panic in Michigan

By Lev Raphael

Reflections on PTSD

I thought I was fine right after my car accident.  I'd slid off a rain-slick highway in Michigan into a median and knocked myself out.  I woke with the top of my head feeling slightly sore, wondering why there were so many trees and shrubs in front of me.  Where were all the cars?  

Before I could reach for my phone to call home, I saw a deep blue Michigan State Police car pull up behind me and two blue-uniformed officers came out to check on me.

I exited my SUV with no problem and was apparently too coherent to be drunk because they only asked if I felt all right and if I needed help getting home.  I didn't. They cut the deployed airbags and then got in their car to lead me back onto the road.  And they followed for a while to make sure I was okay.

I noted at some level that I'd had a very lucky break: while I'd gone into and out of a ditch, at least there was a median.  Five or ten minutes further north there was no median and I would have gone over into southbound traffic.  The fact registered but didn't take root since I was calling home to tell my spouse what happened and that I'd be home soon. 

The whole thing felt a bit dreamlike when I got home.  Had I really gone off the road?  

Three days later, I was rushed to the ER with what was quickly diagnosed as a concussion: I was nauseous, dizzy, couldn't stand or see straight.  Three hours of tests didn't find any other damage and I was advised to take things easy for a few weeks, though my avuncular GP gave me permission to teach my classes at Michigan State University if I was driven there and back, and otherwise rested at home.  Easy-peasy, right?

And then the panic attacks started.  As a mystery author, I watch a lot of crime movies and series, but suddenly I couldn't tolerate them.  Watching a movie or TV show with a car chase or accident of any kind left me shivering and afraid, my heart beating so hard that my head hurt.  I was reliving the moments of waking up confused and experiencing something worse: the knowledge that I had escaped possible death or at the very least terrible injury by minutes. 

I stopped feeling safe in the world and gradually became afraid of even driving to the local supermarkets.  I had to steel myself for the short trips, reminding myself that there was no highway driving involved, no heavy traffic, and there sure as hell wasn't going to be any dangerously slick roads because I stayed in if it was raining or if there was even a forecast of rain.

Worse than the way my world was starting to shrink were the vague dark nightmares that thrust me from sleep and left me almost breathless and terrified—as if the nightmare still had its claws in me and was determined to draw blood and drag me down. My GP prescribed Xanax for the panic attacks and it cut them short though they didn't stop fast enough.

But in the middle of all the mental and physical turmoil, my writer's brain was noting each and every symptom, each and every shock, each and every moment of terror—and thinking I can use this someday.

The author and journalist Janet Malcolm once wrote that "art is theft, art is armed robbery."

Can you steal from yourself?

Lev Raphael

Lev Raphael is the author of 27 books in genres from memoir to mystery and has seen his work translated into 15 languages. A former Detroit Free Press book reviewer and assistant professor of creative writing at Michigan State University, he coaches, mentors, and edits writers at writewithoutborders.com.