(Note: Today is 22 days after the start of the Palisades fire. My heart and prayers are with all living beings affected. It is still too close to home for me to write about this devastating disaster. Instead I offer a story I began writing a week before the fire began. I hope you find it helpful.)
At sixteen years old, I flew off a motorcycle.
Steve rode a Yamaha; was it a 750? I don't remember the model. What I remember is the joy and freedom (and yes, the thrill of danger), riding down the streets of the San Fernando Valley, wind on my face coupled with the teenage-hormone-driven deliciousness of being wrapped around his warm body, holding onto him for dear life, literally. I remember the surrender, the speed—and the crash.:
We are heading west on Ventura Boulevard driving in the righthand lane. It's about ten o'clock at night, and I am wearing my 1965 Levi Strauss denim jacket, the one that I love because it will always be as old as I am; stretch-denim designer jeans; boots; and prescription glasses. I am not wearing a helmet.
I don't recall any other vehicles on the road, except the one we are about to hit. With no turn signal or warning of any kind, a car in the parking lane pulls out into a U-turn. In less than a second, the car is directly in front of us. We have no time to stop. The bike slams into the left side of the trunk and proceeds to fly into the air, flipping over the roof. I don't remember losing my grip on Steve. I sort of remember flying through the air, then landing, to the right, on the sidewalk, on my face.
The most memorable part of the accident is what happened after.:
I am sitting on the ground, a small group of people gathered around me. Someone touches my right arm, and I hear my own voice, as though disembodied, "Don't touch my arm." I feel no pain. I feel nothing at all, except maybe tired. The voice is the voice of instinct, the part of me that knows I am injured, I've broken my right clavicle, even though I feel nothing. A man standing in front and to the left of me says. "It's okay. You're in shock. You're not alone; I'm here."
An ambulance arrives, takes me to a hospital. Somewhere along the line, someone calls my mom, the woman who, when I cut my toe as a child, hsnded a paper towel around a corner, saying, "Is it bleeding? I can't handle blood."
But when we arrive at the hospital, she is there, with my sister. And she is calm, perhaps in her own form of shock.
Before the doctors sew up the gash above my right eye and fit me for a shoulder brace, I visit the ladies room and look into the mirror. Have you ever seen inside your face? I don't think we are meant to. It looks like meat. While I sort of knew this before, the visual is a different story. My own eyes looking back from the mirror with meat above one of them. It's surreal. I go back, the doctors cut off the Calvin Kleins I'd spent my minimum wages on to check for injuries and sew up the facial gash.
Fast forward to several years ago at a Citizen's Emergency Response Training, where local residents learn how to triage, to assess and sort wounded people at the scene of a disaster. We place them into categories based on the severity of their symptoms and learn that the three most immediate life-threatening conditions are: airway obstruction, severe bleeding and, to my surprise, shock.
I had a difficult time accepting that shock is as severe as the inability to breathe or severe bleeding. How could it be, when I'd experienced it so many times...? (But that's another story.)
I never learned the name of the man who spoke so gently to me after the accident or how to find him, His words remain, the kindness, care, and calm. But I received more than the compassion of a stranger. I had the blessing of having survived physical shock, and this time it came with a name. The incident would come back to memory in midlife to teach me a valuable lesson.
So, what is shock exactly? What is happening, such that we don't feel pain?
When the body goes into shock, it experiences a number of changes, including:
Blood pressure drops: The body's blood pressure drops, which can be fatal.
Blood vessels narrow: The body narrows blood vessels in the extremities to conserve blood flow to vital organs. This is called vasoconstriction.
Adrenaline is released: The body releases adrenaline, which can reverse the body's initial response.
Cells and organs don't get enough oxygen and nutrients: The lack of blood flow means cells and organs don't get enough oxygen and nutrients to function properly.
Symptoms appear: Symptoms include rapid breathing, rapid pulse, cool or clammy skin, pale or ashen skin, nausea or vomiting, enlarged pupils, weakness or fatigue, dizziness or fainting, and changes in mental status or behavior.
Organ damage: Many organs can be damaged as a result of shock.
Shock is a life-threatening condition that requires immediate treatment. If you suspect someone is in shock, you should notify emergency personnel and examine their airway, breathing, and circulation.
How does this relate to denial?
Denial is shock's mental and emotional relative. Just as our bodies goes into shock to protect us from unbearable physical pain, denial is our brain's brilliant strategy to protect us from emotional pain. When we experience trauma, an experience too horrific for us to handle, whether for a moment, an hour, a decade or a lifetime, denial allows us to function, to go on with our lives. Denial is a bandage from the universe to help keep us alive and as well as possible until we have the support and resources to deal with the truth, with reality.
These past few years I faced reality in ways I'd been unable to before: the loss of a dozen relationships, including deaths, a breakup from hell, family trauma, Covid, isolation, my dog passing, suicidal tendencies, followed by professional medical evaluation, lifelong trauma diagnoses, qualified mental and emotional support, time, a deep faith in Life and profound willingness and a desire to heal and to let go of the illusions, some of which I'd had my entire life and that had held me together. It was a F&#!-load, more than I'd ever experienced. Thank God for resilience, Grace and the denial that kept me from seeing reality before I could handle it.
Many of us are dealing with events beyond what we ever thought we could handle, whether with our health, our relationships, our communities, the world at large or a combination of all of the above. So that we can function day to day, for ourselves and our families, we may very well be in a state of emotional shock/denial. When we have the support, the denial may begin to wear off, and like a bandaged wound, it's not always pretty.
When we come out of shock, the body feels the pain that the shock had protected us from. When we come out of denial, we also feel the pain of what denial had protected us from. If we are lucky, we find the strength and the space to mourn the loss of what we thought was real. We mourn the relationships we thought we had, the possibilities in which we'd invested so much, and most of all the time we lost living in the illusions that had perhaps kept us together.
Sometimes denial dissolves slowly; sometimes it is more like a hole being ripped in the sky. Coming out of denial can be gentle. More often it feels excruciating and can require support we never imagined we'd need to address pain and vulnerability we never thought we had, or could handle. It is said that we are never given more than we can handle. That said, I know of nowhere it is written that we must handle what we are given alone.
Shock, if left untreated, can cost us our lives. Denial, in its ongoing state, can cost us relationships, careers, health, joy, serenity and years of our lives.
As painful as the dissolution of denial can be, we can also choose to feel deep appreciation for the denial, for its wisdom, for its protection until we became able and willing to arrive at a place of real
healing, of letting go of the old and learning to live with what is real now, to finding real joy, real pain, and real possibility.
If you are in denial or in shock; if someone you know is in denial or shock; you/they may not know it. By its nature, denial denies the presence of itself; denial denies its own reality. But if you get a hint of it, or if it is ripped from you like a bandage from an open wound, I invite you take all the time you need to heal, to slow down, to create space to mourn the losses. Spend time in Nature, in beauty, in a bath, with your breath. Perhaps, in time, give thanks. Denial, like shock, may have been the best your being could do; it may have protected you from what you did not have the support to face and heal. It may have saved your sanity, or you life.
These are trying times. If and when any shock or denial you are in begins to let go of you, or you of it, I hope you allow yourself the gift of as much compassion and support as you can handle, and maybe even a little more. May you receive the gift and the Grace.
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