Monday, March 31, 2008

Synchronicity, Death, & Dying.... part 2.. A Journey Interupted.

So.... There we were, driving home. Both of us in shock, and trying to absorb the enormity of what had just happened. I was trying to settle myself and regain a sense of equilibrium, and did not feel much like talking.

It is one thing to suddenly have a premonition of an impending accident like that, quite another to be involved in it, and then to simply have to pick up one's life again and move forward. A journey interrupted.

Hubby and I got home several hrs later than we normally would have, fortunately, we had pets that needed tending to and feeding, before we could do anything else. Hubby went to feed the goats and I tended to the cats and dog. That grounded me a wee bit and helped me to regain a little focus.

I guess that I was really still in some shock. At the time that the events were happening, I didn't really have a lot of time to think, or even to allow myself to feel my emotions. It was simply a case of gritting my teeth and doing what needed to be done.... deal with the rest afterwards. But, now that afterwards was here, I really didn't know how to decompress myself.

Hubby, was trying to deal with his own stress over the accident, and it was so hard, trying to be supportive for him and let him talk about what we experienced, saw, and heard....Especially, when I was trying to come to grips with my own experience. I was finding it extremely difficult and was searching for a way to help me make sense of it all.

The thought occurred to me, that maybe I should start a thread on a website that I had visited for about 8 years. I could post anonymously there, so I thought it would be a great way for me to express what had happened and sort of talk it out with strangers I would never meet....

So I started a thread, stating basically, but in no great detail, unlike in here, what had just occurred. Expecting that I would just write out what had happened, perhaps talk to a few people, and that would be the end of it.

The effects of the adrenaline rush, and the stresses of what I had seen and experienced were really starting to effect me. I was cold, despite showering and turning the heating in the house up high, shivering, and not far from tears.

I was somewhat distraught, and yet oddly numb and still a little disconnected from the emotions of the crash....A most unusual feeling!

It was a real contradiction of emotions, all vying for number one spot in my immediate consciousness. A maelstrom of contradictory feelings and thoughts reigned supreme, threatening to overwhelm me, and drag me off to parts unknown. It scared me a little bit, my reactions, and I felt vulnerable for the first time in many years, especially since the gentleman in question was the same age as I am. Aware of my own mortality and the fragility of the human body.

Meantime, within 30 minutes of the crash the news was all over the tv stations, and it was like hubby and I just had to watch the coverage! I could not understand the compulsion, but it was a compulsion....

Perhaps it was our mind's way of trying to come to grips with the reality of the situation....?
Perhaps it was to remind us that we had experienced that and come out physically unscathed, (although, not totally in my case)....?
Perhaps it was to validate that we actually had experienced it and it was not a nightmare from which we would awaken any minute....?
I do not know. All I do know is that for that night and the next couple of days, we just had to follow the news reports on the crash, and we did.

As I posted on the thread that I had started, I cried as I wrote what had happened, I cried as I read people's responses. I felt a measure of reality returning to my mind as I posted and responded to what people had written....

Posters were very generous with what they wrote. There were some who called me a hero....My friend included. I did not then, nor do I now in retrospect consider myself a hero. I was just there, saw what needed doing....then did what I could. I wish, I have wished so many times that there was more that I could have done.

I kept replaying the scene over and over in my head for days, and in fact, even as I write this I am reliving the event, although now it is with a small amount of closure beginning to take effect. Looking back at the thread now, with the hindsight of over a week, I can see how affected I was as I wrote, even though I was really trying to hold it all together.

Then all the what ifs started. What if I had done this? what if i had been a few seconds earlier? What did I miss that perhaps I could have done? Did I really do everything that I could have done? Did I leave anything undone? Until I was almost screaming inside my mind.

For a few days after the crash, every time I heard a small plane go over head I braced myself, thinking it was going to crash. I was really shocked at my reactions, and realized that I had a small amount of post traumatic stress syndrome.

I realized then also, that the incident had affected me far more than I was allowing myself to feel. It was almost as though I were standing outside of myself, looking in at me and dispassionately observing and recording my reactions. It was the weirdest feeling.

More tomorrow

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You did all you could do! more then most people could have in that situation and certainly what he needed at that time, just someone to sit with him and look out for his best interests.