy, I thought I might die, but I didn’t care. I didn’t have the ability to comprehend what was happening.
So today, when I don’t think I can make it through the day because of pain or I find that I have to pull the car to the side of the road because I can’t breath for waiting for the impact, it’s real. What I experienced may not be as devastating as what others have suffered, but it’s real.
The cold sweats and screams in the night are no less valid because they aren’t as bad as someone else’s.
It’s evidently going to take some time for me to recover not just physically but emotionally. I thought I was good, but apparently there is work yet to do. It is going to take more than a few weeks of physical therapy for me to get past this. A single incident that has revealed where my many contingency plans to protect myself in any situation can’t protect me. There is no plan good enough and no support system strong enough. It all comes down to me and I have to be strong enough. Strong enough to ask for help when I need it and to learn that I am not the invincible character that I see myself as and see me as I really am - strong enough to admit my own weaknesses.
It kind of takes the ego down a notch when you realize that at the end of the day, you don’t have all the answers, you aren’t immortal. In a flash it all changes.
It’s odd that a television show should somehow reveal all of this to me right now. Especially after I have worked so hard to create this impenetrable wall around myself. Every morning, I tell myself I can do it. I can function and ignore the pain and be my best, but it’s a façade of my own creation.
I have always believed I can be whatever I want to be - that my success or failure is of my own making and I still believe that. But what I have learned is that no matter how hard I try, I cannot push all the hurt and fear down far enough to overcome it. I have learned that those tears and anguish don’t come out of nowhere and they have to be dealt with or they won’t ever go away.
I have a lot of work to do on myself and for myself. All of these bumps in the road are a part of life and they make us stronger. But they won’t be ignored. They will keep resurfacing until we face them, put them to rest and finally find peace.
Copyright (c) 2011 Rebecca Hertz
