Parenting with PTSD, Part 1

When I first mentioned doing a cooperative blog with a group of friends the idea of writing about PTSD never crossed my mind. Although it has been a part of my life, at times even controlling it, since I was twelve years old most of my friends and family do not know this part of me. This is in part due to a feeling of guilt I have over this diagnosis and in part due to one of my coping mechanisms. The recent shootings in Newtown, however, have awakened my battle with the disorder and have made me come to realize how this affects my parenting choices. I will start with my story.

At 12 years of age, my favorite past time was talking on the phone with friends. It was 1996, long before cell phones became a part of mainstream culture and during a time when few people had "total phone" which allowed a new call to interrupt a call already in place. Without cell phones or total phone, callers would simply get a busy signal when trying to reach a phone line already in use (and in a home with three girls ranging in age from 12-16 you could imagine how often our line was busy).

It was a school night in either April or May. My oldest sister was out with friends. She had a curfew of 9 pm which she often broke by 5 or 10 minutes but my parents had recently decided to crack down on enforcing it since she was due to get her license soon. I was on the phone with my friend Justin when my dad called to me. I reluctantly said goodbye to my friend and went into my parent's room. They were both asleep (I'm guessing they must have been sick for being in bed so early, though I don't remember) but my father woke up and called me in to see if my sister had come in yet. I told him she hadn't and he told me to call over to her friends house where she should be and tell her "to get her butt home now."

I hesitated to call. It was 9:02 and she would surely walk in soon. I didn't want to humiliate her over a 2 minute curfew breech. I waited until 9:08 when the realization hit that I would also be in trouble if my father asked again if I had called. When her friend answered the phone and told me she had never been there that night, my stomach sank. I didn't want to tell my parents that she lied about where she was going. It never occurred to me that she might be hurt.

I don't remember how long I waited to tell them. Not more than five or ten minutes, but those minutes will always haunt me in years to come. When I went back to my parent's room to tell them she wasn't where she said she would be, both of my parents were sound asleep and snoring. Little did I know that this would be the foundation of the fear of nighttime and sleep that I would battle for the rest of my life.

My mom and dad immediately thought the same as I had: she lied about where she was going. As a rebellious teenager, it wouldn't have been the first time. They had me call all of her friends, all of whom told me they hadn't seen or talked to her. I later found out some of them were lying (which surely is the reason for my skepticism of people and their intentions). At some point, fear and worry took over the anger in the room. My parents were trying to figure out which of her friends had a car and I was sitting nearby waiting for more instructions. I cannot remember what my other sister was doing though I often wished I could since she was so much less impacted by this night.

My mom was grasping at straws and asked my father to walk the way my sister would have that night,down the street four houses. I put on my shoes and went with him, carrying a flashlight. We walked down the street and back, my mother and other sister sitting next to an open window in the kitchen waiting on word from us. Nothing seemed amiss but my father wouldn't give up. He hurriedly crossed the street at some point asking if I saw what he did: a sneaker. I didn't see it.

We walked over to a spot I had never noticed before in all of my time living there. A spot I wouldn't be able to stop noticing for the few months we remained there after that night. It was a narrow patch of grass between some shrubs that separated our driveway from the neighbors yard and their house. We got over there and saw my sister's unconscious, barely breathing figure, swollen and bloodied. I started running. My father shouted up to my mom and other sister that they had found her and I remember pushing past them to get in the house while they were running out.

I called 911. I shouted at the dispatcher that we needed an ambulance. She asked me questions I couldn't answer and made me repeat the address 3 times. It was maddening. While she asked more questions that I didn't have answers to, I yelled at her to just send an ambulance and hung up on her to go back outside. 15 excruciatingly long minutes passed. My mother cradled my sister's head and sobbed. Her breathing was becoming more labored and she was ice cold to the touch. My other sister had run inside for blankets to warm her up. I went back inside, called 911 again and started cursing them out. They asked to speak with my mom or dad.

The Christmas prior we had gotten a new cordless phone and I brought it outside to my mother. This always haunts me because the reception on these phones did not go far but it reached where my sister was laying dying while we obliviously slept inside and carried on with our normal activities not knowing that she was dying right outside our window. I remember my mom talking to the dispatcher about lacerations all over her body and one on her head that was bleeding badly. I remember her talking about her labored breathing and ice cold body. I remember her saying that her purse was lying next to her and didn't seem to be missing anything and that her clothes were not torn. At the same time, the police showed up. It was at this very moment that I realized that someone had done this to her.

The ambulance finally arrived, nearly 30 minutes after I first called. I recall them telling the police that they couldn't wait to transfer her. My mom jumped in the ambulance which immediately turned on both lights and sirens.

I don't remember the rest of the night. My next memory was visiting my sister in the ICU, unconscious, bruised and swollen from head to toe with a machine breathing for her. She spent a few days in a coma, had a long recovery which included physical therapy and suffered a traumatic brain injury. The paramedics told my parents that she was within minutes of losing her life when they got there. Minutes that I wasted deciding what to do.

What actually happened that night is her story to tell but it came down to teenage stupidity and not malicious intent. Her friend that said she hadn't showed up and others that said they hadn't seen her were lying for fear of getting in trouble. Although violence was not a part of this story, my sense of security had been forever torn from me, leaving a wound that is only healed with deliberate and conscious coping on my part. A wound that is torn wide open by events such as 9/11 and the recent Newtown shootings. A wound I am right now struggling to close.

In my next post I will explore how this affects my choices as a parent. After that, I promise much brighter posts!