If you’ve been following my journey, you’ll already know that I struggled immensely with survivor’s guilt. I had no idea why I deserved to still be on this earth, when so many others weren’t given that luxury. What did it mean? What was I supposed to do with this new found life? It was a hell of a dilemma that I struggled with. The thought of returning to my old job was gut wrenching, but the fear of failing at trying something new was just as bad. I was stuck in this limbo of breathing but not. Stuck without fitting anywhere in this world.
It’s a common struggle after any trauma, but for brain injured patients, that struggle is compounded by learning to process things in a whole new way. We are often very different people after these events. Our brains are physically altered and our thought processes change. It’s hard to just pick up where you left off. And that’s where I found myself. I was simply occupying space while my brain tried to reassess the world. For a former Type-A personality, it was an additional trauma on top of the brain damage! I was the girl who planned EVERYTHING. I organized my closet by color coding everything by ROYGBIV. Things had to be put away in a certain manner or I would have a meltdown. To say I was obsessive compulsive was an understatement. So here I was…trapped between my old life and my new life. Remembering that glassware had to be put away exactly so, but somehow having no clue where I was supposed to go in life. How ironic. I was an out of place glass with no cabinet.
So, in true Michele fashion…I read. Everything I could find about recovery. Everything I could find about reinventing yourself. I talked to therapists, friends, psychics (holy hell was THAT eye opening!). And I wrote. I poured my feelings out on paper. In the middle of the night, I’d sit with my phone and jot down random thoughts that made no sense to anyone but me…and quite honestly, if anyone had gotten ahold of my phone, I cannot imagine what they would have thought of my mental state in those moments! For once, I didn’t have a plan, and I definitely didn’t have my shit together! That was scary in itself and it took lots of conversations with my therapist to get me over the whole idea that I didn’t need to plan every single aspect of my life. It’s still a struggle sometimes as my old life often tugs at me to come back, while the new me is over here spinning in a field of flowers and getting lost in the beauty of the world.
So there I was, trying to figure out who I was. For 20+ years I defined myself by my career…I was a Project Manager, a Supply Chain expert, an IT Executive. That’s how I saw myself and I truly believed it was the only definition that mattered. That was who I was. End of story. It took this trauma for me to finally break through that wall and understand that those things were just who I was for part of my life. I was also a wife, daughter, sister, aunt, friend, artist, writer, photographer, random stranger who will talk to you in line because I want to make the world a better place, and a badass. There were probably a dozen other words I could come up with, but that was a pretty good start.
So now that I realized I had more to offer and I didn’t want to (and really couldn’t) go back to the grind of corporate America I needed to figure out what the heck that new me wanted to do. I knew I wanted to make a difference in this world. If I died (well, when, since that’s inevitable), I wanted people to say that I made a difference in their lives. That the world was left better because of my influence. Okay…so I want to put on a cape and save the world. Perhaps, I needed to narrow down that scope…just a bit. I realized how little I knew about aneurysms before mine ruptured. I never suspected the headache was a brain bleed. That thought never even cracked the top 50 for me. So I started digging because…well…project manager and Type A personality. I realized there was so little information given to us when we were in the hospital. My husband, who was my caregiver, was flying blind to a degree. He didn’t know what questions to ask. As the saying goes…”you don’t know what you don’t know”. And that’s how my dream of advocacy started.
I never do anything small. I’m a “go big or go home” kind of girl. It gets me into trouble a lot because I tend to bite off more than I can chew and never ask for help (that’s a story for another week). So there I sat, brainstorming ideas of how I could help in the community. I wanted to work with doctors/hospitals on education because my brain bleed was missed by 3 doctors/hospitals during that 5 week period and I never wanted that to happen to someone else! I wanted to talk to people in the community to educate them on the signs and symptoms of an aneurysm so that they wouldn’t be blindsided like I was. I wanted to tell my story. Okay…three BRILLIANT ideas. I closed that notebook and thought…I’m an advocate. Done.
Whoa. Hold on, Sparky. I think you need to actually figure out how to do all of these things. How the heck am I supposed to do that? I’ve never done anything like this before! The closest thing I’ve done is mentoring and leading the company’s United Way campaign one year. This was a much larger undertaking and I was completely overwhelmed. So I backed off on some ideas and decided to prioritize. Telling my story was really important to me and I talked to my therapist about my desire to write a book, yet I had no idea how to go about getting a book published. I decided to work on a blog (and here you are reading it). But “old Michele” crept up and put the fear of failure in my brain and I sat on the idea for a year, while making notes in my journal of things I didn’t want to forget. My therapist finally challenged me in January of this year to get off my ass and just start it…even if I was the only person who ever read it. I started a Twitter page for advocacy and began making connections. I reached out to hospitals and affiliated medical centers to work on plans for Aneurysm Awareness Month and got nowhere fast. Hmmm. This isn’t easy. Maybe I should force myself to return to corporate life? But every time I considered that, my anxiety increased, my blood pressure rose, and panic set in. That wasn’t who I was anymore. I had to remind myself (and I still periodically do), that greatness is found outside of your comfort zone.
So here I am, stepping outside my comfort zone. I continue to pursue my passion to help others in the realm of Aneurysm Awareness and Education. I am putting myself out there because I know I have a role to fill. It hasn’t necessarily been easy, but I can honestly say, for the first time in my life, when I am working on these projects, I am excited. It doesn’t feel like work to me. It feels like I have found my home. I have found that place where I am needed…and what I have needed to heal. Don’t get me wrong…I’m scared as hell that I am going to fail miserably. But I’m more afraid of regretting not getting involved to help others come out of the flames.
In the meantime, I will continue to try to engage the local communities and medical facilities to raise awareness. I won’t rest on my laurels. And I will watch myself grow into what I was meant to do. Who knew reinventing yourself is simultaneously extremely difficult and extremely rewarding?
For the record…my closet is no longer color coded by ROYGBIV. But the glasses in the cupboard are still perfectly aligned. Baby steps.
