The 20 Year Shadow

Some days I wonder how I got here. How this winding, uphill, twisted, rocky path led me to this place. Most days when I look in the mirror, I don't recognize the reflection. A gray hair here, wrinkles there, a vacant stare from eyes filled with hurt and distrust, hidden by the smile on my face. I go to work, go through the motions of daily life, and keep the swirling thoughts tucked safely away in the dark corners of my brain, but the words scream at me continuously, deafening reminders of unimaginable things I can't unsee or unhear. 

Don't get me wrong. I'm normally happy, content and at peace these days. I have moved forward with life and found joy again. I have never forgotten, but I have found a way to live and move forward. Time and God have helped heal some of the deepest hurts. But on the days I'm not okay, those words seem so foreign. Peace and happiness seem unreachable. The thing is, I never know when those "I'm not okay" days will show up, or how long they will last, nor do I know what will cause them. 

Often I collapse in to bed so exhausted after the craziness of daily life, too exhausted to think or do anything but sleep. Occasionally I lay there and just cry. Sometimes I dare to let myself think. Most of the time I just distract myself again. If anyone asked on any given night what was wrong or what caused the tears, I couldn't answer. Thankfully those nights have been so much fewer and further between in the past several years. 

A noticeable change is that I don't typically feel unsafe anymore. I am more relaxed than I have been in years. If you read my medical charts, though, they don't agree with that statement. I still hold tension and remain in fight-or-flight almost 24-7, 365. It's exhausting. Even when I conscientiously work to relax the tension, rest, and breathe deeply, tightness remains. I'm still ever-ready for danger. I've learned to go hike and run solo again, though I sometimes get startled or find myself engaging in the familiar hypervigilance. Baby steps, but definite progress. 

Someone asked me recently, "What's your story?" I flippantly replied that there are not enough hours in the day to go there. Ever. They said to just give them the highlights reel, the key events, the highs and lows. Even that is too complicated. "Have you ever told anyone your story? Your whole story?" 

No. 

No, I haven't. Nor do I think I ever could. 

Yet I find myself thanking a soldier for sharing HIS story, because it was the first time I had ever heard someone who traveled down the same difficult path I was on for a while. It was the first time I realized I truly was not alone. Someone out there gets it. Someone understands. Someone else has been there.

People have seen glimpses. People have heard pieces of my story. No one has ever read the whole book. No one ever will. 

Why is it so difficult to let people see me? The real me. The me before 9/11. The me during the aftermath. The me now. 

Because I don't know where the real me is anymore. Part of me was left in a puddle of tears on a platform on the west side of the WTC pile. Part of me was left in a clump of dust and dirt on a church pew where I took a nap after an exhausting 16 hours of listening to hurting responders just talk and tell their story. Part of me walked away with each of those responders I counseled over a period of 8 months. Part of me was buried in a casket of bones and an empty uniformed that was lowered in to a hole in a cemetery among thousands of others. A week later, more of me was buried with another. Twenty years later, pieces of me are buried in cemeteries from coast to coast, held in framed photos and creased snapshots that never made it to a frame. Pieces of me fall in tears from weathered faces overcome with grief that won't leave us alone. Pieces of me walk around in various cities in the lives of once-Tuesday's kids who are now adults and doing amazing things in this world. Part of me lives permanently in lower Manhattan. Part of me remains in southwest Virginia. Some of me is in Tahoe. Some in LA. Part of my heart is buried in the Black Hills of South Dakota. One hand is still holding the pen at the foreign condolence wall next to Bush's and Putin's signatures on the long-forgotten panel, and the other is holding the hand of a child that wouldn't exist if 9/11 never happened. Part of me is celebrating the marriage of a responder friend while another part wonders who is next in the ongoing funeral that is over 16,000 souls long now. Part of me stands in front of a class of seniors who weren't alive on 9/11 while the other remembers standing and looking in the eyes of an 8 year old boy asking which floor his dad was on when the plane hit the tower he was in saving lives. I live in multiple worlds simultaneously. None of them fit with each other, and I can't ever let the worlds collide. 

I didn't see the pieces of me being ripped away from my body as I was serving. I certainly didn't feel the pain then. I did what I was trained to do, what I loved to do, and what fulfilled me as a person. I knew I served a purpose. I did a lot of good and brought a lot of comfort in a time when so many needed a beacon of hope. I had every right to be proud of that service, yet all I have ever felt is an unexplainable shame of failure associated with it. I lost my sense of self sometime between my first step on a Manhattan street in 2001 and my last time getting in a car to leave the city behind in 2014, with a vow to never return. People tell me how brave I was, how selfless, how strong, how courageous, how incredible, how inspiring. I don't see any of that. In fact, I detest hearing those things. All I see is the shell of what remains, filled with anger, grief, uncertainty, stress, worry, sadness, heartache, uncontrollable tears that spill at the worst of times, and the nagging feeling that nothing I ever did would ever be enough. I was a drop of water in a vast ocean, and I can't see the ripple that drop caused, because I'm too busy drowning in the sea. 

People assume when I say I have PTSD that it came from my work in NY after 9/11. The truth is, I had PTSD for a couple of years prior to 9/11. I was first diagnosed with PTSD in late fall 1998 after an incident I'm not ready to share. When I was diagnosed, I was told that it was actually not a new thing, and that likely been dealing with it since an incident several years prior to that. The doctor bluntly told me that my PTSD, coupled with abandonment issues and an eating disorder put me in a very dangerous place. So I did what I had always done - I hid it, I dealt with it silently, and I moved forward. Only the two incidents that created the original diagnosis of PTSD got compounded by September 11, 2001. On top of the then 3 major incidents, numerous other things spiraled at the same time, creating a firestorm. Every time I got my footing back on solid ground, it seemed I got hit from another direction. My life then changed drastically in a very short amount of time. From moving and marriage in 2004 to the birth of twins and death of a parent in 2005, while also facing two other seriously ill family members, a steady stream of 9/11 deaths, an unexpected financial blow, and the death of a very close friend, the complex PTSD was never fully addressed. Life calmed down slightly and then it seemed the next wave hit. More deaths, more changes, more struggles, health scares and changes, a new baby, more health issues and another baby, all while trying to work through all of the previous things that time never allowed me to process. I found a refuge in an equine therapy, but then we left. Moving away from NY and settling in a town where we knew no one was supposed to help us both physically create a barrier that would enable us to focus on ourselves and create a new, calmer normal. Then the first 3 people we met in the new town were all associated with 9/11. There was no escape. But we eventually found a new normal and tried to gain our footing once again. 

Ironically, we found that the pandemic last year brought the craziness in our lives to a screeching halt. While most of the world was in a state of panic and freaking out over having to stay home and not socialize, it provided us exactly what we needed at exactly the perfect time. For the first time in my life, I had time. Time to rest. Time to do things I loved. Time to just be with my family with no stress or schedule. 2020 was one of the best years we have had since before 2001. I know that sounds crazy, but it was. We found ourselves steadied and stronger than ever. Even with some additional punches from life, we were in calm waters. We were able to accomplish so much in the months of being at home. Then, I went back to work and it seems like nothing has been calm since. I handled it fairly well at first, but by December, I was in a very dangerous place again, for the first time in years. I went from those calm waters to a category 5 hurricane hitting at the same time as an 8.0 earthquake, an F5 tornado and a tsunami. About the time I was going to crash and burn, we went on winter break. I recovered and went back in January, ready to face 5 more months and then take another 2 month breather. I was convinced I could do it. Then, I got really sick. I was too sick to process the emotional impact it had on me, though I could tell it was affecting my kids greatly. As I finally started recovering from the pneumonia but then got diagnosed with CoVid, I felt myself losing ground quickly again. I fought it and struggled to stay firmly planted on the solid ground, but then we got pummeled again and again. I somehow made it to spring break, and almost didn't return after the break. I knew I was in a bad place, and desperately needed a longer break to take care of myself, but there was nothing I could do about it. All of my sick days had been used, plus 2 unpaid days had already been taken, and I still had several weeks to go. I simply could not afford to stay home. 

A series of seemingly insignificant and incidental things happened in a row, and I found myself not able to sleep, not able to eat, not able to relax, not able to breathe, and not able to think. I truly felt I was still in a CoVid state of exhaustion and brain fog, but someone told me my PTSD was getting ready to slam into me. I thought they were crazy - I hadn't dealt with any PTSD episodes in years. A week later I realized they were right. I couldn't figure out what was going on. Then someone pointed out the dates. A year since life changed. 5 years since learning some scary news. Anniversaries. Oklahoma City. Columbine. Virginia Tech. Morgan. Kara. They pointed out events that I had shrugged off and stated the obvious-to-them that I had ignored. It's 2021. September is coming fast. Somehow my subconscious knew long before the rest of me that this is THAT year. The year I promised I'd be back to see the colleagues who are still around and haven't succumbed to the multitude of fatal diseases and illnesses caused by the time we spent working side by side. The year I'd dreaded and looked forward to in the same breath. I'm not ready. I find myself shaking at the thought of returning, yet longing to be held by familiar arms, embraced by my extended family of brothers and sisters and their families. I find myself aching for the comfort of the 4 walls of St Paul's, the familiar sights and sounds of the city I couldn't wait to get away from, the tangible memory of the people we lost and the water falling, carrying the grief and pain deep down into the pit where so many left together. I find myself wanting to run away from the tears and pain it will inevitably bring to rip those Band-Aids off and face those old wounds. I want to hide from the eyes who haven't seen the impact 12 years of autoimmune neurological issues and other medial problems have had on my body. I don't want to talk about it or relive any of it, but I want to be back with the only other people on the planet who get it. Who lived it with me. Who were there for the most difficult chapters of my story. One foot here. One foot there. Torn between two worlds. Again. 

Now that I can see what's causing the sudden resurgence of the PTSD, I can work with it, face it, deal with it, get through it and overcome it. I'm tired. I'm struggling. I'm still feeling completely isolated and alone in a world no one understands. I still feel like I'm screaming and no one can hear me. I still feel invisible. I still feel like I'm carrying the weight of the world. But I'm finding myself taking little steps and then bigger steps. I'm still learning and still moving forward. I'm growing. I'm evolving. I'm improving. There is progress. It feels incredibly slow and uncertain at times, but it's there and I can see it. I've been through the worst of days and made it before, stronger and wiser on the other side. I know I can do it again. 

Maybe this is the year I share more of my story. Maybe it's the time I step further out of my comfort zone and let more people in. Maybe it's not - and I know that's okay too. For now, I'm just going to shine a little light into the shadow of the 20 year anniversary that is looming and try to keep the monsters at bay. I'm going to keep taking those little steps and hope they eventually bring me back to the hallowed ground where it all began. Maybe by returning I can reclaim some of the lost pieces of myself and find a newer, better version of me. Maybe by then I'll be ready to share my story. Maybe my story, like the soldier's story, can help just one person know they are not alone. 

I never decided on a word of the year for 2021. I thought "survival" might be fitting by the way it started. But now, I think my word of the year is "maybe." Because for the first time ever, I know "maybe" is just as okay as "yes" and "no." I don't have to have the answers. I don't have to know which way to go yet. It may have been 20 long years, but it's only been 20 years. We still have a long way to go.