Novelling Can Help Only So Much With PTSD

Published Categorised as Personal, Events, Brain Health, Health, Brain Biofeedback

Writing is good for me. Writing a novel during NaNoWriMo is exciting and takes me out of the reality of my PTSD and brain injury. But writing can only do so much. And when reality intrudes in the form of a requested conversation with one’s insurance broker, the heart can go a little wonky.

I like my insurance broker; I’ve always enjoyed conversing with him. But I hate insurance companies. My neurodoc asked me when I first began to hate them — apparently “hate” is a clue that insurance companies and any mention of them are a trigger for my PTSD. I had to think about his question. I didn’t hate them after my first encounter with them when I was in a car crash in 1991. I saw them first as a partner to help me get better then later as an adversary.

By the year 2000, insurance companies and their regulations under Ontario law had changed drastically. Instead of a let’s-get-you-better attitude, the person who answered the phone when I called after my 2000 crash, made out like she was taking my claim while giving me the runaround. Just making the claim in 2000 was hell for me. (Making a claim under current Ontario law is much, much worse.)

That’s when I began to hate them.

I suppose I would’ve been all right if I’d spoken to my broker himself, whom I’ve known for decades. But I was put through to a staff member, someone I didn’t know. Not good for someone with a brain injury. We like the familiar. We want to talk to the person we know. Then she was asking me questions in order to update my file. All perfectly reasonable. My traumatized brain thought otherwise. I struggled not to bite her head off as inside I screamed, I want to get off the phone! Now! Somehow I answered her questions and later I spoke to my neurodoc who told me that that call was a huge trigger. Huge!

Oh.

I had dreams that night, and this week, though I was in what I call my happy neutral place, the biofeedback sensors told a different story. My heart rate didn’t even try to sync with my breathing. Instead it trotted along at about 109 then zipped up to as high as 189 and as low as 37, over and over. Geeze.

Ramryge angels at Gloucester Cathedral, England

Brain injury grief is

extraordinary grief

research proves

needs healing.

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You know, this is why we have emotions: to tell us how others and events are affecting us. When our affect is flat or our emotions inconsistent or AWOL, we think we’re doing okay. And then wonder why we have physical issues like gaining weight (or losing it). I’m thankful I have the biofeedback and my neurodoc to do a reality check when my emotions aren’t giving me these crucial clues.