so…

In the previous post, I wrote that I went to my former SS lawyer’s office to get the file that he worked on for me in 1999. I was in an automobile accident in 1998. I never call it an accident myself; I was drunk and thus, it was no accident that I crashed my car. I do not drink and drive anymore; I did in the past several times and it caught up with me and I am very lucky that 1. I did not hurt anyone else, and 2. that I recovered from my extensive injuries.

Looking through the file since I wrote that last post three hours ago, I see that I was very damaged and have come very far from there. In a more perfect world, I would never drink again, but I do, just not very much and not very often, and never when I am going to drive within the next eight hours. In that perfect world, I would have never picked up those cigarettes again, but in this world, I did and still smoke. It’s a very bad habit, I know, and it’s expensive, and really very stupid.

It’s quite clear from reading that file, that I have come very far from where I was. I had a "closed head injury" – I hit my head so hard in the crash that I bruised my brain and was in a coma, or comatose state for many weeks. It was a Traumatic Brain Injury, and was (and may still be, a little) the most serious injury in the car wreck, but I also broke four ribs and had my lungs deflated – collapsed lungs – both of them. I received abdominal injuries – severe bruising on my right side of the kidney, adrenal glands, and misc. other bruising that led to bleeding internally. I surmise (I do not remember) that the seat belt shoulder belt broke or the bolt holding the shoulder portion of the belt broke, throwing me into the dashboard and causing those injuries. I have no idea why my left leg was so torn up; there are two deep scars – open wounds then, on my left thigh, and my left ankle was trapped in the car’s twisted wreckage, which caused me much pain for a year or more after the wreck (it’s gone away now, and even weather changes do not aggravate it, kind of surprisingly). I guess I was thrown into the dashboard; the file makes repeated reference to a "complex chin injury". I had a beard then, that I didn’t shave off for years because of the fear that that "complex injury" would be ugly. It’s not, actually, and that scarring is much less noticeable that the tracheotomy scar I have in my throat. Apparently, after the trauma hospital, OHSU, I was moved to a care clinic while an open space was waited for at Good Samaritan’s RIO unit, which specializes in brain injury rehabilitation. In that care unit, I was "perturbed" and tore out the tracheotomy tube,the feeding tubes in my side, and the other tubes stuck into me. OHSU offered, later, to fix the throat scar for me, but I said "no, I’ve had enough of hospitals" and so the scar remains, and moves when I talk. It doesn’t bother me, and it’s been a long time since I wore turtlenecks all the time, but it did bother kids at the zoo, where I worked in 2003-5. It was good practise for my pride to answer those "What happened to you!" questions I fielded then.

Other than the throat scar, when I’m dressed in long pants or long shorts, almost none of the new scars show.

I see in the records that from the beginning, I wanted to 1. Live on my own. 2. Get my driver’s license back. (it was suspended for two reasons: I was drunk, and had no insurance (TG I had health insurance) and it was Medically Suspended until it was determined that I had recovered enough to drive again) 3. To recover and have a "normal" life, and 4. To finish the college degree I was working on at the time I crashed my car.

I was in three hospitals for 59 days, and then in an Adult Foster Care Home for almost nine months, but I have my own apartment now and have lived here, on my own, since 1999. I got my driver’s license back in 2000, after I got my college degree and graduated that summer. I have a life that closely resembles "normal" again.

I have accomplished my goals. This is needed perspective, right now, as I am unemployed and looking for work. I have done what I wanted to do; I can do it again and get a job too. Time is really the only uncertain factor in accomplishing my new goal.

***

Why was I drunk that night? Besides the fact that I used to really like to drink? I was tagged as a "deadbeat dad"to a 15 year old kid whom I have never seen, and the State of California and the County of Santa Barbara used their extensive powers to ruin my life (I know that they think of it differently, but the results were that my life was ruined). I reacted to all of that by crawling into a bottle of bourbon, and (I don’t remember, but…) saying "fuck it" and driving real fast that night and crashing my car. No one held that bottle to my lips. No one "made" me get in the car I had had for just ten days, and no one else drove me into the Morrison Bridge – I did it all by myself and have no one to blame but that guy I see in the mirror when I shave. I did not handle the situation very well at all.

It didn’t go away, and raised it’s ugly head again in 2001, by which time the bill for being that deadbeat dad hit $13,000. That time, I got a lawyer to help me. He did not, really, but he did tell me something I hadn’t known, that I could attend a hearing regarding the situation by phone, which I did. Mistakes, grievous mistakes, were made by Child Support in California and that county, and $8,000 of the arrearages where thrown out, and payments set at $50.00 a month to repay the $6,000 I was left with.

I’m still paying. I haven’t seen a tax return in years, and I hope that the last two, the 2009 taxes that I filed this year (IRS didn’t get my return for some reason last year – lost in the mail or something and I didn’t’ know about it/do anything about it until this year) and the 2010 taxes that I filed electronically will take care of almost all of the debt leftover. The paperwork that I get every month hasn’t been updated for a very long time, so I will have to make phone calls again to resolve the issue. I’m broke, and unemployed, and haven’t’ made that fifty dollar payment since I lost my PT job in Novemb

er, but those tax returns should, I think, take care of almost all of the debt that’s left. I hope,but an irrational fear of it all has kept me from dealing with it, and thus I’m still in limbo regarding the mess.

In 2006, the now adult woman who they say is my child began writing here on OD at my invitation; it was my intention that she see what kind of man I am and relent on her (to me) irrational hatred of me. Things got ugly soon and I cut her off and went Favs Only for a time. Things quieted down again, and I went on with my life, getting a job driving a school bus.

That lasted for three years, until in the middle of the economic downturn in 2009, I lost my job due to a false positive drug test. Things being the way they were at the school district, no mercy was shown and I was "terminated without mercy". Prior to and during the school bus job, I was distributing the newspaper on weekends, working seven days a week. My full time position with the newspapers had been taken by another driver, so after getting the Unemployment denial reversed, I was working just weekends.

The other driver accused me of physical violence towards him when the work declined even further, and it’s true I was verbally abusive towards him, but he lied to the boss, and it was clear, when he called me in to address the issue, that my words meant nothing, which triggered a form of PTSD in me and I told that man what I thought of him and his job in very abusive language, which cost me the job I didn’t really want any more (I am not your slave )&*(^&^)(*&_) and which terminated any hope of Unemployment. If it wasn’t for my former wife (I never say "ex-wife) helping me, I would be in deeper shit than I am now.

After the earthquake in Japan in March, my daughter (I might as well say it – I’ve been tagged with it and the girl, now a woman, grew up believing it) sent me an email expressing condolences for Japan, where my former wife was born and now lives. I did not know how to respond to that, but felt I had made mistakes in the past regarding her, and so replied "Thank you" to that email. Some time later, I received another email, which initiated an ongoing conversation that has not degenerated into disaster this time. A reflective 28 year old is much easier to deal with than an angry 15 year teenager was, or a pissed off 20-something in 2006 was. I know I may be called upon to explain and justify my actions (although my experiences in the car wreck say it’s "lights out, end of show, life’s over") and I am trying to act and respond differently than I did in the past.

Looking at the paperwork about me in 1998 and 99, I see that I have come a far ways from where I was then. I long ago accomplished the goals I set right after my injuries. There is no where else to go now but Onwards. I write that a lot here, and it’s true, there is nowhere else to go but onwards. Some things have changed, yes, but that never does. I have to live with myself, I have to be able to say "I have done what I can". I have to sleep with myself. I am trying a different way of dealing with all of this.

Clearly, I have accomplished the goals I set for myself after the car wreck, after waking up in the hospital not knowing who I was or what my name was, even. If I did that, I can do this.

Onwards. It’s a work in process. Onwards.

 

*****