Tag Archives: PTSD

My Isolation

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I have been living pretty much in isolation for almost five years now. It’s grueling. Agoraphobia is no-nonsense and predatory. When it’s fueled by trauma and a brain injury – neither one being a static reality – it can be disabling. Being held up and shot in the head in 1984 is the primary antecedent to all this.


There is no poor-me in any of this. I accept that. If knowledge can be tattooed into one’s being, I know acceptance is the one step that must be taken if there is to be any real, healthy healing.


Acceptance is not total surrender. You surrender to the reality you are in. You don’t surrender your ability – and right – to be the honest manager of your own life.


However – if I don’t accept the full reality of the challenge I’m facing, my ability to manage it in a healthy way is non-existent. There is nothing unique about me in this; not even a little.


The role the agoraphobia (I call it, fear) plays now is more expansive than it’s been for more than 30 years. I leave the house only to take my dog out and, as infrequently as I can manage, go to the supermarket.

And then, there is this.
– Answering the phone is usually impossible.
– Opening and or sending an email can be a steep climb.
– Listening to a message can take days, if ever.
– If there is a knock on my front door, I freeze and can’t answer.
– Some close friends from over the years have reached out. More often than not, I can’t get myself to respond.

The to do things for me include this, simply setting down my current reality, put it in the open. Tell on myself. I hope to meet with my doctor tomorrow morning. It is in-person and I will have to leave here. I’ll write more about this, perhaps.

Break for freedom – Day 21 (Three weeks)

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Day 21 – Thursday, August 31, 2017  (Three weeks)

Today marks three weeks since I started morning solo walks, walks without my dog, without a walking stick, without music, without pepper spray, without sunglasses, without anything that served to make me feel safer in a world known to be dangerous. Victims of criminal violence (and that includes rape, for those of you who haven’t fully digested that reality) have their It-can’t-happen-to-me-syndrome destroyed. Not damaged, not hurt, not hobbled – destroyed, permanently. So, in some cases, taking part in life again can be a steep climb, like climbing Everest without a supplemental oxygen supply.

I can’t tell someone facing a personal Mount Everest what to do, or how to do it. I can tell them the weaponry I use in my fight. First, I believe the following observations are facts. Because it feels impossible does not mean it is impossible, it means that’s how it feels, two different things. Both valid, easy to blend. Same thing with hope. Feeling hopeless does not mean there is no hope.  And then there is a sentence I call the fear tool, It’s okay to be afraid, don’t let it scare you. In other words, go through the fear, allow the experience. It feels lethal, but it’s not.

My emotional experience is not the definition of the experience itself, it is the definition of my response to it. Most of the time I keep this reality in view.

7:27 a.m. – Back from the walk. I am learning daily walks are like daily runs. Each has its own personality. Back when I ran marathons slowly (I thought it was neighborly of me to let so many thousands finish ahead of me.) I’d run six days a week – five days in the mid teens, and then one push to 20, 21 miles.

I don’t know if it was because I knew today marks three weeks since they began, or because it is August 31 and I’ve made it through another August alive, who knows. Whatever the reason, I pushed the pace straight through this morning’s walk, without let up. I have one of those pedometers that tells you the number of strides per minute. I’m normally around 100.8 strides a minute, and today I was at 104.7 strides.

Remember to live.

************

For my father, Sanford Kahrmann.

Break for freedom – Day 16 (A writing pause)

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Day 16  – Saturday August 26, 2017 (A writing pause)

9:26 a.m. – I home from my walk about two hours ago. It was a peaceful affair, sweatshirt weather, it was 45 degrees this morning early. I completed the entire walk in comfort. I am going to, for now, pause the daily briefs about the walks. No doubt I will be back reporting on how they are going, or how a specific one stands out, and why.

I will, you have my word, report if I take a single day off from walking, and what led me to do so. No doubt I will at some point, but all of me knows, now is not the time.

************

For Charley

Twenty-Eight Years Ago Today

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Twenty-eight years ago today I was held-up on my way to pick up my cab and shot in the head at point blank range. The bullet remains lodged in the frontal lobe of my brain. This is not a depressing day for me, not at all. In fact, as others who have survived similar moments have said, today is a second birthday of sorts.

What is worth noting is that it would be 10 years after the shooting before I would hear the words, brain damage. My experience is not unique. I know people with brain injuries all over this country and many went years before hearing the words brain injury, traumatic brain injury, TBI. Many of us were left to deal with the effects of brain damage not knowing that brain damage was the force behind the problems we were grappling with. We were, in  a sense, managing life blind folded, hands tied behind our back. We did our best, but it is hard to be successful when you don’t know or don’t understand what it is you’re up against.

All this is why it is so important for any state with a brain injury program to make sure those who design an implement the program have a solid working knowledge of the brain.

But this is not my reason for writing this today. My reason for writing this today is to share some thoughts with you. There is little doubt in my mind that you too have faced or are facing challenges that feel as if they have total control over every aspect of your life. I am here to tell you they don’t. They really, really don’t. The truth-telling, right-sizing equation goes like this; because something feels like it has total control doesn’t mean it has total control. It simply means it feels that way.

Believe me, there were times the damage to my brain felt all powerful. There were times too that the idea of returning to life after the combined experience of some kid put a gun to my head and firing and then another guy puts a gun to my head less than nine months later had so much power I did not step foot out of my house for nearly a year.  Were it not for some close friends who were my neighbors at 286 East 2nd Street in NYC, I don’t know how I would have stayed clothed and fed. In time, and with treatment, and the support and love of close friends, I began to reclaim my life and leave the house. 

And then there is this, you have a relationship with life and all the elements that come with life. I have a relationship with my brain injury. I have a relationship with the the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that is, today, my number one opponent. There are still days I can’t get myself to leave the house. The point is, these relationships are no different than relationships  between two people. They can be healthy or unhealthy. The challenge is this. Don’t let the elements of life that look to impeded your freedom to be you of have decision making power. Relieve them of decision making power every chance you get. There may be times you can’t. Okay. Relax. Don’t worry. Get some sleep, wake up the next day,  do your best.

The last thing these life-impeding elements deserve is to be behind the wheel of your life. That is your rightful place.

Thanks for listening. Take care of yourself. Remember to live.

Willing to fall down

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A brain injury is not a static being. One’s relationship with the damage changes overtime. I am no exception. It is also hard at times to determine how much is the injury and how much is rooted in one’s emotional configuration.

There was a time after the injury in which I could work 50 to 60 hours a week. That ended some years back as fatigue is an issue now. Keep in mind that a damaged brain is physically working harder than a non-damaged brain. It’s as if a six-cylinder engine is now running on five cylinders. It still runs, but it has to work harder to run.

I also deal with PTSD. So do many others with brain injury. PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is essentially a disorder that results from a trauma out of the norm. In my case it was being held up and shot in the head. I imagine the combination of living on the streets, being held under gunpoint for several hours before escaping, and being held up at gunpoint only months after the shooting also contributed to the presence of the PTSD.  The damage in my frontal lobe as a result of the bullet does not help. Of late, my isolating has spiked. It is rare I leave the house. I’ll put off shopping or going to the library until the last minute.

I do manage to get to the support groups I facilitate for people with brain injuries and I do manage to get to leadership team meetings for the Kahrmann Advocacy Coalition. I also get to meetings of New York State’s Traumatic Brain Injury Services Coordinating Council. I suppose I am able to break out of seclusion for the aforementioned reasons because lives are at stake, people’s equal rights are at stake, and spending time with fellow survivors of brain injury means a great deal to me.

I can tell you that the day-in day-out struggle with the PTSD-isolation is exhausting and upsetting. Those who know this terrain like I do, and there are many who do, will understand when I say it is not a matter of not wanting to go out. I do. It is a matter of breaking through what I call the fear wall. Today I succeeded in returning a book to the library. It was beautiful weather and my plan was to park and walk about the town. I couldn’t do it. I drove about the town for a short time and managed to stop at the market for a bit of food. There was a moment in the market when I was frozen still with terror. Part of me wanted to drop my shopping basket and run for the exit. Instead I finished my task and hustled back home.

Once home I realize that in that terror moment I was worried that the internal trembling would become so pronounced and debilitating that I would fall down. It then dawned on me that I need to be willing to fall down, push the edge of the terror envelope in other words and if it makes me fall down, so be it.

I will not give up, of that you can be sure. Why do I write a piece like this? In part I write it because there are many who face the same things I do and if they read this they’ll be reminded and reassured they’re not alone. And if there is anything I have learned in life it is this; the challenges we face become more manageable when we realize we are not facing them alone.