The Burn on my Wall

I’m a social worker. Crisis and trauma are kind of my bread and butter. When I worked for a homeless shelter, calling 911 was what we did, between intoxication, seizures, tuberculosis,  and a variety of other health concerns.

There’s a difference between calling 911 when you’re at work, and calling 911 because your husband is downstairs, disoriented, after having collapsed while exercising.  Suddenly you cannot remember you own name, your address, or why you are calling.

Every day, I work with young children to become desensitized to reminders in their lives of past trauma. To help them be able to react in a reasonable manner to their every day environment. To help them become less hyper-vigilant, less reactive to loud sounds, and triggers.Triggers which could be anything from the sound of a male voice, to the color of a shirt or nightgown.

There’s a difference between teaching others how to adapt and cope with their environment, and recognizing that you yourself have a physical reaction to the sound of ambulance sirens ever since you heard them turning into your driveway. 

I am not immune. I may have a lot of training and intellectual understanding about trauma, but it doesn’t stop the feelings. It doesn’t stop the reminders. It doesn’t change the fact that over a year later, I still stare at this spot above our toilet because the night my husband went to the emergency room for 7 hours, I left the candle burning in the bathroom and it left this mark on my wall.

It doesn’t stop me from looking at my phone every hour, expecting a text message from Casey letting me know he’s okay (a rule that I put in place when I had to go back to work while he was home recovering from the stroke). It doesn’t stop me from tearing up when I notice that Casey’s speech is slurring, or that he has dropped what he was holding because he can’t control his hand, or that when he runs he favors his right leg.

I am not immune to the reminders. I am not stronger than than what happened to us. And although I don’t think about it all the time, it is always with us. The stinging reminder of mortality, the questions from well meaning friends, the burn on my wall.

Soon it will be wiped away with a fresh coat of paint. I suspect I will continue to stare at that spot on the wall.

A reminder of a night my 32 year old husband had a stroke. The night that changed everything.