The day I almost died, but didn’t actually almost die.

**WARNING**

This article contains curse words and graphic detail of an injury.  Please read with awareness and caution at your own discretion.

I remember pulling the footstool close to the couch to rest my feet, not realizing that within the next hour it would be the result of me lying on the floor with a pool of blood surrounding my head.

It took me a minute to realize how bad I had been hurt.  My body stopped feeling anything for a few seconds, I had no thoughts to focus on, and I remember searching my brain for a reason to why I was on the floor.  That’s when I raised my hands up as I felt a warm liquid encircle the back of my head, realizing within seconds the gravity of the situation I found myself in.

This was my second head injury in one year; my third in three years and my sixth overall.

I would like to say my immediate thought was fuuuuuckk me … this wasn’t going to be good, but I didn’t have any thoughts. I had a nothingness surround me at first.   

My boyfriend went into freeze mode.  I was in his arms when he tripped over the stool, sending my head into the edge of the kitchen barstool that is as solid wood as it comes and then down to the hardwood floor.  I was imminently aware that this was going to be worse for him emotionally than for me physically in the moment. 

I was too scared to open my eyes, immediately hyper aware of every sound in the apartment.  I could hear his breathing go shallow, I swear I felt time stand still and I could feel his every thought move through his head.

When I went to speak, my voice came out calm and slow; when there is a high level of stress the world tends to move in slow motion around me and I go eerily quiet in my body. I know this is disassociation, my well known survival tactic.  I jump out of my body while everything slows like a 4D movie surrounding me in special effects for emphasis. This moment was no exception.  When I recall this memory I am watching myself from above, a third person view of the trauma, it’s safer to be a witness to my own pain instead of a participant in it. A definable pattern of dissociation is memory in third person.  I’m quite grateful for this survival pattern, it has allowed me to live through some terrible things throughout my life with limited awareness.  I am most definitely a neuro-science nerd in the best way, so discovering patterns of my own survival leads me into multiple layers of gratitude.

I told him to grab me a towel so I could put pressure on the bleeding and to call an ambulance. I was quite sure I had cracked my skull open.  It felt like the entire back of my head had been smashed in. I was scared to touch it, I was scared of what my fingers would feel, or would not, feel.  

He grabbed a towel and as I placed it on the back of my head to slow the bleeding, the pain exploded in my brain.  I slowly curled into a fetal position, quiet, regulating my breath to calm the shock that was starting to move through my nervous system.  Breathe in for four, hold, out for four, hold, repeat.  I held onto this pattern with relief.  I’ve been here before; I knew what to do to keep myself calm even in spite of my eerie calmness.

My last two concussions took my vision temporarily and I was so scared of not being able to see properly, that I squeezed them shut, terrified of what the world would look like.  I knew the severity of what this fall meant because of my multiple concussions and the significance of that for my cognitive abilities moving forward.  That fear flittered through my consciousness, skirting the edge of my awareness while I half-heartedly tried to ignore it.

The paramedics showed up and because of the current pandemic, my boyfriend needed to leave me for a few minutes to greet them in the lobby of his apartment.  I could feel his panic, his emotional pain and the unavoidable guilt he was feeling from this accident.  I told him I was okay, he can leave, I’ll be okay. “I love you” I said, “it’s okay, it was an accident, I’m okay”.

When he left I started to pray and then I started to really cry. As soon as the door shut it just bubbled out of me. I was scared, but even through this all I felt like I needed to be strong for him.  He could see the blood; I hadn’t opened my eyes yet.  As a trauma-informed practitioner, I knew what this would do to him.  I knew the level of secondary trauma that was going to be present. At this moment we were forever trauma-bonded, and that isn’t necessarily a good thing.

My body started to float. 

This moment I will never forget for the rest of my days on this Earth.  It was a moment where I felt closer to death than ever before.  There have been a few instances in my life where I am still alive by the grace of God, but this moment felt like I had a choice that was being offered and it changed me.

My friends, this next moment changed me forever.

Before my boyfriend went to greet the paramedics, I felt my body start to go into shock.  I was quivering on the inside and cold, not an uncommon response by the nervous system when you have gone through something that scares you, or pushes adrenaline through your body so you stay conscious.  I have felt this before and work quite extensively with the nervous system, so I knew that I was going to have some work ahead of me returning to a state of balance within my body.  Breathing in pattern is helpful, but not an end-point for a nervous system going into shock. 

But just as it bubbled out of me, the tears and sobs suddenly stopped and the sound of the room disappeared.  I didn’t feel a shift in my hearing, just that time was standing still and the world went on pause. The silence was the most comforting sound in the entire world.  You know how the world sounds when you wake up discovering there has been a new snowfall covering the earth, and everything becomes muted in the most beautiful way?

It was that kind of quiet; the beautiful quiet of a snow fallen morning. Tears well up behind my eyes recalling this quiet for you, now.

Warmth started to spread over my body like a blanketed hug, and I could no longer feel the floor underneath me.  The pressure of my body on the hardwood ceased to exist, the pain in my head disappeared and I could not decipher my body from this energy that started to gently pull me away.

I blissfully floated in this space of in-between for what felt like hours, when a choice was presented to me.  Not quite in the literal way, it was a knowing way, an option of life or life beyond.  The thing was, this space of in-between felt safer to me than any place I have ever been.  I felt like I was being shown my way home. There was no vision that went with it, there were no words or sounds, it was just a feeling of home. Pure grace and softness consumed every fibre of my soul.

I weep as I write this because it is something I have been searching for my entire life.  I have lived a life of trauma, and deep profound love.  I have never had a family ‘home’, I have moved more times that I can count and the one thing that I have consistently searched for – most often, unknowingly – is THIS feeling of safety. And here I was IN it.  I was surrounded by this energy of home and safety. The in-between of life and life beyond, and I did not want to leave for anything. 

I remember the tears that had pooled at the side of my cheek resting on the hardwood floor, but that was the only sensation I could feel; the small reminder of my humanness in physical form.

I wanted to go.  Never returning to the pain of my body, the struggle of my life and the lives of those I work my clients through.  I felt myself being drawn towards this safety like it was the most natural next step of life and life beyond. I was there and I was more than ready for it, I have been calling for this feeling my whole life, as it called for me now.

That’s when a vision came to me, alongside the most glorious sound that I have ever, and will ever, hear in all of time and space. I saw the smiles of my children’s faces as their belly laughter rang through my ears.  I saw their eyes looking at me.  I saw their hearts beating in their chest and the joy burst through their energy fields.  And with that, the decision to push this feeling of safety away, for the time being, was the easiest decision I’ve ever made.

I pushed that safety away with every ounce of power I had. Within the next moment (or so I can recall) I felt shivers rush through my body like a bolt of lightning and I was back on the hardwood floor, pain searing through my head, and along with it, a grief so profound that I will never be the same again.

My eyes opened.

The paramedics came in moments later and I tried to push myself to a seated position.  My body felt like it had been beaten with a bat, my head was sending fireworks of pain through my neck into the center of my heart.  The pain was emotional and physical, ethereal and human. I felt the pain of the world within me, and of me, searing through my body for me. That’s when I saw the blood smeared all over the floor, the fear that my boyfriend had written all over his face, and the looks of empathy from these incredible paramedics reaching down to help me sit up.

Then it all went black. 

They said I fainted for a few seconds. I felt like all I wanted was the blackness to take me back. I felt like this night was a never-ending round of hell and I was so exhausted from this life of hurt.  All of the trauma of my life folded itself into this one moment of suspended time. It was so extreme to me that it felt more painful than I can ever describe in words.  I was angry that I was just so euphorically free and now the pain was searing through my conscious awareness on every level.

As I type this, the memory of this evening is coursing through my back, and my neck is becoming stiffer by the minute.  Trauma is always held within the body; but to heal it, one must truly lean into feeling it.  So I carry on, even as my hands begin to shake sharing my story with you. Remembering and sharing what has never been spoken of, before now.

We reached the hospital and the details become blurred.  Why I can remember this accident with such clarity, yet cannot quite remember the following week will always baffle me, but that is trauma.  Survival allows us the ability to compartmentalize the important from the less important.  I do not NEED to remember, therefore I won’t.  I only remember what was presented for me to never forget.

Thankfully, I did not bash my skull in as I had feared, however I did suffer a 2 inch open wound that required stitches.  I have an obscene amount of hair that had absorbed a large portion of the blood that became a matted disaster on my head, which was a lot to navigate for the nurses and doctors.  The wound in total was approximately 4 inches long wrapping itself in a stool-indented line along the back of my head, right below my crown.  There is a permanent indentation there now, aching when I’m sad, gently reminding me that I chose to be here. I often touch that spot tenderly, as I remember the vision of my children’s eyes and the sound of their laughter. I will always choose them, as lovingly as I have finally learned over the years, to choose myself.

The CT scan was clear and I was sent on my way with my sixth concussion, a strong suggestion to get into a neurologist, and the kindest wishes from the hospital staff.  I was lucky they said.  Take care of that head; you have a long recovery ahead of you with such an extensive history of head trauma.

Thank you, yes, I am aware of this.  

I slept for the better part of the next 2 days, then I started in on a concussion protocol I created myself.   A concussion protocol that had me back to work within a week’s time.  I am nothing if not determined to find a way to heal as quickly as possible. Combine that, with the devoted love of a partner who leaned into a life of parenthood on my behalf, and took the best care of me and my children, providing the space to rest and regroup.

I write this 2 months post-concussion.  Am I fully recovered? No, I struggle with my memory, with feeling overwhelmed by tiny things and with tension headaches that grip me so tight that it sometimes sends me to my knees.  I forget words all the time and the back of my eyeballs ache if I spend too much time on the computer; my body hurts quite consistently now too.  But in spite of all of this, I’m gratefully in recovery, every day one step at a time. I am consistently grateful to recover. Leaning into life with love for myself and what I repeatedly overcome, with as much grace as I can muster.

Did I almost die? Logically, one would say no.  The CT was clear, there was no intracranial bleeding and no skull fractures.  I was physically VERY alive and there was no scientific indication of anything otherwise.

Yet, that moment in time happened. I have no doubt in my being that should I have chosen to follow that euphoric feeling home, that I would not be here today.  Be it a brain bleed or my aortic heart aneurysm bursting (discovered incidentally during a CT scan from a previous concussion).  I am here because I want to be.  Scientifically unexplainable, near-death experience or not, my connection to life beyond sits in my soul like a fire of warmth that slowly burns. It comforts me beyond measure.

I am here because I am meant to be, until I am not.  In the meantime, I will vulnerably and courageously live and love with an extraordinary passion that is fed by the unexplainable.

Magic is not mean to be logical.  And my friends, I have come to realize with great certainty over the years, that my life is fucking magical.