Brushes with death/ gratitude for life.

F Me In The Brain

I have had about many close brushes with the end and continue to, on occasion, stare that bitch down.  I figure sooner or later my luck will run out...but that is why I have a large life insurance policy.  Hope I go doing something fun and not with ass cancer or something!

2-feign-reluctance

lotsalemon said:

2-feign-reluctance said:

lotsalemon said:

2-feign-reluctance said:

-SWAT mistook me for our neighbor and held me at gunpoint (back of my head) for 5 minutes before they realized they had the wrong guy. My motherfucking douchebag drugged out asshole neighbor shows up after those 5 minutes and they quickly descended on him - grabbing him out of his car by one arm and throwing him on the ground. We were living next to the 2nd biggest drug dealer in Columbia at the time. Since then I have had a highly sensitive and irrational issue towards people who use and sell drugs.

How do you not have PTSD after this???!!
Damn. 

I did. 20 sessions of EMDR later & I was able to retrain my damaged 'survival alarm' mechanisms from the brain stem up & then from the top down. Definitely have managable leftovers though. Meditation and exercise help. 

Unreal. 
Hope those DB neighbors of yours got what was coming to them. 
Glad you made it out of that shit show relatively OK. 

They all went down. Took out the entire network. My landlord was friendly with the kid's family and was cutting them a deal to live there. He arrived about 30 minutes after SWAT stormed the place and found crates of drugs. He was obviously shocked. My wife, who saw the entire thing, laid into him. He kept saying he was sorry and he'd do anything to make it right. We'd been living there a few months when it happened. He let us out of our lease, gave us our deposits back. We moved out the next week to an upscale end of town. My Mom and Dad fired up the family lawyer, who told me we could sue the shit out of the police department. I've never sued anyone in my life, but I thought about it then. I ended up not suing - was too scared to challenge the police department in a small college town.

2-feign-reluctance

@brianlux

Won't attempt to summarize when EMDR is described better here. http://www.emdr.com/what-is-emdr/
It really is meant to help with traumatic memories, not so much a generalized anxiety disorder. For non-trauma based anxiety issues, learning and practicing mindfulness to deal with the body and CBT after to learn to deal with your thinking coupled with healthy eating, exericse (yoga especially) is the solution in my biased opinion. Too many folks are self-medicating with weed, alcohol, other illegal drugs and prescription drugs. That will never, ever address the root of the issue, only cover it up a few hours at a time.

Malroth

https://youtu.be/duWDEIfobmw

RogueStoner

2-feign-reluctance said:

@brianlux

Won't attempt to summarize when EMDR is described better here. http://www.emdr.com/what-is-emdr/
It really is meant to help with traumatic memories, not so much a generalized anxiety disorder. For non-trauma based anxiety issues, learning and practicing mindfulness to deal with the body and CBT after to learn to deal with your thinking coupled with healthy eating, exericse (yoga especially) is the solution in my biased opinion. Too many folks are self-medicating with weed, alcohol, other illegal drugs and prescription drugs. That will never, ever address the root of the issue, only cover it up a few hours at a time.

Thanks for sharing. I'll look into the EMDR and CBT.  I've done lots of self-medicating and agree that it is definitely not the solution. 

dankind

I don't respond to CBT. I've been upfront about this with therapists, but they still try. All have failed and been discontinued. Isn't the primary function of their job to listen? Christ!

Now they selectively listen for spots to insert some CBT horseshit. 

I don't know how they're selling this in MSW, PhD and PsyD programs, but it's all any younger therapist wants to do these days. 

It's as if no one has time for actual long-term psychoanalysis anymore. 

RogueStoner

Someone suggested I do DBT. I need to look all of this up. I hope I can find the right therapist for me before I reach my insurance cap for the year. I need someone with a LOT of patience, who knows how to handle someone who is very stubborn and completely irrational at times. 

RogueStoner

...and maybe has a spare couch for me to live on during that extra special week each month when I lose my shit altogether.

tempo_n_groove

OK please decipher the following acronyms:

CBT
DBT
EMDR


I got what DB, SWAT and OK stand for.

Thanks

PJ_Soul

I was in a plane over Manhattan, having just taken off from JFK, and our plane hit a flock of birds. It was a VERY harrowing return back to the airport, with the engine cutting in and out, the plane kept dropping suddenly, and clearly the pilots were really struggling to keep it in the air long enough to get back to JFK. I truly thought I was going to die. Even the flight crew was flipping out and clearly terrified, which I found understandable but very unprofessional. Obviously we made it back to the airport, barely. Perhaps I should have felt comforted when I looked out the window and saw all the firetrucks and ambulances chasing our plane down the runway as we came in to land, but that actually freaked me out too. Anyway, I can't say this experience did anything good for me. I used to really enjoy flying - I always saw it as an adventure and great fun and pretty amazing, but now I'm just a really nervous flyer, to the point where I feel sick, so that sucks.

One thing I did realize, though, was that it actually matters who you're sitting next to when you think you're going to die, and how they deal with the situation has an impact on the moment. I was traveling with my good friend. Earlier that day, while we were killing time before our flight, we went to Madame Tussaud's wax museum (it was lame). While there, we went into the chamber of horrors or whatever - one of those haunted houses where people in costume scare you. Well, to my great surprise, my adult friend FREAKED OUT. I'm talking crying, screaming, blubbering, hyperventilating, grabbing onto strangers and just begging to get out. She was literally acting like she was going to die. I've never seen anything like it. I actually had to tell the guy with the chainsaw to back off because my friend was having a mental breakdown. It was very embarrassing. So you'd think she'd absolutely flip while we're in a plane that seems to be crashing into Manhattan, right? Nope. She sat there acting like everything was just fine, like literally as though nothing was happening. As I dealt with what I thought were the last moments of my life, I looked to her for some kind of connection or mutual understanding, and she literally just shrugged it off and said "meh."...... My reaction to this was internalized rage. I was SO mad that I was about to die and the person I was with was so indifferent or oblivious to or in denial about the situation. In that moment, I thought to myself, "Jesus fucking Christ, I can't believe I have to die with this idiot next to me who goes ballistic and thinks she's going to die in a stupid wax museum, but has absolutely no reaction and is in complete denial about being in a plane that's about to hit Manhattan. Stupid cow!!!" I was so angry about the illogical absurdity and indifference it was lending to what I thought were my last moments. I told her my feelings about it later. She had no excuses, hahaha. She understood where I was coming from, and to this day she can't explain her bizarre reversal of fear priorities.

RogueStoner

CBT - cognitive behavioral therapy

DBT - dialectical behavior therapy

EMDR - eye movement and desensitization processing

2-feign-reluctance said:

Won't attempt to summarize when EMDR is described better here. http://www.emdr.com/what-is-emdr/

RogueStoner

PJSoul, that is so bizarre about your friend! What a scary experience. I used to love to fly and then one day I became deathly afraid of it, for no reason. Now, every time there's the slightest turbulence, I clutch the arm rests, close my eyes real tight and pray. I'm sure that's not comforting to those sitting around me. Either that or I make awful, corny jokes (At least you didn't hit a Flock of Seagulls). 

brianlux

RogueStoner said:

Wow!!! You guys have had some close calls!

Brian....Daaaaaamn!!! You must have a whole army of guardian angels or something. That list is just insane! 

Dan...well, you know. 

Glad you're all still here with us. 

I believe I mentioned a few close calls in the ghosts thread, but aside from those, the two that come to mind are...

When I was 19, we were having a pool party at the hotel where I worked at the time. I can't actually swim, but I can doggy paddle so that's what I was doing back and forth. I'd only had 1 beer so definitely wasn't drunk but for some reason I sank straight to the bottom in the deep end. Luckily one of my Marine buddies noticed me missing and dove down to get me. Other than a bloody nose, I was fine but he definitely saved me. 

When I was only 4 days old, my mother was sitting at the kitchen table breastfeeding me. My parents lived with my father's parents and his mother absolutely despised my mother and the fact that she had a baby with my father. On that day, my "grandmother" grabbed a butcher knife and threw it at my mother, missing my head by only an inch. My father tackled and restrained her and she got carted off to the loony bin, straight jacket and all. 

Grateful to be alive. Beyond grateful to be as blessed as I have been along the way. 

Just the thought of that knife flying by your head, Rogue... damn!  Glad it missed you!

F Me In The Brain

Turbulence won't cause the plane to crash.  (Birds might, though.)
I fly constantly and I hate it.  Hate it, so hard.  Just accept it is part of what I need to do for the life that I choose to lead. 
My hope would be that I would be the same as your friend in that circumstance, Soul, as there would be nothing I could do about the situation.  (Perhaps that is why your friend reacted to a situation she could control (leave, get people to stop, etc) on the ground and why she accepted that whatever was going to happen in the air was completely beyond her control.)

brianlux

PJ_Soul said:

I was in a plane over Manhattan, having just taken off from JFK, and our plane hit a flock of birds. It was a VERY harrowing return back to the airport, with the engine cutting in and out, the plane kept dropping suddenly, and clearly the pilots were really struggling to keep it in the air long enough to get back to JFK. I truly thought I was going to die. Even the flight crew was flipping out and clearly terrified, which I found understandable but very unprofessional. Obviously we made it back to the airport, barely. Perhaps I should have felt comforted when I looked out the window and saw all the firetrucks and ambulances chasing our plane down the runway as we came in to land, but that actually freaked me out too. Anyway, I can't say this experience did anything good for me. I used to really enjoy flying - I always saw it as an adventure and great fun and pretty amazing, but now I'm just a really nervous flyer, to the point where I feel sick, so that sucks.

One thing I did realize, though, was that it actually matters who you're sitting next to when you think you're going to die, and how they deal with the situation has an impact on the moment. I was traveling with my good friend. Earlier that day, while we were killing time before our flight, we went to Madame Tussaud's wax museum (it was lame). While there, we went into the chamber of horrors or whatever - one of those haunted houses where people in costume scare you. Well, to my great surprise, my adult friend FREAKED OUT. I'm talking crying, screaming, blubbering, hyperventilating, grabbing onto strangers and just begging to get out. She was literally acting like she was going to die. I've never seen anything like it. I actually had to tell the guy with the chainsaw to back off because my friend was having a mental breakdown. It was very embarrassing. So you'd think she'd absolutely flip while we're in a plane that seems to be crashing into Manhattan, right? Nope. She sat there acting like everything was just fine, like literally as though nothing was happening. As I dealt with what I thought were the last moments of my life, I looked to her for some kind of connection or mutual understanding, and she literally just shrugged it off and said "meh."...... My reaction to this was internalized rage. I was SO mad that I was about to die and the person I was with was so indifferent or oblivious to or in denial about the situation. In that moment, I thought to myself, "Jesus fucking Christ, I can't believe I have to die with this idiot next to me who goes ballistic and thinks she's going to die in a stupid wax museum, but has absolutely no reaction and is in complete denial about being in a plane that's about to hit Manhattan. Stupid cow!!!" I was so angry about the illogical absurdity and indifference it was lending to what I thought were my last moments. I told her my feelings about it later. She had no excuses, hahaha. She understood where I was coming from, and to this day she can't explain her bizarre reversal of fear priorities.

Scary!  I would have lost it having a friend like yours next to me.  Glad you made it through safely!

Flying is scary as hell.  I've said I'd never fly again but if I had to , dope me up!

brianlux

F Me In The Brain said:

Turbulence won't cause the plane to crash.  (Birds might, though.)
I fly constantly and I hate it.  Hate it, so hard.  Just accept it is part of what I need to do for the life that I choose to lead. 
My hope would be that I would be the same as your friend in that circumstance, Soul, as there would be nothing I could do about the situation.  (Perhaps that is why your friend reacted to a situation she could control (leave, get people to stop, etc) on the ground and why she accepted that whatever was going to happen in the air was completely beyond her control.)

My Pop worked for United Air Lines and even though as a kid his salary wasn't great, we got to fly for dirt cheap so we did get up there a number of times.  Every time we hit turbulence I went through the white knuckle/sweating/heart pounding business.  I just hated it!  Then I'd look over at Pop and he'd be calmly reading a magazine like he was at home on a quiet night.  Made me nuts!     He had no fear in the air.  UAL took him and a couple of guys up in a new plane (a Boeing jet but I can't remember which one) to test it for drop rate at engine stall.  They went up there, cut the engines and let 'er drop.  He came back telling us about this like a kid who got a brand new bike or something.  Made me crazy! 

RogueStoner

hedonist

F Me In The Brain said:

Turbulence won't cause the plane to crash.  (Birds might, though.)
I fly constantly and I hate it.  Hate it, so hard.  Just accept it is part of what I need to do for the life that I choose to lead. 
My hope would be that I would be the same as your friend in that circumstance, Soul, as there would be nothing I could do about the situation.  (Perhaps that is why your friend reacted to a situation she could control (leave, get people to stop, etc) on the ground and why she accepted that whatever was going to happen in the air was completely beyond her control.)

This is quite insightful and wise, actually.  I mean, just as people react to grief in their own way, same goes for that kind of situation.  I think I'd be pissed trying to keep a hold of my panic with someone else freaking out next to me.

Moot point anyway.  No more flying for me.

F Me In The Brain

brianlux said:

F Me In The Brain said:

Turbulence won't cause the plane to crash.  (Birds might, though.)
I fly constantly and I hate it.  Hate it, so hard.  Just accept it is part of what I need to do for the life that I choose to lead. 
My hope would be that I would be the same as your friend in that circumstance, Soul, as there would be nothing I could do about the situation.  (Perhaps that is why your friend reacted to a situation she could control (leave, get people to stop, etc) on the ground and why she accepted that whatever was going to happen in the air was completely beyond her control.)

My Pop worked for United Air Lines and even though as a kid his salary wasn't great, we got to fly for dirt cheap so we did get up there a number of times.  Every time we hit turbulence I went through the white knuckle/sweating/heart pounding business.  I just hated it!  Then I'd look over at Pop and he'd be calmly reading a magazine like he was at home on a quiet night.  Made me nuts!     He had no fear in the air.  UAL took him and a couple of guys up in a new plane (a Boeing jet but I can't remember which one) to test it for drop rate at engine stall.  They went up there, cut the engines and let 'er drop.  He came back telling us about this like a kid who got a brand new bike or something.  Made me crazy! 

Yeah I would not want to test out the drop rate at engine stall.  Ever!

Annafalk

Thanks for sharing everyone, it's incredible to read about all you've been through!