Kim,
I saw your post and I was instantly taken back in time, to a time when I went back in time before. I hesitated to share my thoughts, but after reading all of the posts and experiences I feel okay to share mine. I had no anger after my aneurysm burst. I wasn’t thankful, I wasn’t angry, I wasn’t afraid, I just was. That is training from my family – life is full of struggles and rewards, both to endure and appreciate. And though I was unconscious and not aware for 10 days, somehow when I regained consciousness, I was not surprised. I was accepting. I was single and without a home so I moved in with my Mum. Again, somehow not a surprise or unusual. But what was unusual is that I was a college graduate of two English based degrees and I could not read, could not spell, and could not remember. The others share their fear and anger of having long lost memories. For me, there was no anger. I felt I was reliving my life. My memory/my brain was reliving all it could to rebuild me – to reboot my memory, perhaps. While it was mostly reliving the traumas, it made sense because those are what stay in our memories, not the mundane. I found that I could not remember a person or their name until I has relived the part of my personal story in which they were introduced or a part. Does that make sense? So the man I was engaged to, I could not recall his name until I had gotten to the part of my life in which he was involved.
Most of it, through the sad, scary, or exciting memories, did not bring me anger. What I did find, though, was that sometimes I had times where I was experiencing yelling, confusion, or chaos in my head and my thoughts. I found too many memories, voices, fears, images, or – perhaps – spirits crashing into me at the same time. I found that exceptionally difficult. It truly scared me and I thought I was going crazy. I don’t want to go into religion as we all have our own beliefs, but I would like to share with you that my experience made me a believer of spirits. I felt I was hearing voices talking/yelling/laughing/crying, all at the same time, and it made my head explode with confusion. I didn’t know how to deal with it until, one day, while alone in my mother’s apartment, I dropped to my knees. I cried for the first time in years, and I spoke to them. I begged for the confusion to stop, I begged for the silent yelling in my head to stop. I promised I would listen, but that I could not listen to confusion. Perhaps it is true, perhaps there are spirits; perhaps there are none and my brain just needed a conscious kick to get back in line; but after a few sessions of solitude, silence, “spirit chats”, and purposeful thought control, I began managing what I think, when I think it, and how I process it.
Now, 25 years later, I am finally at the age I was when it happened. Though I still occasionally have unexpected flashbacks of something when I was young, that is not what I deal with now. Now, I admit, I am very late at coming to the anger party that some of you shared. Now I am at the stage when I am past appreciation for surviving and am finally admitting to myself that I am angry. Angry that I still don’t remember everything from my childhood or even last week. Angry that I still have partial blindness. And angry that everyone thinks I am “normal” and they don’t understand that I am still having to relearn, redo, and that I keep forget things. The people in my life now never knew pre-Annie-Krys. That girl isn’t around. Most of the time I am okay with myself and how I have adapted personally and professionally, but every once in a while I knock over something I didn’t see, or see a word I haven’t relearned, and my internal temper bursts out. Those temper bursts are what I am having to control because it scares my dogs and my adult children, who have never seen this from me before.
Long tale to say – I am proud of you for being aware and addressing your feelings now. As to the crash of memories and trauma-reliving hitting you, I can only recommend you listen to your own story. Face it, force it to be on your terms, but don’t ignore it. Those memories–good and bad–want to be relived so they are given validity; but I wish you the strength and tools that the validity can be done on your terms.
), but it did take time. My wife has had a few of those ‘heart to heart’ chats with me because in all honesty, I didn’t see it. I’ve sometimes said “…‘My cup, it overfloweth…’ over everyone…” My cup is full of my stresses, I’m dealing with pain, I’m dealing a different world, I’m trying to deal with Me etc etc so my cup is near full to begin with and that one little thing pushes me beyond my limit and BOOM. The next person to add to my cup is going to get drowned. It took me years to see my signs of either me becoming intolerable or my tolerances of others reaching my limits.