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A Fantastic Experience

It’s an interesting thing about experiences that they don’t necessarily have any connection to real events.  Your experience might be a fantasy.

Think of the person who has a near-death experience.   They aren’t transported in any way, but they see/hear/smell things that aren’t really there.   But that person REALLY experiences those things.  The experience is real.

Or for another example, think about cases of mistaken identity of a deceased person.   If a person had died in an automobile accident and the authorities called you to tell you it was your relative, you would have an emotional reaction.   Even if your relative came home as scheduled shortly thereafter and the mistake was corrected, your experience was real.  Your emotions were real.  You experienced the pain of losing a love one and the experience was real.

What I’m saying is that what you experience may not in any way reflect reality.  You might feel perfectly safe but may really be in imminent peril.   You might feel like you are in danger yet really are perfectly safe and secure.   What you are experiencing might be a complete fantasy – a fantastic experience!

Why on Earth am I thinking about this?

I hope you never have the dilemma I’ve been going through.  I’ve spent a great deal of time lately trying to trying to remember past experiences and trying to determine if they were real.  As part of my journey toward mental wellness, I’m trying to figure this out.   It seems to me that knowing what is real and what isn’t is important in normal human functioning.

Because of anxiety attacks, emotional breakdowns, and frequent nightmares that linger when awake, I have had a host of experiences that I know never happened, a whole host of them that I’m fairly certain have been tainted, and only a few that I “KNOW” happened exactly as I remember them.

Some examples I know didn’t happen

I’m obviously alive, but I couldn’t count how many times I’ve experienced dying.  I know those memories aren’t of real things, but like mentioned at the beginning, the experiences were real.

I’ve been killed by being shot, crushed (inside a car), drowned, beheaded and more. These experiences come almost exclusively from nightmares.  Sometimes I wake at the moment of death, other times it is suspended (time stops and I am frozen at that moment or just before), other times I’m instantly onto another experience.

During one repeated dream I’ve won the lottery and I’ve decided to use it to pay off all the debts for people in Melbourne, AR.  So I’ve set up a table in front of Miller’s Supermarket and there is a line of people from town.  As they show me the paperwork for their debts Julie pulls out a stack of cash and I hand it over.

One particular person (same guy every time) isn’t happy about something and/or just wants the cash we are handing out, and without saying a word when he is next in line, he simply pulls a pistol from his coat and shoots me in the head.   I never wake from this, but instead am just frozen at the moment of the gunshot.  I never feel the bullet, but am stuck asleep feeling the terror of knowing that I’m about to die, knowing that Julie will be shot next, feeling helpless to protect her/others, thinking about the kids, etc.

The event has never happened, but that terror that I’ve felt is very real.  And the effects that the terror have on my life are real too.

 Examples I’m less sure about

I wish everything were as easy as knowing that I’ve never died.  That one is obvious.  I’ve also never played the lottery, let alone win it.

But what about less obvious memories?  I have one dream that started a few years ago about an experience from my missionary work in Argentina.   The dream takes place in a very poor area and not a particularly safe one.  As is culturally acceptable, one hot day we asked at one house if we could have some water and they let us in.

The three men inside were as unclean as the house.  Heavy blankets covered the house and the darkness seemed oppressive.  I felt very uncomfortable being there, but my companion tried to share a gospel message.   This didn’t last long before becoming contentious.  Feeling very insecure, I notice one man had positioned himself in front of the door.

Stopping my companion mid-sentence, I grabbed him by the arm and stand both of us up saying, “thanks for your time.”  Pulling my companion I turn and move to leave.  The man at the door stands and grins like he knows something we don’t.  All I said was, “you will move!”  At the moment he shifted to look behind me for support I opened the door and slipped us out the door, still dragging my slightly confused/annoyed companion behind me.

Every time I have this dream I’m filled with ominous feelings.   What I’m not sure about is how much of this really happened.   I know the companion and I really visited that house and were admitted for water.  I’m not sure at all if my memories of what happened in there are real though.  It’s possible that what I’ve described was real, perhaps it happened as I remember it.  Or maybe my memories have been altered by my constant nightmares.   Because I’ve repeatedly experienced it this way I can no longer recall it happening any other way.   Is my brain recalling real moments, or is it tainting my memory and making them terror-filled?

Things I know are real

Well, I know I’m alive (as much as any person can I suppose).  I know Julie loves me.  Basic facts like my name and who my kids are seem pretty obvious too.    I know I used to be healthy, mentally and physically. 

I wish the list here could be longer.   Because the nightmares and waking anxiety are so pervasive though, I have started to pay attention to whether any memory I have is real or not.

I’m sure if boiled down, that I’d find that 90% or more of what I remember is “real.”  But how do I know which 90% it is?  I can’t even group large items together (like my mission) and say, “I know all of those are real” because there might be some of them in there like the one I mentioned above.   Experiences I’ve had (especially the traumatic ones), conversations I’ve been a part of, places I’ve gone, things I’ve done, things I’ve seen… all of them are under self-examination.

And do I do about events when I have two or more sets of memories about what “really” happened?  What a mess!

What any of this means…

You’re guess is as good as mine about what I’m talking about.  I think I started out planning on talking about how I’ve had some terrible experiences that were completely fantastic and unreal (thus the title).   Somehow that morphed into how those experiences have made it hard to distinguish between what I’ve really done, and what I’ve only imagined.  So I guess this post, like a few of my “experiences”, has very little meaning.  I’m sure someone, somewhere has a better way of explaining what I’m getting at.

IF I’m exploring “what is real” and IF I were smart, maybe I wouldn’t have written any of it and instead just showed a clip…  it would have spared you all from reading my gibberish.

 

 

So, if any of you are willing to talk about the issues you might have (TBI, PTSD, etc), I’d love to hear about how you deal with this type of memory trust issue.  Please share your experiences below, or share via social media to your other friends who might feel the same way.

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Angels Among Us

I believe in angels, both the seen and unseen.  The immortal ones, and the average, everyday, human kind of angel.

I was at a church event this week (New Beginnings) with my daughter, Caitlin.  It was kind of a recognition ceremony that doubled to encourage the girls to live by the values they profess.

When talking of doing “good works” one of the presenters there shared the story of the High School valedictorian who gave a speech where he told the story of how he had cleaned out his locker and was planning on committing suicide that weekend… only someone noticed him as he was on his way home and they spent the weekend (and high school years) together.   (Here’s a link to the story of Kyle).

Well it got me to remembering the Angel that saved my life, Ryan Neilsen, while I was at Fort Huachuca.   I had a hard time at Fort Huachuca do to the unfortunate presence of just a couple of soldiers there who found particular delight in my misery, but it was the presence there of Nielsen that helped me survive the place.

I had filed several informal charges* against one particular guy who was the main problem.   Despite this though the cadre provided no relief and he didn’t restrain himself at all, in fact he was encouraged by the lack of action by the NCO’s.  So things got worse for me.  Thankfully there was  a friend in the unit who was a strength at a time I was weak.

After one particularly bad week of harassment and abuse I had decided to just give up.   I was done.  I couldn’t handle the stress of the current situation and had started to believe it would never get better.  I had broken down and was sobbing and slightly hysterical.   I stumbled over to the Chaplain’s office to try to reach out for help from him, but it was locked and he was gone.

I probably spent 10 minutes just sitting outside the locked doors sobbing and thinking of ways to make the pain/suffering stop.  After a while I was able to stop shaking enough to pull my phone from my pocket and called Nielsen**.   I don’t know that he could understand a thing I said and I tried to talk to him.   He knew I was in bad shape though and asked where I was.   Thankfully he was nearby, close enough that in just a few moments I saw him sprinting his way toward me.

It was a sight I’m sure I’ll never forget, seeing him running toward me to save me from the darkness I was enveloped in.   He talked to me, calmed me, and helped me find additional care.   He was an angel of comfort doing the Lord’s work.  Because of that day, and others like it, Ryan quite literally saved my life.   My family was the reason I chose to kept living, but Nielsen was the one who help me make that choice.

That man has my undying gratitude and will forever, eternally, have my respect and love.  I don’t know if he even remember this incident, but I hope that he knows that if he ever needs me, I will likewise come running to his aid.

In a world full of ugliness, terrorists, hatred, and pain, it is easy to believe that those things are the only things to find in the world.  But you can find some way to be an angel.  Find some way to encourage those around you.  Try to SEE those around you who are hurting, are afraid, are alone, or are ready to give up.  It might only take a moment of kindness to save a life.   It only took a moment to save Kyle’s, and it only took a moment to save mine.

 

* I did end up filing formal charges.

** I could have called Julie, but she seemed too far away.  Plus I wanted to shield her from the pain I was feeling.

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Journey for Mental Wellness

Julie and I started this blog hoping to chronicle our journey  either back to the farm or onto some other adventure. We hope those days will come and that we’ll have many moments of happiness and joy.  And while we will use this blog for when those things happen, I’m afraid that the first journey that needs to be taken is a journey toward mental wellness for me.

I’m not sure how “exciting” of a journey that will be for any of you to follow. I’m not even sure how much of that we’re going to be willing to share. Mental health issues are very sensitive, and there is almost always a very negative stigma associated with them.  I have many raw emotions and will have lots of shame and embarrassment to overcome.  Some of that you won’t hear about.

I know for a fact that there are things about my trauma that I won’t share.   But there are others things that I think I wouldn’t mind, like even admitting that I have PTSD, or that I’m getting mental health treatment from the VA.   Some things I think will be helpful to talk about and share because it will help me to learn to stop the pattern of avoidance and isolation.   I think I’ll need to share them in order to get better.

I also think that all of us know more people with mental health issues than we realize, and that those people are nervous to let others know.  I think that the more people learn about MH issues the more they can act with compassion toward those they know and love… maybe I’ll be able to share something that will help you understand the depression/loneliness/anxiety that your friend or family member is feeling.  Or perhaps by sharing it will give somebody else the resolve to seek help for their issues too.   Maybe some other veteran will find help instead of turning into a “22 a day” statistic (22 veterans a day commit suicide).  So I’ll share and hope for those results, as well as to show my kids that their father is doing his best to get better.

So if you are interested in that, then keep following along as we, the Jensen family, continue our journey through life, where ever that might take us.  Our first step will be to attempt to mend my broken vessel.

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In Praise of Diversity of Thought

I had a several hour wait between VA appointments yesterday. I found myself an out-of-the-way chair and sat to wait. While there I was able to observe many veterans and VA staff as they passed by and I was struck with an insight about our need for diversity.

The veterans I saw (as well as those I know from elsewhere) largely fit a few stereotypes, while the VA staff largely fit into a few completely different ones.  (As with all generalities, they won’t apply to every individual; there are plenty of exceptions.)   And I was struck by the need for both today.

Due to the nature of the work they are asked to do, Veterans can be gruff, disciplined, hardened, unyielding, unforgiving, strong, etc.  They are trained for violence, uniformity is drilled into them, they’ve make due with cold food from an MRE bag; they’ll go THROUGH a wall to accomplish a task, .  They study military tactics and criminal justice.  They are who you want with you if a fight broke out.

The VA staff are largely not that way.  They are the people who are more compassionate, tender, merciful, willing to compromise, able to see the pain of others.  They are healers.  They want to save the world, they wear peace symbols on their clothes, they see beauty in variety, they sip latte’s from their Starbucks mugs.  They study social sciences and protest for civil rights. They run or call 911 when the fight breaks out.

But like a symbiotic relationship, both sets of these characteristics are good and desirable.  The veteran, trained for violence, keeps the world peaceful for the healer; their strength provides stability, safety, and security.  The healer works to put the veteran back together again physically and emotionally; they remove the sting/pain of the violence that the veteran has experienced.  They help the violent find peace.

My Facebook PicSticker on my Physical Therapist’s backpack

 

Without the violent/strong/brave the caregivers world would be unsafe.  They would be subject to the whims of the cruel and uncaring.  Without the healers, the world would be cold and ugly and full of suffering.  They help to show us the beauty that exists around us.

Again, not every veteran fits the description, nor does every healer.  There is plenty of overlap, but I feel the premise is true.  I think the two groups would generally have very different world views and sets of values.  You might say one group is described by the world “Justice” and the other by the word “Mercy”.

What I’m trying to convey is that as a society, we need both.  We need justice amongst us, and we need mercy too.  We need those who are strong and unyielding.  We equally need those who are tender and compassionate.  Without a sheepdog the flock of sheep would be destroyed by the wolves, but there would be no point in having just a flock of sheepdogs. It is only the combination of sheep and sheepdog that has any benefit.

There are limits to the value of diversity to be sure, and perhaps I’ll write something about that in a different post, but I wanted to express that I see the value in having several viewpoints by which to evaluate the world.  And I hope you can as well.