Prancing Unicorns

It’s still so surreal.

13 years ago, about this time now, my family was loading the car for a trip to Florida.

It’s so surreal, the trauma my family faced.

People have dismissed my trauma because it isn’t the typical PTSD people experience from abuse or from war or violence.

But my experience was traumatic. I can’t speak to how it impacted everyone in my family, but I can still vividly remember the terror of that experience.

Imagine waking up to the bouncing of your car as the trees on the left approached, screaming, only to see the trees on your right inches from your face.

Imagine the disorientation of not know what is up or down, hearing glass breaking, smashing of metal.

Imagine waking up in pain, pitch black, emptiness, not fully aware of what has happened.

Imagine hearing your brother, who was only separated from you by a tree, screaming that he can’t breathe.

Imagine EMTs counting off your siblings, like victims, as the try to account for everyone.

Imagine hearing, “we can’t find Jesse.”

Imagine being face up as you’re carried on a stretcher only to see nothing but ambulance lights surrounding the road.

Imagine forgetting your birthday or your social security number because you’re so full of terror.

Imagine the ambulance picking up speed as the EMTs identify your brother’s blood pressure dropping.

Imagine waiting alone in the trauma bay, having siblings roll in one by one.

Imagine your parents pulling a curtain around you so they can talk to you in private, and knowing what is coming.

Imagine the tears run down your dad’s face as he chokes back the words that your brother died.

I can still hear those words in my mind.

“Jesse. [pause] Jesse died.”

I’m a broken record as I share my experience. I recently spoke with an old therapist about my urge to share or even RE-EXPERIENCE this in some twisted way. Something called re-enacting. She shared that this is common with trauma survivors as a way of making sense of what happened.

I know I share a lot about the pain of being forgotten during the accident. And I fixate on that and sometimes think that the pain of being “neglected” (whether or not that was true, but that’s how my mind read it) was worse than the accident itself. But I don’t know. I think it might be similar to feeling anxiety. They say anxiety is a secondary emotion because it’s easier to feel anxiety than to feel the real, hard emotion. Maybe that’s the truth with this accident. It’s easier to fixate on being lost or forgotten, then the trauma itself.

Send me asks so I can spam YOUR dash.

My dash is so boring now.

I refresh it 10 minutes later and literally there’s one new post.

I used to never be able to stay on top of my dash.

Spent time on couch with roommate on couch next to me, sitting in silence on our laptops

Went to bed almost exactly at 9 (played my awesome “calm” app tunes to help me sleep - oh yeah, and my sleep med concoction)

maybe tonight I’ll add some benedryl in there

Slept for maybe 4 hours total last night because I was anxious about EVERYTHING that I’m not exchange about during the day plus what I AM anxious about during the day

Posted a long rant on instagram about being anxious about making up my mind abut getting a gym membership and how working out would help my anxiety

plot twist: rant was a plot to show my dad how important a gym membership is to me so he wouldn’t give me a hard time about spending ONE-HUNDRED-THIRTY DOLLARS A FUCKING MONTH on a gym membership (because it’s literally the only noral gym nearby)

Went to work

Barely worked because anxiety and my thoughts flying off like a butterfly

Made up my mind that I am in fact going to get a gym membership tomorrow

Told my dad and I guess my plot worked because he didn’t give me a hard time

Yes I have to explain my finances to my dad because he has access to my bank account as YES he helps me out sometimes

Yes, i’m fucking 29 years old about to turn 30 and i still lean on my dad for everything

yes he’s going to die one day and i’m going to be stuck trying to figure out my own problems

came home, ate dinner, made a shopping list of how i’m going to eat healthy and not just eat ramen and candy for every meal

I saw this ask a while ago but I guess I never answered. Ok - so we do a TON of normalization. this is especially helpful for younger kids who are hospitalized for long periods of time and don’t have the same opportunities to meet developmental milestones because there’s a lack of stimualtion within the four walls of the hospital. then, we do a lot of preparing kids for what to expect during medical procedures in terms that are easier for them to understand and words that are less scary. we also help support them DURING procedures. like we help distract them or give them tools to get through procedures. we also do something called medical play - that’s where we kind of role play medical procedures with dolls and medical equipment to help kids process their experiences or demystify medical equipment. Lots more, but those are some of the things that come to mind. 

So in other news. What’s happening in Sarah Land?

Well I currently have what I’d like to call the world’s worst job ever. Yeah yeah yeah, I’m a certified child life specialist. whatevs. But the people at my job are real douche bags. I work there 19 hours per week and the other 21 hours I work at state farm which is meh. 

I’m not miserable at state farm like I am at the hospital. And you might wonder why I don’t just switch to full time there while I look for another job (yes, I’ve been applying anytime something pops up nearby). Well, I make like 10 bucks an hour less at state farm than I do at the hospital. That’s a whole friggin’ lot of money that I especially need.

So yeah, I’ve applied to a few places. Hackensack, the bronx, NYC. I want to stay in this area. I need to stay hear for at least another 9-10 months until my lease is up. But I do really like this area.

I’m also applying to babysitting gigs to supplement what I’m making already. Because you know, living in jersey ain’t cheap. Maybe making an extra couple hundred a month will help fund a gym membership for me (friggin 130/month).

But yeah. roommate stuff is okay. I’m pretty fucking sure she hates me and regrets letting me live here. But I like her. I just don’t think it’s mutual. She does like that I take care of her cat when she’s gone though so that’s something. 

I also blacked out last night from alcohol before she got home, and I THINK I fell asleep in my room sitting up with my door open, but I somehow woke up with the door closed around 10 pm, so now I’m kind of worried I was like saying stupid shit in my sleep (or awake, whatevs) and she shut the door for me haha. I don’t think she thinks I’m an alcoholic or anything, but I think she’s knows i’m a little crazy (but can’t quite wrap her mind around what it is about me).

Anyways, this was sort of a long post, but people occasionally ask me for updates so here it is.

They removed the lump.

I'm still waiting for the biopsy results.

Also I broke up with Patrick because of sex.