Driving Ms. Dizzy: Driving with PTSD
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Story Number 5: Woes & Gifts Number 3
(written July 9, 2022)
Okay, full disclosure, time for true confessions here: I probably should not have been driving after the fire. Before the fire, with just my “regular” PTSD, my driving. . . . . eh. . . . . , “issues” were road rage, and that is definitely a story for another time, but not right now. Let me start, at the beginning, with my general attitude about me behind the wheel.
I LOVED to drive! As a small child I used to sit on my father’s lap, steering the car as we drove down the freeway (yes, this was a time before booster seats were required if you were under 15). At 10 years old, my father took a Jeep CJ7 for a test drive (this was when the dealer did not accompany you) and my father took the Jeep to a hilly area in San Jose that was the home of radio towers. Not one to always follow the rules, which included trespassing the land we were on, he put me behind the wheel where I sat on the very edge of the seat with my feet straining to reach the pedals; I could barely depress the clutch. My father sat in the passenger seat and one of my school friends, who had accompanied us, sat in the back. And then my father had me drive up and down the hill, climbing around in first gear—until law enforcement showed up to see a 10-year-old test driving a new Jeep around. My parents did instruct me in life though direct explanation and teaching, but I also learned a lot, perhaps most things, by just observing. I understood that a car should be shifted when the engine was at a certain rev, purely by the sound it made, and that down shifting should accompany breaking. My father used to race cars and was a professional driver for a living (first cross-country semi-trucks, then county transit buses and then the light rail), so I am sure I had the opportunity to observe some fine driving tactics.
When it came time for me to officially learn to drive, I was no longer living with my father, but was living with my mother and her third husband, out in the country in San Martin. My mother was a nervous person and her nerves made it so she had no interest in teaching me how to drive. I did not have a job and did not want to ask for the $180.00 (which was a lot in 1982) for the required driving lessons, nor was the money offered to me despite my parents being very financially comfortable. I knew at age 18 I could take the driver’s test at the DMV without having done the driving lessons, so that was my plan. But that did not keep me from being behind the wheel. I essentially taught myself how to drive. This involved taking the 1968 Ford F-150 pickup, with the steel cattle racks on the back, and driving it, without permission, after school while my parents were at work. And drive I did, up and down the back country roads. But I was not alone. No. Along came my brother, my boyfriend and my boyfriend’s brother’s, sister and our friends, sitting next to me in the cab or hanging off the cattle rack in the back of the truck—this was teenaged country living at it’s finest!! This endeavor did not go completely unknown to my parents because somehow my excursions morphed into my parents allowing/asking me to go into the next town to pick up grain for the livestock (“Backroads only!” they admonished—so they were totally colluding at this point!). I was also allowed to drive the truck the mile to my boyfriend’s house and back.
When I could legally drive, I was taking my careworn 1968 Mustang and then my even more careworn 1971 convertible Spitfire all over the Bay Area. And the amazing thing was that since I grew up and travelled all over the Bay Area from San Martin to north of San Francisco, I just knew how to get everywhere because I was such an observer. Today kids, and even most adults behind the wheel, have their eyes glued to their cell phones, and fuck be all if they don’t even know how to get anywhere without using their GPS. If I didn’t know how to get somewhere as a new driver, then I pulled out my Thomas Guide from under my seat and from where I was to where I wanted to be I would examine the map and write out my directions on a piece of paper. (For the uninitiated a Thomas Guide is—was?—a complete map book, usually of an entire county, that one could use to navigate around. For the really uninitiated, a map is a very large folded paper that when unfolded it reveals roads, cities, highways, parks, and landmarks and a grid system and index so you can find where you want to go and you can see a bird’s eye view of how to get there. Sigh. I do mourn the loss of the use of our brains. Now we just passively listen and drool and the information goes in and out of our brain and nothing useful stays in or strengthens our reasoning and intellectual capacity. Who knew that technology would go from nourishing the pinnacle of intelligence to then causing our brains to be little more than mush?) If I went some place one time, then I always remembered how to get there and then my next logical step, because this is what my brain did, was what were all the alternate routes and what was the quickest way to get somewhere? I had an amazing sense of direction and place and memory.
I loved the feel of a car; the feel of being one with a car. I loved the freedom and independence driving allowed and the sense of adventure it promoted. I loved speed and maneuvering. And once I learned to master a stick shift, which I did in my Spitfire, there was no turning back from driving a car with a manual transmission. To this day I hold the strong opinion that only pussies drive automatics. I admit I do drive a Prius now, but my need for economy and my desire to not totally shit on the environment overruled my need to feel the stick in my hand and the clutch moving fast and skillfully under my foot (damn my altruistic personality sometimes!). And if I learned skillful driving from my father, then I learned exhibition of speed and exhibition of another kind from my mother. My mother lost her license at age 17 for six months for exhibition of speed (if you have seen the movie American Graffiti, you will understand). My mother also used to drive around topless at times, and I am not referring to her car. I about lost a nipple after popping out of my sunroof to flash some young men while my brother drove my 1996 Mitsubishi Eclipse; family traditions must be revered after all.
I miss my Eclipse. I had too much fun with my Eclipse and it started with the test drive. I was newly separated at age 30 from a cheating husband and a relationship that I had been in since I was 17. When my thinking shifted from sadness and deep despair to “Wait, I am free and single!!” a sports car was the logical next step and one that required the only lease I have ever done (or I could not have afforded this necessary indulgence). My brother, and the man I was dating at the time, accompanied me on my car search and when I pulled into the dealership and spotted the burnt orange, 5-speed, turbo-charged, fancy-rimmed, rear spoilered, sleek, sexy Eclipse under the lights as dusk and a misty rain fell, it was as if she glowed, and she certainly beckoned me. Time stopped, everything else faded from my vision and my brain and loins certainly saw the promise of what could happen with this vehicle, a chariot for the freshly freed. I would say that angels sang when the vision of the Eclipse appeared before me, but in all reality, they were probably saying, “Oh, holy shit!!! How are we going to keep up with her driving that?!”
So when I got in to do the test drive, for which my brother and date stayed behind, because being roomy was not the point of this car, the dealer, a man, turned to me and said, “Can you drive a stick shift?” with the word “honey” in a condescending tone being implied. Clearly, since I possessed a vagina, this must have precluded my ability to drive a stick shift, as his tone so indicated. Off we shot, out of the parking lot, onto the rainy streets and then on to the freeway where I put the car through its paces, as anyone who test drives a car should. Pushing the speed, down shifting and slaloming through traffic, making sure the turbo charge was kicked in appropriately, I could see out of my peripheral vision that the dealer was gripping the door, the handle at the top of the door jamb, and at times, the dash. You know, sometimes actions are just better than words. Can I drive a stick shift? I mean, really. When we returned to the lot, the dealer was ashen and visibly shaken and upon arriving in the showroom room he told my brother and date, sotto voce, “She’s out of control.” Yeah motherfucker, I can drive a stick shift.
My peak driving experience of my life was in the Eclipse. Dating a sheriff’s deputy in L.A. (yes, handcuffs included), I took the 330 mile trip to see him, also in the rain, south, down Interstate 5, over the Grapevine with its four southbound lanes. High on the thoughts of who and what awaited me in L.A. (everyone needs to have such wild times in their lives! I highly recommend this!), late at night, I had my stereo blaring and even though it was raining heavily, I had the sunroof open. Because at the speed I was going, dumping the speedometer at 160 mph and exceeding that, the rain flew around and over the car, not into it; I was going so fast the windshield wipers were pushed up and off the windshield by the sheer force of the speed. Sigh, those were the days.
And all of this is to say that I REALLY loved to drive!!! It was one of the great pleasures in my life—until immediately after the loss of my home, my town, and my possessions in the Paradise Camp Fire which kicked my “regular” PTSD into complex PTSD overnight (my “regular” PTSD coming from my work as a 13-year veteran as Child Protective Services social worker). With the “regular” PTSD it was all about anxiety, avoidance, nightmares, headaches, intrusive thoughts, throwing up before work, throwing up on the way to work (for which I kept plastic bags and towels in my car, just for that purpose—my car was no longer a vehicle for pleasure but a vomitorium), and eventually throwing up in my trash can at work, and feeling overwhelmed, being exhausted, hyperaroused, depressed. . . . Immediately after the fire not only did those “regular” PTSD symptoms ramp up, but I became fucking stupid. I do have superior intelligence but suddenly it too seemed to have burned up in the fire. Now I was living disassociated, which for me was literally feeling like I was not in my body. And I could not think. I could not hold thoughts. I could not even hold A thought. I analogized my thoughts were like slippery eels in my brain; I would catch a glimpse, try to grab them, and then, whoosh, they were gone. I could not remember even the simplest of things. At work when dialing a phone number, it would have been awesome to remember the seven digits, or six, or five, or I would have even settled for two, or for the love of God, even one!!! I would have to put my finger on the number written on my notepad because I could not even find the number again when I took my eyes off of the notepad to dial. And by the time my eyes left the notepad to look at the keypad to dial the number, I could not remember even one digit!
One day I was literally just pushing papers around on my desk because, despite having my written to do list for every case I had, an organizational strategy I had used for years, I did not have the wherewithal to pick a task and work on it. I had a very strong reputation at work for being decisive, super-organized, driven, extremely efficient and having the most amazing memory for details on investigations and for families’ histories and case details. All of that, all of those characteristics that made me the awesome, steadfast, reliable social worker that I was, also seemed to burn up in the fire. I didn’t know myself anymore. I lost my town, my home, my possessions, my routines, and now apparently my mind. My essence of who I was at my core was lost to the fire and I could see the ashes of my functioning, capacities, reasoning, memory, and abilities scattering before me, blowing away, leaving me feeling even more lost and out of control. God, was nothing left for me?
I felt floaty and disassociated when I was behind the wheel after the fire. I was fortunate to only live in a hotel for four days and then one of my friend’s parents’ had a mother-in-law cottage, fully furnished, that I could stay in until the summer; this allowed me time to buy another house and relocate. Unfortunately, the cottage was in Snafu County, the county I worked for and in as a CPS social worker—the job that started me on my PTSD path. I no longer had the safety net of the one hour, 50 mile drive to another county where I used to reside. Now I was smack dab in the middle of the place that triggered my “regular” PTSD. While driving around Snafu County on my off time, it was passing home after home and saying “Investigated there, investigated there, took a report on that house, took four kids into protective custody there, did a home visit there….” At the grocery store or the gas station it was the constant fear of running into clients on my off time. And don’t get me wrong, a vast majority of my clients I really, really liked, but they still could trigger me for the mere fact that my job was sucking my soul away, bit by bit. And of course, there were clients who threatened to kill me. I was forever hypervigilant. I had no way to mentally or physically escape from that which caused me so much stress and trauma. The escape used to be going home, but home did not exist anymore. This was hell.
Because I worked for so long in Snafu County and travelled all over it for various aspects of my work, I could be on autopilot and find my way around, but I still felt out of it when I drove. I am not a big drinker and can and have gone years without drinking, but I know what it feels like to be under the influence. After the fire I felt like I was under the influence, nearly all the time, and driving under such conditions was terrifying. But I had to get around. I had to work. Like everything else at that time, I was just muddling through it, putting one foot in front of the other.
To make matters much worse, immediately after the fire was contained, 17 days after it started, the clean-up and recovery process started. This meant semi-truckload after truckload after truckload of burnt trees and cars passed constantly through Snafu County and also through Sacramento County, where I relocated 5.5 months after the fire. This meant dump truck after dump truck after dump truck loaded with the ash and debris from everyone’s former homes and businesses passed though Snafu and Sacramento Counties. It was unavoidable and I was constantly reminded of my loss, of the tragedy, of the horror. Every time I saw a truck with burnt trees, burnt cars or a dump truck it was the gut-punching adrenaline dump, anxiety, horror, panic and often tears, including sobbing. And it could be many trucks in a row, coming at the same time from multiple directions. I remember being stopped at an intersection one time, pinned in and unable to escape, and every direction I looked there was a truck, a truck possibly carrying my burnt up, beloved belongings, but when I averted my gaze to another direction there was another truck, and looking somewhere else also found another truck—that time I was for sure in major tears and no doubt yelling and cussing at the injustice of it all. So I took to using my hand as I was driving to block out the offending truck and/or speeding up to pass the trucks when I could. I do not recommend this. This is not safe, partially blocking your field of vision while driving. It is not safe to be sobbing, tears flooding off your face and blurring your vision, gasping for breath while driving. And these overwhelming, horrendous emotional reactions could not be stopped. But it is what I did so I could get from point A to point B, because I did not have the option to stay at “home” and not work. And as I chose to go about trying to get my life together, these are the “tools” I used to get through the moment—again, not recommended, but what I did.
I relocated to Sacramento, I place I had lived before for two years, so I was not unfamiliar with the area. I might have well been. Because then I got really fucking stupid. There is an odd part of me (like there is only one odd part of me; eye roll) that I actually embrace being my own petri dish. I love research and experiments and if I happen to be the test subject, well so be it. This is the analytical part of my brain that has the amazing ability to disconnect from my emotional brain, where I step back from myself, in my white lab coat and look at myself in the mirror and say, “Well, isn’t THAT interesting!?” One of the things I wished could have happened right after the fire was to have a brain scan and then have follow up ones at regular intervals. It is known now that PTSD literally changes the structure of your brain. I would love to know what my brain looked like because it was seriously compromised. I am smart. I love my brain. I think it is my best feature. But it failed me after the fire, it failed me big time. When driving around Sacramento after the fire I could not remember where anything was or how to get there no matter how many times I went. Thank God for Google maps which I had to use every time I went somewhere. But even with Google maps it was not uncommon for me to miss turns because if more than one prompt was given it was too much information coming in and it was really confusing and overwhelming, so I might keep left at the fork, but would not know to make a right on the next whatever-the-fuck street was named; left, right, a street name—way too much information!! Here was the woman who was the master of direction and memory reduced to this being with jelly for brains. Then to make matters worse, I was in a constant state of wanting to avoid as many people as possible (go avoidance!! one of my favorite PTSD symptoms!), so when trying to figure out how to get somewhere, I had to choose the route that was the least peopley. No longer was it the most efficient, quickest way to get somewhere, but I would choose taking a longer route if it meant less people exposure.
I no longer felt one with my car. If I felt disconnected from myself, I certainly felt disconnected from my car. My parking became crooked. I bumped curbs. I have scratches and tiny dents in various places on my car from near misses and not so near misses. I was so zoned out, confused, and feeling lost that I moved forward on a red light and ran another one. I used to love to drive and then it became this foreign feeling, this alien thing that could put me and others in harms way. It was almost like bumper cars, that feeling of chaotic overexcitement, but trust me, not fun at all. And if we are going to go with the carnival theme, yes, it was very much like that feeling one gets being in the “fun house” looking in the mirrors that distort everything—THAT is what it felt like, every time I got behind the wheel or when I was out in public, walking amongst the masses. My vision literally had this distorted effect; I called it fish bowling because I felt like I was looking though distorted glass or when watching fish at an aquarium. Not only did I feel disassociated, but I was literally dizzy as well, sometimes having terrible vertigo. PTSD does not just stay in the mind, as if that is not bad enough, it invades all your other senses and body parts. I remember immediately after the fire I found myself walking hunched, like an ancient dowager, at 52 years old. I called it prawning, because I kept finding myself hunched like a prawn. Pain, weakness, feeling old beyond my years. Only recently, 3.5 years after the fire, have I not felt old beyond my years. I had put myself out to pasture at 55 because that is how I felt, in mind and body, but luckily some very intense and very intentional and focused healing and recovery work have me feeling like my former self, a much younger self. Like that 31-year-old woman driving over 160 mph in the rain, hurling along in joyous, hot anticipation of getting my brains fucked out.
I retired one year ago, leaving behind the career that took so much out of me. CPS social workers do not get enough credit for what they witness and do in their jobs, literally putting their lives on the line with little or no support and getting little or no (mostly no) support for their trauma exposure. My life is forever altered and I have no recourse to recapture, through benefits or financial compensation, what has been taken from me for my service, for trying to keep others safe. I moved to another state so the constant threat of, news about, and smoke from the wildfires in California does not have to trigger me anymore. I did more therapy. I completed 55 treatments of transcranial magnetic stimulation for my depression and PTSD (as anti-depressants do not work on me, and the rebuilding I needed to do for my mental health went way beyond anti-depressants, in my opinion). I also gave myself the gift of not pressuring myself to do ANYTHING. Beyond maintaining my existence and caring for my cats, I intentionally avoided people, places, things, and most activities. Me and my brain were burned out from all my years of intense service to the most vulnerable and needy. My 23-year relationship, which also ended at this time, was severely imbalanced and had further drained my resources. No therapist would recommend doing what I did, isolating and not engaging in social activities. In fact, I did come to loggerheads with a therapist over this issue and then I declined his further services when I felt he was questioning my resilience. My resilience is my bedrock, my foundation and what has ultimately gotten me through life, and to have it questioned was definitely non-therapeutic. I knew I needed some time, to just breathe and not have anything asked of me, after making so many critical, life-altering, potentially life-saving decisions regarding my CPS clients, the children and parents both. I knew I needed to intensely grieve my many losses in the fire, the loss of my relationship, the loss of my sanity, the loss of the life I thought I was going to have.
I walked. I was thankfully surrounded by nature and I communed with it. My loving brother and his family gave me the support and space I needed. I ate healthy. I just sat and breathed. I was so overwhelmed by just about everything, that I used chunking, breaking even the simplest tasks into their smallest of components, to manage what needed to be done. And on days I could not do anything, I was okay with that, that was my very intentional gift to myself. I did not commit myself to anything. No thought of “well, I should do ….” entered my mind. I was profoundly numb and depressed, but I sat with it and just let it be. I did not further aggravate it by thinking how horrible my life was, because that is like building up a brick wall and trapping yourself inside, and I was already there, I did not need to go more there. Instead, I did the opposite. I looked at the wrapping, the trappings and brick fortress that had been building around me for years and I slowly, and patiently, began to dismantle it. “Hello,” I would say to the brick labeled “all the trees and animals that burned up in the fire,” as I chucked it intentionally, lovingly and calmly into the abyss I was sitting on the edge of. I was past raging, I am not a bitter or angry person, by choice, so I took the bricks, one by one, and calmly dropped the bricks into the abyss. “Hello CPS client who fucked her three-year-old daughter with a dog bone. Goodbye.” “Hello licensed clinical social worker program manager who opined two-year-olds cannot be traumatized. Goodbye.” “Hello supervisor who would completely ignore me as I stood at your desk. Goodbye.” “Hello image of my living room full of my beloved books and WWII historical artifacts being engulfed by flames. Goodbye.” Childhood stuff was coming up as I was taking off the top layers of my most recent trauma, so I acknowledged that too. “Hello being molested several times. Goodbye.” “Hello mom locking the door to her bedroom to keep us young kids out to fend for ourselves. Goodbye.” “Hello not feeling loved or valued. Goodbye.” Brick by brick, I very slowly, over 10 months, took the bricks down, acknowledged them, and thanked them for making me who I am today: a very awesome, smart, determined, compassionate, loving, passionate, funny, tough as fuck woman. Knowing me as I do, I knew I would eventually reintegrate into myself and into society, when it was time, because ultimately, I am extremely resilient.
And I knew I was making the largest amount of progress in my brain healing and recovery when in the past two months I began to feel at one with my car and I was enjoying driving again! I enjoy b-breaking into the curves and speeding out of them. I enjoy the feel of the wheel as I grip and turn it. I feel relaxed and very present in my mind and body. My senses are alive and not numbly bouncing off me. I feel the momentum of the car, the wind in my face, I see and enjoy the sights and do not feel befuddled by them. I just drive, no Google map lady telling me where to turn, because I know, without even thinking about it, where I am going, even though I now live in a completely new place. I am remembering things and have my sense of direction back! I feel free and in charge again. Driving is something I can measure my brain recovery success against, and I tell you, it is a sweet, sweet, exhilarating success! It feels Eclipse-like, and that is fucking good!