Michael

"No it's not. Money is something you have to earn. A reason to live should be given to someone since their born."

Here is a story for you. Copied and pasted with no edits (except emphases and strong tags) from the book I am currently working on Riding Some Wild Tangents.

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Soul Shatter: Hidden Effects of Severe Physical and Psychological Trauma

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If you knew where a lightning bolt was going to strike, would that make dealing with its aftermath any easier?

For our eighteenth wedding anniversary, I made plans to drive the Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway with my wife and daughters, staying at BnBs along the way. Which reminds me: Why do we park our cars on a driveway and drive them on a parkway? [Yes, I added this in the original paper as an attempt to lighten the horrible nightmare that follows.] I cannot tell you exactly where on the Skyline Drive we were at when the accident happened. All I can tell you is that I ended up in a hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia. I have looked at the Skyline Drive near Charlottesville using Google Earth Pro and have found a couple of places where this accident could have occurred. However, I cannot say for certain… After 20 years, there would be absolutely no evidence to be seen. Additionally, they have altered the drive by putting guard rails its entire length, where needed, and actually moving it slightly further from the edges.

A blind curve. A speeding car. Lightning strikes.

We were rounding a curve on the outside when another car comes barreling straight at us. The driver managed to only clip our car on the rear driver's side. The car began to slide sideways and towards the mountain edge. I knew if I could not get the car under control and the rear passenger tire slid off, and the chassis of the car bit, it would be over. I did get the car under some control; however, the rear passenger tire did slide off the side and the chassis bit. The last thing I remember before waking up in the hospital was the car rolling over, my wife and daughters screaming, watching as the car flipped back right side up, then all went black.

I awoke who knew how much later. Everything was a blurred fog. My mind a nebulous fugue. A floating blob of liquid glass. A spider web over my body. A blur of white. Then again, darkness.

It was much later that I was told the details. During the times I was awake and somewhat coherent, my only question was, "Where are my wife and daughters?" When the doctors felt I was recovered enough they finally began to tell me some of the details.

According to the doctors, which I still find unbelievable, I had 72 broken bones throughout my entire body. My thought? How in hell could anyone survive that kind of damage? Isn't that a third of all bones in the human body? 206 bones in the adult body. As they continued to tell me the exceptional amounts of physical damage I had suffered, my only thought was always, "How in hell can anyone survive that much damage?" And, "Where are my wife and daughters?" How much damage did I suffer? I'll list what I can remember. Even after 20 years, I can remember quite a bit.

Many numerous contusions, abrasions, lacerations, wrenched joints, and punctures.
Right leg: three breaks, two in the femur.
Left leg: three breaks, two in the tibia and fibula.
Pelvic bone: broken in half.
Right foot: crushed.
Right hip: dislocated.
Back: four breaks (and I thought I'd never walk again).
Several ribs broken.
Left arm: two breaks and shoulder dislocated.
Right arm: one break.
Right hand: nine bones broken.
Right shoulder: dislocated, clavicle and collar bones broken. (Where is the clavicle?)
And the worst one of all: My skull was LITERALLY broken in half.

Thus, the spider web I saw was my entire body being held together in traction.

I was told I was fortunate that they did not need to perform an emergency craniotomy since the two halves of the skull could expand due to the swelling on my brain. They did tell me I was going to suffer some brain damage. Which I did, but it was not very severe. It mostly affected my creativity and artistic abilities, and drastically limited my Total Ambidexterity. It also slowed my thought processes. No longer can I just whip snap with a witty come back. I have to sit and cogitate.

Thus, my body was shattered.

When I arrived at the hospital, I was in a coma. It lasted for 16 days before my first eye opening. The doctors then kept me in a medically induced coma for another 10 days. However, it was a total of 40 days before I was told that I was the sole survivor of the accident. The doctors actually made me suffer for 14 days with my incessant question: "Where are my wife and daughters?"

Thus, my soul was shattered.

I was later visited by the rescue workers who worked the accident site. They swore the only thing they were going to be doing was retrieving dead bodies. However, as all EMTs are trained to do, they still checked for pulses. They found I and one of my daughters had faint pulses. They went into overdrive to cut us out of the mangled car and get us airlifted to the Charlottesville hospital. The rescue workers even told me they had no way of knowing how long our car sat on the side of mountain before someone saw it and called 911. They did tell me that the car had tumbled some 50 meters down the mountainside. Tumbled, not slid.

Unfortunately, my daughter succumbed to her injuries five days later. Even to this day it haunts me wondering if rescue could have gotten to us ASAP. Could we all have survived? Somehow? DAMN, the memories drive pain so deeply into the psyche, there are just no words…

How can one describe this any better that the term "Soul Shatter"?

[God, even writing this is bringing tears… I'll be back.]

Well, I had a decent cry. May still continue to cry… At this point, this section diverges from the original paper.

The most astonishing fact of this incident is that the LEOs actually caught the driver that sent our car tumbling down the mountain. Although they could not prove he was drunk at the time of the accident, since several days had passed, he was known to be a drunk driver. Additionally, he was driving with a suspended license when he murdered my wife and daughters. Yes, he murdered them. I care not what the actual crime he was convicted of, he murdered my wife and daughters. As far as I was concerned, First Degree Homicide. He was convicted of three counts of Voluntary Vehicular Homicide. He was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences.

When I first wrote this paper, he was still in prison. However, as of this writing, he was released on parole in October 2016 after serving 18 years. If he still lives, I don't know. Don't care. Unlike what I said above (in the book), this is probably the only man I cannot look at as being worthy of being treated as an equal.

I had been asked if he did get out of prison if I would seek revenge. During the first few years, my answer was, "Hell yeah!" Then it became, "I don't know," for a few more years. If memory serves, I think after about six or seven years, my answer became, "No." My reasoning was that if he did get out of prison his first chance at parole, he was going to be 70 years old, a triple convicted murderer, permanently lost all rights to ever vote again, permanently lost all rights to his Social Security, permanently lost all rights to possess a driver's license, and he was 70 years old. The only thought I had was, "I hope your fucking daughter is rich because no one is going to hire you and you ain't got no SSI anymore. Good luck you fucking shit. And don't ever darken my doorstep. I just might kill you out of spite."

I hate having that kind of attitude towards a fellow human being. However, it would be best that he and I never, ever, meet in person. I cannot be held accountable for what I may do. Besides, I am now a cynical old fart. Remember the two old men on the Muppet Show in the balcony? Well, I am far worse…

Basically, my paper delved deeply into my research into the hidden effects of severe physical and psychological trauma, including severe traumatic brain injury. The paper actually ended up being about another 25 to 30 pages longer than originally assigned. But the instructor took it in stride. She even said she could find no errors. (I think she was feeling sorry for what I had gone through.)

The one thing researching this paper did for me was to show me that my psychiatrist and therapist had both misdiagnosed me as having Major Depressive Disorder instead of actually having Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Furthermore, the research of this paper gave me the knowledge I needed to know and somewhat understand what I was suffering. This more or less gave me the "forewarned is forearmed" capability of dealing with the CPTSD on my own.

I shall be the first to admit that I still suffer from CPTSD on top of my Adult ADHD. I shall to the day I die. However, I am able to deal with it without having to take medication and see a psychiatrist and/or therapist. There are times depression can hit me so hard that I wished I had a dedicated psychiatrist and/or therapist and/or medication; however, I am also able to get myself through those periods.

The only other thing that still bothers me, many could say still terrorizes me, is that I still occasionally suffer nightmares about the accident. I no longer wake up screaming, but sometimes I awaken still in a PTSD flashback state where I am awake, but still living the nightmare. It is when these night terrors occur that I am truly terrified. The only time I am ever truly scared. Sometimes crying literally like a little baby. And I ain't afraid to admit it. I have had some tell me this is true courage. Me, I don't know about that. I just know it is the only times I am truly scared and terrified. And when these terrorisms hit…

[Sorry, had another cry…]

On a further note… There are times I get to daydreaming about my wife and daughters so deeply, I end up actually crying. Sometimes, to this day, I can find myself crying myself to sleep at night. Oh hell, the pain is so deep the only words I can find that adequately describe it is to say that half my heart AND half my soul was killed when my wife and daughters were murdered. For the last 20 years, I have been a man with only half a heart and half a soul.

And you may ask why cynical?

The other major problem is that this has made me not give a damn about this shit-hole we call Earth. Do I avoid Death? No. Not really. But I do not seek it either. Ever since the death of my wife and daughters, I could care less whether I go on living or not. I do not particularly enjoy being in this shit-hole without them. Now this does NOT mean I am suicidal. It just means I don't give a fuck about dying. It also means I don't give a damn about living either. However, since I am still in this shit-hole, I make of it what I can. Since I am still living, I just live. The only true purpose of life is life. What you make of it is what you make of it.

However, these god damned Absolutists can make it extremely difficult…

And the worst part is these damned stupid fucked-in-the-head Absolutists will say something like, "I understand what you are going through," OR "I know what you are going through." BULLSHIT!

AND THIS IS WHEN I EXPLODE LIKE A SUPERNOVA! NO ONE CAN UNDERSTAND, NOR EVEN IMAGINE WHAT I HAVE GONE THROUGH, WHAT I AM GOING THROUGH!

It is impossible to understand what I have been through unless you have gone through the same exact happenstance. And to this day, there is one thing that truly shames me. An Absolutists once said the above, and I completely lost ALL control. If there had not been others around, I would probably have beaten that asshole to death. Just because I am ashamed of having almost beaten him to death does NOT make him any less of an asshole. As said, no one can understand unless having gone through the same thing. Yes, I will agree you can empathize and sympathize, but you shall NEVER understand or know.

However, in the many years since that beating episode, I have tempered my temper when others say those stupid statements about understanding and knowing.

In other words, I just want to live my life as I wish. I don't care about dying. I don't care about living. But since I am still alive, I just make the best of it as I can. The only purpose of life is life. Also understand this. If my wife and twin daughters had not been murdered, my life and viewpoint would be so drastically different…

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After reading this Michael, if you still believe the universe "owes" you a happy life, then you are "fucked in the brain."

rmfr