Being and Doing

It makes sense now. It all makes sense.

That “it” is my survival. For many people, it hasn't made sense how I could survive many years of multiple traumatic experiences. But now, as I finished reading Surviving Survival by Laurence Gonzales, it makes sense.

He explained how many different people who have gone through traumatic experiences pick something that they can do, often something that has a repetitive pattern, such as knitting. By doing these activities, they activate an area in the brain that has to do with reward.

When I was going through multiple years of abuse and neglect, I chose to do many things that had repetitive patterns. Patterns have always been a strong point in my life. I do not function unless I have order or some sort of structure. For example, I have been on summer break for almost two weeks and I already have set up a sort of schedule for myself.

As a little child, I spent hours doing puzzles, trying to take my mind off of the traumatic experiences. And it worked. For a little while during the day, I forgot what was happening. I escaped into the world of pieces that needed to be put together. I felt an accomplishment when I finished the puzzles. In a way, as I put those puzzles together, I was hoping to piece together my life. I also escaped through music. Some of my earliest memories are of listening and singing to kid’s songs on my tape player. I spent many hours escaping through music. As I sang the songs, I forgot the abuse. I didn't think about what was happening. And years later, as I deal with the aftermath of my traumatic experiences, I still escape through music. I listen to music everywhere I go, because it helps me to stay in the present.

You see, music has patterns. There’s a verse, a chorus, a verse, chorus, etc. After my father left the house, I began to learn to read music and eventually taught myself how to play the clarinet and piano. As I tried to forget the abuse, almost being killed in a house fire and watching my mother be almost murdered in front of me, I found beauty and life in the patterns. I do not think I would be here if it weren't for music.

Last summer, I went through neuropsychological testing, which involved getting an IQ test. My score for the perceptual reasoning skills was in the 99^th percentile. The psychologist said I have a real gift. I see patterns in everything, which has helped me greatly in school. School has been my escape for most of my life. In his book, Gonzales explains that learning itself can help greatly with overcoming trauma.

During the great majority of my sophomore year in college, I spent it in deep depression. However, I went to classes and received straight A’s. During my second semester in sophomore year, I received 11 100’s on exams. My nickname became "robot." But when I attempted suicide in my junior year, everybody, including my professors, was shocked. 

To the outside world, I seemed like I was functioning well. People saw my grades and had no idea what I was hiding beneath the grades. They said that they had never seen  a student do so well in spite of such deep depression. But inside, my mind was in turmoil, being depressed nearly every day. I suspect that the reason that I did so well is that I was desperately trying to cope with what was going on in my life- the PTSD, the flashbacks, the depression- and so I threw myself into my work. I found it easy to memorize numbers and equations. I found comfort in physics, chemistry and biology because it had nothing to do with my trauma. I learned to deal with the pain in a positive manner, except that I did not let anyone in to the pain I was enduring.

Having my psychotic episodes this semester was very traumatic for me. I have flashbacks of many events in my life and now sometimes I have flashbacks of my psychosis. But what kept me going and what keeps me going is learning and having something to do. I always need to be occupied, whether it’s running, walking, going to the library, reading, listening to music, taking photography. I find my escape from the reality through doing these things. I find my escape from my flashbacks through these things.

I process by expressing myself, whether through music, writing or photography. Writing this blog helps me to process what is going on with my brain and my life. It helps me to process what has happened and what is going to happen. Not a day goes by that I am not scared that I am going to have another psychotic episode, but the further away it gets, the better I feel.

Sometimes, very rarely, I express myself through art and drawing. I do not draw usually at all, but I am very good at it because I pay a lot of attention to detail, something that comes naturally with good perceptual reasoning skills. I drew the following picture during my depression in college. It is supposed to represent my inner child. Inside her eyes, I imagine that her depth of her sadness lies. Her pain can be felt by looking into her eyes. You can see in her face the silence but the want to talk- the need for a voice. I believe I have been given my natural artistic abilities so that I can deal with all of the trauma I've been through. Without art, without music, without photography, without writing and poetry, I would not be able to cope. I would not be here.

I want to leave with a quote near the end of Surviving Survival because it beautifully illustrates what it means to live beyond trauma:

“We are, all of us, desperately here, desperately trying to be and do here; and if we are not in passionate pursuit of our doing and being, we’re missing the entire show.”

-Laurence Gonzales, Surviving Survival