...Unfortunately, I seem to be experiencing something far closer to what war vets experience [ed. or so I've read/heard]. Certainly, there are moments when [ed. seeing] young black men cause[s] a heart-pounding reaction, especially when I hear loud voices [too - ed. that's what really gets me, the memory of the voices.]. But I can't hear a balloon pop or a whip crack [or a truck backfire] without my head going into a really messy place. My heart skips. I want to drop to the ground. Beyond that, in daily functioning I pause and lose my concentration randomly. I see the gun again. I simply remember that I was shot. I think about the fact that an inch could have a made a difference between life and death. I hear the doctors saying, "This could easily have been fatal." It's not fear so much as a constantly paralyzing sense of [still] living in that moment.
My therapist and I did have a bit of a breakthrough about it last week; unfortunately, we concluded that it's also tied in with all the emotions from the roller coaster of the last few years. The unfortunate part is that this means I still have a much bigger ball of wax to deal with. Oy...
navel-gazing ends now
