Friday I left my teeth in the street. Today I tried to ride a bike again. It didn’t go as I had planned.
As I planned the route and fixed my broken bloody IRL streaming rig I was sincerely excited to get out again. I rode last night indoors for Zwift and other than pushing too hard (as I do indoors) it was great. I loaded everything up, looked over the bike, and got ready. The blood on the back tire had me wondering how it got there. It almost looks like a hand print, perhaps from one of the girls after carrying my bloody body out of the street and going back to get my bike. I’ll never know (although tomorrow I get the police report).
As I jumped on the bike I felt fine, but started feeling a little uneasy. Then I hit one of the parking lot speed bumps and it hit me. A wave of uncontrollable emotion started to well up and eventually overwhelmed me. I started sobbing like a 9-year-old who knocked his teeth out. It didn’t make any sense even as it was happening. I couldn’t explain it. I had been fine just moments before. It was like someone had uncorked something that was locked away. The emotion came streaming out.
Eventually, I got it together and kept on riding. As I came to the road a huge truck passed. Then I saw a freshly killed, beautiful cat on the shoulder. I kept it together enough to turn into the church parking lot facing the graveyard. For some reason it became funny at that point. I just started laughing.
“What the fuck is wrong with me?”
Of course I was streaming the whole thing.
I talked it through with my very sincerely concerned stream. They kept reminding me that unexpected things like what just happened might happen again, and not to push it to hard. They’re not wrong (and frequently aren’t). The term PTSD came up. I felt bad using the term knowing what actual PTSD can do particularly in those from military combat. In fact, I once dated a veteran who was a gunner on a rig in Iraq who had to kill many including one guy up close with a knife who invaded the compound when she was on watch. Even though she had monkeys on her shower curtain and a butterfly tattoo two inches from her pussy she slept with a loaded 9-mil on her night stand. All of 5-foot-nothing I have no doubt she was a force to be taken seriously. She’s a chef now with the son she always wanted. PTSD for her was real, very real. I learned a lot from her. (How we met is a story for another day.)
What was this wimpy, whiny crying I was doing? Was this really PTSD?
Apparently, yes. It was. From what I’ve been reading (and the people in chat read) PTSD is exactly what it says: post-traumatic stress disorder. It doesn’t specify that the trauma be war. Leaving my teeth in the street was apparently traumatic enough. All my smiling and joking and burying of my feelings (something I’ve gotten really good at over the years) acted like the cork on all those traumatic emotions I was having and ignoring. It didn’t take much to rattle that cork loose.
This small experience has given me a new respect for people who battle PTSD in any form from this relatively miniscule trauma I’ve had in comparison. I just crashed my bike. It wasn’t that big a deal. But imagine what others must face all the time. I understand just a little bit better now. Thanks for the reminder, God, you inglorious piece of shit. I got the message. Now enough already with the “wars in my name” crap. How fucking demented are you?!