Where the Low Point Can Lead You

“How did you know you were at your low point?” I was asked while seated on a stage in front of 120 people.

In today’s Instagram world in which we compare and contrast our lives to others, it’s difficult to admit to ourselves, let alone a conference room full of strangers, that we can be far from the best version of ourselves. But there I was two weeks ago sharing my journey through Post Traumatic Stress when the question caught me like a railroad crossing bar ahead of an approaching train.

In the 14 years since the 35W bridge collapsed with me on it, I’ve been asked hundreds of questions, but never that one. And until two years ago, I didn’t have that answer. While I wrote a memoir about my journey five years after the accident, I certainly didn’t have all the answers then. That novel was more of a brain dump of emotions and behaviors that spilled out like the start of a game of Pick-up Sticks. But on that night in an event center in Virginia, Minnesota, that answer lived on the tip of my tongue.

“When you understand what you’ve lost, and you’ve determined that what’s left is worth fighting for because what is left to lose can’t afford to be lost.”

I’m pretty sure that I did NOT say it that eloquently in that moment, but my point was made. I had lost a marriage. I had lost a second long-term relationship. And that numbing rigidity that calcified me from the inside out was impacting my relationship with my son. That was it. That was the one thing I could not afford to be lost.

Therapy? Sure. I had spent years and years on a couch with a counselor. And progress, no doubt, had been made. For the longest time I had done enough counseling to manage the pain but not overcome it. It took the practice of mindfulness to raise my awareness level to the point that I could finally see through the film of trauma that blurred my vision. It’s a glaucoma that grows subtly and you can’t notice yourself. You become blind to your demeanor and your behavior. The words that cut others seem dull to you. It’s like petting a dog with gloves made of steel wool and becoming frustrated because the dog runs and cowers in the corner of the room when you want to hug it.

(Just an aside, writing that last sentence brought up a well of tears, I guess, because that is EXACTLY what it feels like when thinking back at how it felt — unknowingly destroying what you wanted and ultimately needed at that time.)

But there’s comforting news. While some things become unrepairable, those of us struggling from PTSD can mend. Life is beautiful in the moment. People with PTSD struggle so hard to live in the present; that’s the hardest part. It’s downright impossible if we don’t face our journey. And it’s especially difficult in a world where the Joneses are constantly thrust into our faces on social media and in the real world too.

To me, it’s no longer about where I’m at but the trajectory I am taking. As long as I’m moving away from that low point then progress is happening. I know others with PTSD. I see them in their day-to-day struggle, subtly losing and not being able to see it. I want them to know that I am here. I understand and I want to help. Nobody deserves to get to the end and find everything lost because they were on a bridge or on a battlefield or anywhere we use the blanket label of the “wrong place at the wrong time.”

Turning the “low point” into the “KNOW point” is a key part of healing.