Impact: this tide

Saturday, March 12, 2011

this tide

every afternoon lately it

rises within me this

tide
(can I compare it to that? is it an adequate metaphor?)

of despair.

it sounds melodramatic but

it's true

i'm having daily ebbing of my will to live

i can't tell if it's
a pain soaking me
or
all that is good and alive getting

squeezed out

i just know I'm left

desolate, rough, cratered

while passing through these extremes

I want to die,

or truthfully, I just want to be dead

the dying sounds too painful

I am trying so hard to remember how good it felt to

eat breakfast this morning or how
simply delightful it will be to

slide under the covers tonight

I am trying so hard to remember that
the tide changes direction,

goes from unbearable to

merely painful to

sometimes lovely

2 impactful contributions:

Hillary63Mar 12, 2011 07:31 AM
Desolate rough and cratered and then you find an image where life and beauty thrives amid the craters. You're in turbulence, adrift. I hear you about being dead, just a quick end, blissful. It can feel so intoxicating. In a storm we seek shelter, we need to wait it out, do whatever we can to come out the other side. It is exhausting, depleting, harrowing. And then the storm stops.
Your words are a shelter to me, please keep reaching out your hand, the more we reach out we either touch another hand grasp our own we find purchase, we hold on. Please. Turbulence must by its own accord dissipate, its energies cannot self-sustain, they must disperse. Clarity, calm waters return, this is when we can exhale and breathe in again. Come out, assess the damage. Make a plan. Reconnect.
We are not the Japanese people on this day, yet we live with our own shifting and grating and breaking, our damage. We start, somewhere, open our eyes, a cautious look, a wary thought, a word, more words, a torrent of words. Let yourself be heard. I hear you, your voice echoes and reverberates deep into my own mind. I see you.I see your agony. I also see your magic, your aged soul, your brilliance. You have more to tell me. More to tell the world. We are listening. Please stay and be heard. Take care my friend. Please.
Kel
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Jessica Hirst / Palmer FishmanMar 15, 2011 08:00 AM
Thank you so much for writing. I do feel the connection with you and others across the blogosphere helps keep me tethered to the planet.
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About IMPACT

I started this blog to help myself process an unimaginable tragedy: At a few minutes after 8AM on February 3, 2009, my Nissan Pathfinder hit two pedestrians, sisters, and killed them. My memory starts with the airbags slamming into me.

I am shaking and nauseous writing this.

I was living in Nicaragua, where the roads are filled simultaneously with pedestrians, bicycles, horse-carts, moto-cabs, dogs, all manner of freight trucks from rickety pick-ups to 18-wheelers, ancient US school buses, and mini-buses and taxis determined to economize fuel by never stopping. Under Nicaraguan law drivers in accidents where someone is hurt badly are all jailed for at least 24 hours.

No one knows what caused my accident, although my brother discovered that Nissan had issued a Technical Advisory to mechanics' shops on my year and model because the airbags were detonating spontaneously. As my car was one of the very few with airbags in the country, no one, not even the Nissan dealer repair shop, had ever mentioned anything. I will never know if fault lies with the faulty airbags, and the not knowing is terrifying.

All traumas are unique. Our human reactions to trauma have traits in common. Though everyone will have their own path toward healing, I am certain we can help one another by sharing, witnessing, and affirming.

I have also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder type II, which means I miss the fun (ha!) of full-blown mania. I have suffered from severe recurrent depression and anxiety since I was a teenager.