Crisis

I have discovered that I am not good in a crisis.  After the “event,” no problem, I’ll stay to the end and help you clean up, but at the moment in time when the crisis begins, I’m a zombie.

 

Years ago, I was on evening smoke break when we were held up at gun point, with the gun a mere foot from my face.  I froze and could not move.  I’ve seen guns, I’ve been around guns, I’ve even shot a gun myself at a range.  I was also a nurses aide for two years at a trauma hospital and saw what damage real guns do to real people firsthand.  So I should have been thinking about real blood, real damage.

 

But my brain went berserk.  I stared down the huge cannon-sized barrel of this Acme gun and waited for the toy bullet and flag that says “BANG” to pop out, waited for my nose to fly around to the back of my head, which would then be covered with blasted gunpowder, ala Daffy Duck.  I went Loony in my head.

 

My body wouldn’t move, Chris had to pull my watch and ring off and give it over, then push me to move afterwards.  I flew up the stairs after him, into the office, and just stopped dead.  Becky looked up and asked me what was wrong and I broke down in hysterics, sobbing and trying to talk and breath.

 

Ten minutes later, I was fine and ready to deal with the police, but I had no idea what happened during the actual holdup.  I could only say they were three young men, which I’d seen as they’d come around the corner.  Once I saw the gun, I did not retain one thing, no descriptions, no chain of events, nothing.  My brain was totally in Toonville.

 

Afterwards, for months, any time I was alone in the dark, I had an anxiety attack.  The holdup, along with my active imagination, had bogeymen coming at me from everywhere.  I had to quit that evening job because the heart palpitations and stress got so bad I couldn’t sleep.  But I eventually got over most of it, and now I can deal with the night.  I still jump at shadows, but who wouldn’t, they’re unknown shadows.

 

Last year, in the middle of the night, on my bedroom window, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM.  I sat up at the second BAM, which was also when the cat jumped out of the window and started this high-pitched, fast, drawn-out yelp like a dog, which in my Loony brain I heard quite clearly as “Danger, danger, danger!”  After a minute of constant caterwauling, the cat edged back to the window, lifted the blind, peeked out, jumped back, even faster “Danger, danger, danger, get out, get out, get out!”

 

I still couldn’t move.  My brain is thinking: “Get to the phone!” which is in the living room, and I’m not moving; “See who’s out there!” my glasses are in the bathroom so I can’t see clearly, and if I could see, then what? “If you move, the monster will see the shadow through the window and come after you!” another good reason not to move.

 

What seemed an eternity later, the cat went back to the window still warning, then he stopped.  Now, for some reason, I could move.  I jumped up, hit the window from my side, screamed “a**hole!” with every ounce of terror in me, and then ran to pee.

 

After my heart slowed down and I listened to and identified every sound for the next several hours, I finally slept.  And many nights after that, every time I heard the cat get into the window, I tensed, expecting someone to taunt him and pound on the window.  While I’m listening, I’m planning everything I’m going to do, in order, for the next time this happens, because I won’t allow myself to freeze again!  Yeah, right.

 

I really noticed it years ago, when I was being abused.  Every time it happened, I was initially in shock and just stood there, taking it.  It was sometimes three or four punches before I reacted to protect myself.

At the time, I justified it to myself saying he wasn’t really abusing me.  In three years, he only beat me up six times, and he never broke any bones.  In between, he just broke furniture and punched holes in walls.  And he was always sorry, and he always cried, and he always promised, no more drinking, no more coke, no more hitting.  And then he was attentive, and thoughtful, and sweet, and loving, for about a month.  Then the drinking started again, then the fighting, then the coke, then more fighting, then the furniture, then my face.

 

Lucky Tony found out after the first time that because of my coloring, my face doesn’t bruise, it just swells a little and looks like a rash or a bad sunburn.  The rest of me does bruise, so with my stunned reaction time, he always got plenty of good ones to my face before having to resort to places clothes hide.

 

I’d like to think that if someone, anyone had ever called the police, I would have had the courage to press charges and get out of the situation.  But that may be wishful thinking on my part.  I’ll never know, as I was never given that opportunity.

 

He finally had to knock me out to knock some sense into me.  When I woke up and he was gone, I called my mom, the first time anyone knew.  Mom came to get me and dad went after Tony.  I have no idea what was said or done, but I only saw Tony twice after, both times years later.

 

Once when I was maybe six or seven, on a church trip, I think, we went to Western Playland, the amusement park in El Paso.  I remember standing in line to ride the Mad Hatter for probably the tenth time that day.  The Mad Hatter was a small metal coaster and it had the square turns, where you thought you were going over the side before your car twisted sideways sharply.

 

As I’m standing in line, two cars away, the full car starts out.  The car ahead of it had hit its last straightaway and turned into the last curve.  And the car went over the side, into a tent that had carnival games.  I watched the car go over, and then don’t remember anything until my body was picked up and put on a bus.  I don’t know if I ever knew how many people were hurt or killed that day, but I cannot even get close to a roller coaster.

 

I have only ridden once since, a friend’s father almost forced me on as a teen, “to help conquer my fear.”  My eyes were closed, I couldn’t breathe except to scream in terror, then I don’t remember anything until the metal bar lifting “woke” me up.  I turned to Bob and threw up in his lap, then had a hysterics fit in the middle of a busy amusement park.  Needless to say, I don’t even look at roller coasters anymore.  I was surprised by a roller coaster scene at an IMAX once and had to leave.  That’s one I’ll never get over, it would seem.

 

Again, at the moment of crisis, I froze, I’m just no good.  If my plane crashed and we survived, would I be one of those helping people, or one of those having to be helped?  Initially, I’d apparently be the latter, but hopefully I could rally into the former, as long as someone was there to snap me out of it.  I’d like to think so at least, but who knows?

 

I hope I’m never presented with the opportunity to find out.