Trauma Memento

 

I took this photo in April of 2016.  My youngest daughter (pictured here) and I had just traveled to the local high school to retrieve her older sister (my middle daughter) from basketball practice.  Taking the photo was a spur of the moment decision.  I distinctly recall off-the-cuff asking the girls to pose right then and there in the parking lot (as we were returning to my car).  From there, I whipped out my iPhone.  Traffic was whizzing by as other parents / children were leaving right at twilight.  It really wasn't the safest setting for an impromptu photo.  I sensed this immediately which only increased the emotional amplitude of the moment.

Nonetheless, I'm glad I took this terrible, not at all well thought through photo.

Why?

------------------------

My September 2013 job loss from DSU was so thoroughly emotionally disheveling that I immediately / instinctively walked away from my career as an architect.  In light of that, I chose to go to work for my 'rents within a family business they'd had for decades.  And oh, my goodness, that reflexive decision only served to exponentially ramp up the shame.  For not only had I been rejected by my institutional employer (Rob's "dream" job), but I also had come to the end of my rope as a design professional due to the career pivot.

In tandem with this vocational move, our family moved back into our home in suburban Jackson.  From there, my children transferred into our local government schools, and life continued forward.  It had to.  There were bills to pay and mouths to feed.

But what I (immediately) didn't realize was how traumatized my 41-year old brain had been in light of this situation.

-------------------------

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a condition that's tantamount to the traumatized brain being caught in a trauma loop.  In other words, in lieu of the expected gradual healing from the traumatic experience beginning in due time (2-4 months after the fact), the brain experiences intense flashbacks to the traumatic experience.  And these flashbacks demand attention / cannot be ignored as the brain regurgitates the event(s) that did so much damage.

It a hellacious experience that for me when on for (18) months, day after day after day.  Now, these flashbacks (of my job loss interview) only lasted for around ten minutes once daily, but their intensity never dissolved / became more soluble as the months progressed.  As such, within six months, I knew exactly what to expect (& usually when to expect it).  And then one day, whilst traveling with my family back from a vacation in east TN, the very last flashback occurred (while I was seated with them at a fast food restaurant booth).  

-------------------------

At the time that this photo was taken, my PTSD was over and done with, but I still felt tremendously out of place / unloved / disrespected (mostly by myself).  And that's why I mostly like looking back at this shot.  Especially from the standpoint of its graininess and off kilter composition.  It speaks to just how still barely functioning I was at the time.  Nonetheless, I was desperately looking for ways to (even for one brief moment) hit pause on the hurting.

What I'm most proud of, whilst looking back on this, is how determined I was to keep going despite the emotional baggage.  This photo represents too how I saw the world back then.  Haphazard, unsafe & almost tangibly unclear no matter where I looked.