We know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.
- Romans 5:1-5
In 2005 an awful series of events started when an outside federal agency decided to give extra attention to my then employer. I was a particular focus of that extra attention. Given my very visible role as CEO, and the visibility of my employer within the community, this series of events did not stay under the public radar as it might in a larger city. Believe it or not I actually retained a criminal defense lawyer, not because I ever believed I did anything wrong, but because both friends and employer encouraged me to not leave anything to chance. I remember interviewing 3 of them in Chicago with a lawyer/friend as an adviser and asking myself exactly what the hell am I doing here??!!
As a result I went through the worst two years of my professional career. I recall now what I did not recognize then as symptoms of depression. Not sleeping at all or wanting to sleep all the time. Social avoidance. Lethargy. I would even leave the lights off in my office and justify it by saying I got plenty of light from the big windows. I must have been awful to be around. Someone organized a support effort on my behalf and a collection of very kind, thoughtful handwritten notes started to appear on my desk. I will never forget them.
My outside "friends" slowly started drifting away in 2007 and finally in 2010 they ended the process by asking if we wanted our records shredded or returned. I resisted the temptation, at our lawyer's urging/begging, to suggest something else they could do with our records.
So finally it was over and I could get back to work. Then about one or two years later I started having this weird constellation of symptoms. Disturbed sleep, edginess, occasional loss of appetite, things like that.
I did what patients do all the time: got on the net and started researching my symptoms. I self diagnosed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I thought, no way, this is a combat thing, not an office thing.
A friend suggested I see a therapist. I thought, no way, I'm not that weirded out. And then I went any way.
I described everything to her and she agreed with my diagnosis. She also thought I understood the what and why of my circumstances, felt I had a good handle on things, and simply suggested I come back as needed. That made me feel better, the symptoms went away, and I never saw her again.
Some of those symptoms starting occurring again in 2015 as I felt some of the pre-quake tremors in my life but they never got to an acute level. I just noticed them.
Then of course the earthquake hit.
My response to this series of events has been very positively different from the events of 2005 and I've been trying to figure out why.
I think it's a combination of things.
1. I think that surviving 2005 helped. What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger, huh?
2. I see in retrospect that there was no real finality in 2010. No one ever accused me/us of doing something that we could then defend ourselves against and settle the question. And no one every said we were perfectly clear either. When you get accused and your accusers simply disappear some day what are you left with?
3. Researchers describe assimilation vs. accommodation when dealing with a traumatic event. Briefly, assimilation means you recover but don't grow. Accommodation comes in a negative and positive form. Negative accommodation can lead to hopelessness and fatalism, but positive accommodation leads to post traumatic growth. You gain something positive from something very negative.
It's clear to me I simply assimilated events of 2005-2010. I didn't go back to the therapist to work through it because I thought i had it figured out. I couldn't do something like this blog because it was a topic that was verboten. So it sat there.
This time is very different. I had to deal with the same awkward public viewing of my live body. But this had finality to it. Whether I liked the finality or not I knew exactly what my circumstances were.
And the finality brought the freedom to blog, to move, to do something new.
So there is a real difference between these two ways of responding to earthquakes and fortunately I've experienced both.
My goal is to keep researching, reading, thinking, writing, in the hope that I can help someone else and thus help myself through this lifelong process.
KS
Nashville Thinker
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