Echoes
I feel a bit of a wreck, but I'm sure it's nothing compared to my student. Dr. Ian had said that sometimes your body maintains memories of stressful events and repeats those patterns when certain other physical clues present themselves. In other words, sometimes your body thinks it's going through the event all over again and responds accordingly, which is why I got no sleep last night.
After I called him, it just felt like a bar bell was sitting on my heart; the same feeling I had when I had gone through that same tragedy, in much the same way at close to the same age. My body reacted accordingly, which I didn't expect. I was shaky--still am a little bit. I lost my appetite, I had that weird grief feeling in my body again. I had been cleaning the house at a good little clip and just lost the will to do much of anything. And I simply couldn't sleep--my brain was racing, it felt like I had a million things to do, and of course I couldn't come up with a single actual thing I was supposed to do. When the alarm went off this morning I felt like I had been beaten with a sock full of pennies. What disturbs me right now is how physically shaken up I am, just from the echo from my own past. It's not really mental, except for the anguish I feel for him; it's purely physical.
Part of it was remembering what those first hours after you know felt like. It was the very darkest side of experience, an absolute whirlpool of confusion. I understand how the world just splits open and presents concerns you'd never even imagined an hour ago. When you go through tragedy at a young age, you grow up quick. You have to inhabit a world where there aren't many others like you--too young to be taken seriously by older people, but likely with more experience than they have, but not enough resources to really tackle such things by yourself. People who know what that's like have an obligation to help the younger ones going through such things. At least that's my opinion. It's one of the main reasons I titled my blog what I did.
-- Virgil
posted by contemplator at Tuesday, May 20, 2008
5 Comments:
I think I've been able to piece together what you're talking about. I can't even imagine what it must be like to go through that, and then reliving it vicariously through a student. I think the student made a good choice in confiding in you. I doubt he would find a more receptive ear with other people at the university.
But I think this is also why so many teachers try to distance themselves from their students' problems. One person can't feel everyone's pain... though I'm sure you're the type to try anyway. :)
Well, the only reason I'm not more explicit is because it's his tragedy this time around, and it's not mine to tell, kwim? Just in case he stumbles across here.
I don't think I try to feel most of their pain. But there are a few who I'd treat like I would my own friends & family. He's one of them.
I think too, it hit me somewhere that god I wished I'd had somebody to email/call after it happened to me. It feels a bit better knowing you can be that for somebody else, even if you didn't get it for yourself.
And no, he's not a JW if that was what you were thinking.
I'm almost certain that you're referring to a family loss that you've alluded to in your previous posts. It's pretty clear that someone else suffering that same loss would spark those feelings.
Then we're on the same page, yes.
Hey, nothing to say other than I'm thinking about you.
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