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Category Archives: blood

Post-Traumatic Stress—Blood

10 Friday Jun 2011

Posted by karenmoorephillips in blood, fear, Post-Traumatic Stress, suicide

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            I didn’t realize the streams of dark liquid were blood.  Maybe it was because Daddy was in a shadowy area in his garage, or maybe it was because my mind had begun already to mercifully stop processing reality.  My thoughts had reduced to a crawl.  I didn’t see the gun hidden in a sock laying a yard or two away from his body.  It must have jumped from his hand when he shot himself.   There was no exit wound from his head because he had used such a small bullet.  Thinking he had perhaps had a massive stroke or heart attack, I didn’t know he had shot himself.  I saw the dark streams as motor oil.  Slowly, looking at his body, I wondered what he had been working on before he died. 
It bothered me that I hadn’t recognized something as vital as his blood.  That first night at home in bed, I tried to explain to my husband how guilty I felt that I didn’t know it was his blood.  The words howled out in such rushed anguish that the bedcovers twisted around my body.  I had seen my father’s blood rolling away in rivulets and didn’t know it.  If only I had of known, I could have tried to scoop it up.  Surely, I could have done something!             
Afterwards, if I saw where someone had poured out liquid on to concrete, I felt queasy, a sick pounding just under my heart.  My ribcage would widen-out in fright.  I worked, then, at an automotive dealership.  Seeing oil or some other dark liquid on the concrete was an everyday occurrence.  I felt I couldn’t get away from the sight.  Even the habit of tossing out the last few swallows of coffee from my cup when I got out of the car took my mind right back to that moment.
I had developed a phobia of dark liquid.  I felt no one would understand, so I only spoke of it once in a support group.  I cried so hard that I lost my breath.  I didn’t speak of it again for nearly a year.  I wrote my thoughts and fears in a journal where I felt comfortable crying in private.  Thankfully, that intense fear of liquid being dashed out on the ground subsided.  I’ve since learned that no matter how much I think to the contrary my mind can’t hold itself in an extreme state of fear forever.
The thing about fears is that they always seem to have a source of origin.  The truth is fears are wider and taller in the shadows than they are in the light.  Put them in the light.

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At First

10 Friday Jun 2011

Posted by karenmoorephillips in blood, bloodstains, dreams, father, grief, PTSD, suicide

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            Pictures of my father entered my mind, uninvited.  Thoughts of his blood invaded everything.  They swept through my every action and camped out in my dreams.  Day or night, asleep or awake, it didn’t matter.  I was suddenly emerged, pre-soaked, and never rinsed clean.  I had bloodstains on my mind.
            I obsessed.  How long had he been thinking of killing himself?  He started clearing away everything around his house nearly a month before.  Had he also planned on killing Moma?  He really could have, you know; I believed it was on his mind.  He had tried to throw away her tomato cages as if she wouldn’t have another growing season.  But Moma gave Daddy a hard time about throwing her gardening supplies away.  So he put them back. 
“What in hell’s name were you thinking?” I cried out in my sleep enough to wake me.  Had he planned on me finding him?  He knew I was coming to visit.  He knew that I usually came looking for him.  Did he have faith that I would take care of things for him?
            How long did I suffer from traumatic stress?  It was a long time.  I longed for just the grief of missing Daddy and not being stuck on how he died.  Counseling helped, although I have had uneasy feelings that tap me on the shoulder still. 
Finally, I could pinpoint when the lessening started.  In a dream, I didn’t raise that garage door; I didn’t go in calling out his name.  In my dream, I chose not to go in.  Waking, the dream left me feeling rested.  Perhaps that one particular dream was the first real scabbing-over of my heart.
            Raw grief hurts so much.  It does get easier.  It takes a while.  Look to your dreams.

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