So, how am I doing since my last blog. Pretty good actually. Last week's therapy has been heavy as steel, but also seems to have its expected results. Therapy session was about going straight back to the accident, let all of those nasty flashbacks come and go. Pictures of bleeding guys in my former car, myself staring and screaming out loud, feeling helpless and so on. What always happens during such session (EMDR), is that I find myself in slow and painful regret and misery, but I cannot put a hand on what the actual cause is for such feelings, except for the obvious. But the obvious should also state, that the whole accident couldn't possibly be my fault, since I never had the intentions to do some hazardous crazy things on a highway resulting in death and despair.

According to the feelings after my session, there are two core reasons for my state of mind: not able to let it all go due to tremendous sensations of feeling helpless and out of control; or second: a state of self-pity. Which is quite funny, since I was never the self-pity guy who only wanted everyone to pity me, and feel sad about what I became. And right now, I'm not even sure which of the two is going on in myself. But one thing what really happened with me, is that I've learned to let go, learned to accept fate, to not look behind. Maybe this is why I'm feeling good now. Really good. 

I'm getting off medication - slowly though, but certainly getting off. This also makes me think sound and getting to know that in the end I'll survive all of this - mentally and physically. No addictions or whatsoever can make me stop in this.

These EMDR sessions are very scary. Being in a state of mind which leaves you totally out of inner control of yourself, the terror of being stroke with something you cannot comprehend by a stranger (psychologist) who you are practically only hoping she's actually knowing what's she doing. The fear of not getting out of it. It's really as if you die in a way, you start to see yourself from the outside. It's like your being is living in a fantasy world and you cannot stop the darkness folding around your person. 

After such a session I'm always grateful I can make back my way to reality. I tend to think that this could be a shortcut to the sanitarium, losing your sanity and become a pill-swallowing flower sitting in front of a window looking out to nothing in particular. But then I'm much stronger than that. I come back and start to connect the dots. It all makes sense. And afterwards, I'm so glad to have my family around me when I get back home. Makes me feel that it really is solving itself. It's all just a lesson for life. A huge kick in the face from life that I'm the one responsible for my own life.

ANIME SANA IN CORPORE SANO. It makes so much more sense now.

It's lasting so long, there seems no end to it. In a rather comic way, every single day offers something new, some boggling plot, crazy turns I've never imagined before. Whenever I feel I'm getting somewhere - heading on towards the finish line -, something happens which puts me back to start, like the Monopoly game, except for the chance card saying go right to start for me means that I don't get anything, I just have to start all over again.

Subsequently, two things happened with me within a time-span of one week.

First, after half a year, I received good news from my psychiatrist that I'm to leave behind the daily Xanax doses. I have slept for over half a year using these, which are really nothing less than hard-drugs. You take 'em, you sleep. I was more than happy, actually I have been nagging her for over weeks that my intentions are to get rid of these pills as I have heard and read many times that they cause nasty addiction. So finally the moment was there, it felt like I won a lottery or something. Only what I didn't know is that in fact, I'm already addicted. What followed were two days and nights straight in hell. No sleep, nightmares when closing my eyes, flashbacks, flashforwards, even physical pain and struggle followed. I thought that I maybe caught some virus: intense sensitivity of the skin, vertigo, nausea, weakness and my heart fell like I would get a cardiac arrest any time of the day. Since there were no true symptoms of a mere coldness (sneezing, coughing and so on), I suspected it has to do something with my abstinence of the most radical drug on earth.

After some calls with psychiatry and psychologist, my fear became truth: now I am a real drug-addict. THANKS STUPID ACCIDENT. If it wasn't all enough yet.

Second thing what happened has to do with the legal issues I still have to face and tend to forget the best I can. Now that my interrogation has taken place a few months ago, the case has now shifted to district attorney. Their first step has taken place now; my driver's license has been confiscated until case has ended.

So, today is officially my last day driving a car for an unknown period of time. Also, it scares the hell out of me, that there is an intention from their side to get my ass somehow punished for anything I might or might not have done. 

Saddest part is that I just started to make peace with the fact that I could have not possibly avoided the accident itself and that in no way I am to be blamed for this. Now, it all starts from the beginning again...

But as always, I will be going strong forward, my family and friends are always there to support me, which makes me stronger than the 300 Spartan hoplites in the battle of Thermopylae. 

MESSAGE TO ALL UPCOMING STRUGGLES: I'M BLOODTHIRSTY AND READY FOR YOU!!

Many people are curious what this psycho-therapy is about what I'm going through. The thing is, that it's extremely hard to explain, since even I can't comprehend what's actually happening.

So, let's see what happens during some of my sessions.

We start normally at Wednesdays around 17:00pm, just after work. I sit down in one of the two available chairs, always with my back to the door (for whatever reason). Psychologist gets me a glass of water and a box of tissues (we're still waiting for that very moment my tears start to pour out...). First question, standard question and never changing: How are you. 

Here we stop for a moment. This question: 'how are you?' What does this contain? Different perspectives: does the questioner really want/need to know how you are, or is it just a general gesture of self-imposed superficial curiosity? 

Simply explained, I pay a lot of money for these sessions, so I really want to get the most out of it. As an answer - a good answer - to "how are you", I start summarizing all my thought, experiences and feelings since the last time we've met. I've never been so honest with anyone, not even with myself, but I've found out quite fast that it makes no sense not telling the complete truth to her. 

After summarizing, we get to the therapy itself (although only letting escape all my thoughts and feelings already is half of the therapy), which we determine upon from this moment on. Either we start to dig up the skeletons beneath the surface and try to comprehend why they are not decomposed yet; I can choose for stabilization which is merely soothing current emotions. This comes in when anger and fear are piled up so high, my surrounding is experiencing it as well. Or we can choose to truly puzzle the FD together. 

From all of these - except for stabilization - I'm not sure which is heavier. As I've already explained earlier on in my blogs, my current condition of PTSD is closely related to small 't'-s from my youth. Drinking parents, divorced twice, never had the helping hand one's supposed to have during their youth and the inability to cope with all responsibility I felt for my parents and brother/sister. 

There's a specific moment we tend to dig up, one of my skeletons. It's a moment when I was 16 years old. A real rebellion. I was always the guy who did the stupid things, just to make people aware of my presence. Once my brother came to pick up a fluffy little kitten. We had litters +10 kittens in a month, so choice enough. He chose one, and I was showing off by putting the kitten in the middle of my palm and lifting it to body's height - for no specific reason. Suddenly, the kitten fell/jumped off my hand, and we were witness to denial of the legend that all cats land on their feet; this one didn't.

It seemed as if its neck had been broken, since it was strangely crawling on the floor. At that very moment we looked up, time stopped for a second and my brother attacked me. Intense emotions, anger, hate, piled up shit from years before... My brother never ever attacked me physically in my whole life. He is and was just never like that. Unlike me. But that moment, everything turned around and I was suddenly in the middle of a struggle of my life. He was choking me, and I wasn't defending - yet. I knew I had to, but that would also cause me to hurt my ever-loved brother. 

Why do I still remember this so clearly? This was one of the many results brought up during such therapy sessions. I felt the same emotions I did then and on FD. Anger, confusion, helplessness, total oblivion. What happened after, was again exactly the same: instinct took over control when sane mind gave up. I attacked back, hurting and without remorse. If it wasn't for our father jumping in between us, one of us surely would have been hurt in a bad way.

Who knows how many of such situations are still crawling in my mind and weakening my sanity, without even knowing it! Maybe I should look at FD as a day when all of my unraveled memories will get to an end, solved as a Rubik's cube and not as the Gordian knot - it just doesn't work like that.

Since this post already gets too long, I'll continue with the other part of therapy, dealing with the actual FD.

Still reviving and trying to cope with everyday's struggle to seem normal, I recently had a very honest, tough and painful but true conversation with one very close to me.

He reminded me that in the very core of it all, it's my life and I should be selfish enough to not let anger and frustration take control over me. Also, he confronted me with what I already knew and tried to cope with: the trauma has not only affected me, but a lot of other people as well. The fears I have are severe and cannot be understood by anyone else than myself, and I should just not think about this as it is. The key is to accept fate, what's been done cannot be undone. The only way I can help those who have been suffering from the FD (Fatal Day) same as me but in a different way, is to make myself survive. It would cost not only my own life if I'd let it all slip out of my hands, I have to stay strong.

This is nothing new obviously, but I never saw the way to stay strong without building a huge barrier around my own emotions. Now I know - at least hope so. It's nothing more than grab to the things in life which makes your life worth to live. There are a lot more positive things in life than what you see.

So now, what I'll do, is maybe only a short note to myself, I'll list those things which REALLY matter and are happening/existing as we speak; not living on the past.

SHORTLIST TO OPTIMISM:

• a beautiful wife who does nothing else than defending our little family from harm; she is in no way trying to make it more difficult for me than it already is;
• Two lovely kids, who are adoring me, look up to me as their father, their idol. I should therefore behave likewise
• A great workplace, where almost no one knows about what I've been through, and THEY SHOULD NEVER know about this! This is why I feel so great;
• I always had a mindset which placed family and free time before anything else, so why should I waste that precious time on mind-bogging, neverending, useless thoughts when I can have so many great moments which those I love;
• My friends who stayed along even during the hardest part of all are still standing strong next to me. Without any doubt from them why they should, it's just natural. The only way I can thank them for this is to fully recover and come back stronger than ever;
• Although I will be facing consequences in a juridical matter, this is nothing more than a automated process. If someone dies in a car accident, someone has to be judged upon. This doesn't automatically mean I'll end up in jail, so why should I even think about a situation in which I perhaps never will actually be?;
• This immense weight on my shoulder should stay where it is, it's NOT to be lifted by others, and surely not by my own kids. The weight is relative: mankind takes as much as they can endure;
• We are not suffering from poverty, political aggression, war, disabilities. We have our own house, car, garden, stabile income, we can go on holiday when we want and where we want, we live freely, I do whatever I want to; there simply is NO REASON to drag myself into misery

You wouldn't believe how much that very Saturday afternoon conversation has helped me, and I'm very thankful for the person who has put me right onto the ground. Amazingly, I finally understood one of my favourite Metallica songs "My Friend of Misery". Take the time, listen to it and read the lyrics. It actually just translates everything I just wrote down. 

NO MORE misery for this guy. I will not guarantee I'll never ever write anything negative anymore into this blog, since it profoundly helps me understanding a lot of things, but I can guarantee that from now on, LIFE has radically changed inside my mind.

THANKS to EVERYONE who still stands strong next to me, you'll see it made sense!

In the middle of puberty, all of us will generally feel alone in their own pain, they feel no other person than themselves can comprehend the suffering you're going through. When I was young - Oh, how old I'm feeling now - I've never heard or read about children taking away their own lives because of bullying or parents divorcing or other sad but not major traumas. Nowadays, fed by social media, youth took a turn and tend to feel much more isolated than thirty years ago, and feel they are solely responsible for their lives. 

In a sense, this happens to me now again - twenty years after puberty. Somehow, my senses block out emotions and thoughts from the outside. They have no meaning to me. They did, prior to FD. 

Not so long ago, I attended an EQ training, lasting three days, and made me aware of impact of emotions surrounding us, and also what consequences our own actions have on someone's life - either private or professional. One thing learned then was to not let other ones' emotions impact your own self more than needed. 

Last week I have officially left my former employer. Once more - and hopefully for the last time - I had to confront myself with people who were closely or remotely involved to my colleagues who sat in the car on FD: my manager, my own employees, colleagues who were working together and even the two guys who survived. They were all there, and I spoke to all of them. What I see is probably not reflecting the truth, since I'm heavily biased, but I see anger, frustration, hesitation, discomfort from most of the people; they do not really want to communicate with me anymore. I can see it in their eyes. The saying goes: "Eyes are the mirror of the soul", and I see now more than ever the truth behind this. 

My manager and I had a small talk, not longer than 20 minutes. Starting with birds and bees, but suddenly conversation redirected itself to the accident. I was confronted by hardcore emotions coming out of him as lava from a volcano, suddenly, I saw concrete anger towards me, and felt heavily responsible, which was reflected by his own words. In his eyes, I should never have survived, I took the place of the guy sitting behind me who should have been leaving the scene without any harm. I hope you, My Dear Reader, can imagine how I felt. It was like standing in front of the court and being sentenced to death on spot.

When I went home, I was terribly confused by this and the many non-verbal forms of communication I've acquired during the 2 and a half hours I was there. But somewhere deep inside my mind, I had to admit I cannot be the only one who has terrible feelings inside, and that also includes my manager. Maybe he was not judging me at all, maybe he didn't even see me at all. His words were spoken out of a burst of emotion, he's suffering as well. And I should let that be like it is.

The question here, is: Should I? Can I be capable of understanding that whatever action I made has such heavy consequences to others? Colleagues are one, but what about my loved ones? Why can't I comprehend what my own beloved ones are going through? Should I? What measures should I take to soothen their needs as well? Should I? Should I? ...

"Well I jumped into the river
Too many times to make it home
I'm out here on my own, an drifting all alone
If it doesn't show give it time
To read between the lines"

An excerpt from one of my all-time favourites, and now gaining some genuine understanding from my side. I always liked the song itself for the melancholy and tragedy reflecting, but never understood the actual meaning of the words themselves.

Let's check out what this word actually means:

I'm a true atheist. Or agnostic. Or whatever you might call it; I never believed in anything which has no evidence of existence, and surely not something which goes far beyond humans' imagination. That goes for all beliefs regardless of race, color, form, method, smell, space or earth. 

Moreover, I always pitied those who have a belief, faith, who admire some figure walking out of a saga as if it were Santa Claus (who actually existed though). Just remember about events like the iconic clashes, inquisitions, etc., belief has a terrible marketing department, but still it's working for some miraculous (Hurray! Praise the Lord!) reason for many of billions of people. 

There is a saying, "if a million people tell the same, it must be true". So if there are sheep out there, they follow quite easily; everyone else does it, so why shouldn't I? Well, I was the warrior against this. Not actually a warrior, but banned it out of everything I did or spoke.

Following the Fatal Day of June 11 (let's just refer to FD in the next blogs, makes my life easier), something happened to me. I started to explore things deep inside of me, part of my subconsciousness which I always rejected to exist, my ego pressed it into an obscure little alley. That part has now conquered my mind, and shows me new views on life, lessons to appreciate and create. It's supernatural.

I started to paint for example. What started out as mural painting for my son has turned into serious detail-painting as landscapes and formation of situations on canvas. I never knew I have this inside me.

I found myself appreciating the smallest of things as grass seeing growing through my nurturing in the garden. Completely lost was I when some of the planted beings died.

But the most supernatural thing is that I've met my Guardian Angel. I dearly believe that my elder son is the one person who has saved me from harm during that fatal collision noone was supposed to survive, particularly not the driver.

Soon after the FD (there it is again), a month or so, we were travelling back from lake Balaton to our home. My wife asked me if I can bear to confront myself with the same motorway the accident happened on. I felt I must confront, so I confirmed. My wife drove the car, I sat right behind her, and my son sitting next to me at the right rear window. When we passed the exact location the accident happened, my son did something he never did before - he looked me and asked me to hug him tightly. He even stroke my hand carefully. This moment will never be forgotten. Who would have known my guardian angel is sitting right next to me... 

Imagine yourself in a Superman suit, doing everything he can do. Possibly only children and Comic-con geeks can actually put themselves in Superman's place, and let imagination go its own way. The funny thing is that all of these Superman effects are present in anyone's body, it only needs a trigger, a spark.

During this fatal accident everything was turned upside down. Intense anger and helplessness created something out of the deepest of instinct mankind can have. Purely out of adrenaline, I jumped out of the already burning car, and acted as if Superman was face to face with Batman (or the adverse, never watched the movie). It all seems as if I was in a movie, a real Hollywood block-buster in a sense: after adhering to the fact that great danger surrounds me, I grabbed the left passenger door, opened it up to only see two of my colleagues strangled into eachother as some bizarre romantic pose. One was sitting right behind my seat (drivers' -), the other next to me in the middle. The right passenger seat was occupied by a child-seat. 

Without any particular medical knowledge more than I've seen in movies or dr. House series, I was confronted with a serious doubt already. The person nearest seemed to have an open fracture on his skull and blood was coming out of his mouth as soap-bubbles. Retrospectively, it even seems comic sometimes, the slow popping of those intense red, thick bubbles. 

Since the car was burning, my instinct reacted quickly and decided to pull him out of the car soonest possible. When adrenaline pushes your borders, you suddenly become some real-time Hercules, with the power of 100 horses and a wisdom even Gandalf the Grey cannot comprehend. I pulled him out and laid him on the concrete of the road - exactly the way you suppose to do so 

Amazing thing, right? Acting right out of the book in such a critical moment? I should not be accused, I should receive some frigging badge of valor!

The moment I put him into this position, it was as if he was trying to say something to me, probably calling for help. I couldn't understand, which makes it one of the questions in my head forever. 

After him, I did the same for the next two guys, the person sitting in the front passenger seat was badly wounded on the head and neck, but due to the car burning down to ashes, the only good decision was to remove him from the car at any cost. Some people who stopped after collision tried to break him free by ripping apart the front right door - without any success. Even Korean cars are built of alloyed metal. I climbed back into the car from the left side to unbuckle his belt, he vaguely opened his eyes and recognized me and the situation we're in, so he was able to get out partly on his own feet which miraculously were not wounded. 

After medics, police and fire brigade arrived, adrenaline running in me was still there. Out of instinct I took out my cellphone - within the miracle another miracle that it survived without a scratch - and called my wife and subsequently my boss, who was in the traffic jam some kilometers away. Not really naming it a conversation I merely informed them that a brutal accident has taken place and everyone is in bad shape, car's burning, then hung up.

As I hung up, I saw the medics were all tending the wounded. This was the moment my adrenaline level emptied up, and I collapsed immediately. 

It's such a pity that there is no possible mechanism - except for harmful drugs which allow you to regulate the brutal strength and vigilance  whenever needed. Would be great to have some when you need to lift some heavy stuff, just like nitro in your car.

People who are diagnosed with PTSD are most commonly not directly suffering from the Trauma itself (Trauma with big T), but instead it's defined as a combination of many small trauma's (small t) exploding when confronted with a big Trauma. 

BIG Trauma

Car accidents are quite common - unfortunately. Whomever has experienced an accident before, or even witnessed from the outside, gets startled and involved in Trauma. Just a week ago, on 20th of January, a huge bus-accident occured in Verona, Italy. 16 Fatalities, 26 major injuries. Even just hearing gets you stopped in action for a moment. The bus was loaded with kids. Do your emotions start to grow? They were from the same country as you are. Are you genuinely hit by this accident by now? 

Natural reaction in such a case is to feel greatly sad, it might feel as if you have to cope with this as being an actual victim of the Trauma. Even when there is no relationship whatsoever to any of the real victims, and you have not witnessed it yourself. It just gets you startled. You put your Facebook profile picture pitch-black. Out of sympathy.

So, what with the small t's? What are those? For me, these are things which happened in my youth, during my development into an adult, any memories from being a toddler to today - all adds up. These small trauma's were sever at the moments they happened, but easily 'forgotten' through time. Think about getting some beating from relatives, being diminished by others, bullying, anything which only makes you feel sad for a  moment, but then gets replaced by actions and other - more important things. 

At the moment of collision, observing the tremendous amount of damage occured, I felt: HELPLESS, RESPONSIBLE, ANGER.  After a score of therapies and tests, it turned these emotions are actually linked to my childhood. And THAT's when it becomes interesting...

Eversince that fatal day in my life, surviving a severe and mortal car-accident, I've observed completely new features within my personality. One of those is painting. It started out as a keep-yourself-calm therapy and also to be merely occupied not thinking about the terrors I have experienced. I started painting a mural for my elder son (3). He is/was (children tend to have same kind of rollercoaster effect as I have in terms of interest in something particular) a huge addict to Fireman Sam. A real superhero story concerning a fireman, his team and a tiny village in Wales where everything happens. The village is a complete disaster, since accidents and fires occur at a daily rate which is quite exceptional for a village with a known citizen-count of 20 people... But anyhow, my son loves it. So I decided to paint.

What started out as a nice sketch with pencil (always known for having some skills when it comes to drawing), became at first a nasty piece of dry potty but after the first figure it became something in which I found serenity, call for perfection and total concentration, resulting in a fine mural painting

This is somehow a fine depiction of what happens to someone who has suddenly become a shadow of himself, hiding in a shell and rarely peeking out.

As to what happened... Life has certain arrangements made which we are not able to reject or avoid. Some call it karma, some coincidence or even fate. I prefer to see it as a wake-up call.

That very day, Summer of '16, I was driving homewards with three of my colleagues/employees from a Team Building event at Lake Balaton. Last night has been quite a party, lot of drinking. Many of you already feel what's coming: "drunk guy has an accident". Only thing I'd be able to deny is that I wasn't drunk at the time of tragedy, though cannot deny I was tired. As anyone would have been.

Driving off from Lake Balaton at noon was a primarily organised time-set, it gives your body and mind the rest it needs and can be fit enough to cover the trip back home, which is around 200km. I felt I was. How I wish I'd never felt this at that very moment. 

A reasonably quiet trip with all lads resting next and behind me, and me behind the steering wheel, feeling fit, but tired. I was driving a Daewoo 1.4 from 2001, loaded with 4 persons allowed me a cruising speed of max 130 kM/h so there was no worry as for driving too fast. There was no traffic, three almost empty lanes.

All of a sudden, I lost track of time and thoughts. I ended up at the backside of a 40T tilt-truck. At the very moment of collusion I woke up/came to sense. All I felt was terror, anger, unknown angst and fear. I saw the engine took fire, and saw three guys next and behind me lying stiff in blood...

Story to be continued...