September 19th – It is, I’d guess, a sort of safety mechanism,
something that allows you to cope with the trauma at the point of event. All
well and good if it means you’ll avoid something dreadful, life-threatening
even, by way of motor responses, but the delayed reaction of shock,
understanding and finally of contemplation can be as bad or in some cases worse
that the actual event. Bit serious today, sorry.
It’s often intrigued me how we can have something happen in front of us,
a Sparrowhawk snatching a Dunnock from off the floor, say, that is over in a
split second and yet we are able to register all the fine details; details that
would under normal circumstances pass us completely by. We can even focus down
to, in that split-second, the position of the raptor’s head and talons at the
moment of strike. A lot of this comes from our ancestral make up (No, not Revlon or Max Factor…I’m talking about our innate and learned make up from
way back when we were homo erectus and before…can you imagine giving a lipstick
to Cro-Magnon woman? She’d probably eat it). It’s what goes in to making us
what we are; highly developed (notice I didn’t say intelligent) mammals with a
core of intuition and insight that we’ve lost contact with as civilisation has
overtaken us. But every now and then an event happens and we revert to type,
like the Sparrowhawk-Dunnock analogy of earlier. It’s almost as though
everything slows and details become sharp, crisp and finely picked out.
That’s the same sort of reaction one gets to a personal close-call in,
say, an accident. I can remember, it was about twenty-odd year ago, walking
along the pavement in the centre of Wolverhampton when I sensed something out
of kilter and moved slightly to my left only to have some twenty-something arse zoom past me on a…what do you call them…those bikes with the small wheels
that young kids ride? Do tricks on them. Anyway, whatever, he was on one of
those (y’know, I’ve always been VERY suspicious of older men riding those
things… something deeply wrong in it for me…prejudiced old bugger that I am)
anyway, he was going flat out as he dodged round the pavement-borne pedestrians
in his way. So close was he that his shoulder brushed mine as he flicked the
wheel and handlebars so as to continue on his journey without wiping me out the
way. My involuntary movement to the left had undoubtedly helped save me from
being creamed by wanker-man, it was only after about five seconds had passed
that the shot of adrenaline whacked through me and, for a second I was the
bearer of shaky-legs and fast breathing. That was an almost immediate response
to a possibly dangerous situation, one that, within moments of its passing was
all but gone after the initial thoughts and a little contemplation of the
incident and my escaping of it after those initial thoughts.
There are times though when the resultant after effects delve a little
deeper into the subconscious to become a defining moment in your life and
change it, often for good and ever…sometimes not in a nice way.
Ever been in one of those real near misses? You know, one where you were
a survivor, the
survivor? Reading
Why them not me?
I guess it’s hard to figure out the randomness of fate (we did this
earlier) and how some fluke of timing or object placement intervenes to spare
some and not others. What becomes plain in these conversations is the;
I am not worthy
syndrome which affects some folk afterwards and may become the dominant
factor in their lives, unless counselling and outside help isn’t made available
to them, which it often isn’t as the person involved can oftentimes drop into
denial. What can follow is a litany of unpleasantness and wrong thinking
ranging from on the one scale the, that
was my near fatality in this life; it’ll not happen again and on to the, I am invincible frame of mind and on the
other of violence (both to self and others) drug and/or alcohol abuse and, in
worst-case scenarios, suicidal tendencies.
When DJ AM (Adam Goldstein) was
involved in a fatal plane crash on this day
in 2002 that killed the other four people on the plane but spared both
him and Travis Barker (Blink 182
drummer) he was in hospital for just one week before being allowed home. Less
than a year later he was found dead from an accidental O/D, and truth be told that
listed cause of death may well be the case. Can’t help wondering how much
post-traumatic support he got though. See, when someone is found dead with a
cocktail of cocaine, oxycodone, hydrocodone, lorazepram, clonazepam,
alprazolam, diphenhydramine and levamisole (cocaine-cutting drug) you sort of have to
wonder, well I do anyhow, how his self esteem and self worth was affected by
the crash and his surviving it, and whether the right discussions were had to
help him along the road to recovery; I mean, that’s an awful lot of accidental O/D; isn’t it? I know, I
know, none of your damn business Doris, and I’m sure those around did their
level best…
You remember what I started out with? About our
natural, animal (in the proper sense of the word) instincts. They can also help
to read the unsaid. Eye dilation, cheek colouring, lip blushing, involuntary
hand movement, they’re all signs and signals that we once understood instantly
but have begun to lose the ability to decipher; call it laziness, lack of
practice, too much in the way a false signals (blusher, eye-drops, lipstick)
but it’s a skill we would do well to practice.
Remember that movement, which is still with us now,
about doing little acts of kindness? We, none of us, know about the private
battles other people we meet are fighting; just means we have to be a little
more alert and in tune, listen to our instincts and ask the question; I’d
rather do something and make a mistake that can be quickly cleared up by me
being told off for being too fussy or apologising than do nothing and find the
situation irretrievable; you?
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