I never really followed the show Grey's Anatomy when it was on TV. I know that characterization for TV shows requires a certain level of exaggeration and extremism, and I just could not fully invest in "caricatures" of medical professionals.
I know real people are not actually like the over-the-top characters, and the hospital-based and personal disasters are unrealistic. I am unsure what I lack in life lately, but I have been pulled into this ridiculous medical drama via Netflix.
I started at the beginning and am currently in Season 10. In a "recent" episode, one doctor is addressing a patient who is alive and mentally alert despite either breaking his back or his neck. As the patient had expressed a wish to NOT be kept alive by machines, Dr. Yang is verifying that he does, indeed, want to be taken off the ventilator, which will lead to his own death since he is paralyzed from the neck down and his body cannot even breathe on its own.
The situation is extreme, which both irritates me and entertains me, but the questions really struck a chord with me, and I think they are valuable self-assessment tools for people experiencing a traumatic event AND for people who just need to redirect their efforts for more purposeful living.
The questions:
1. Do you know who you are?
- I remember being asked this when I came out of my medically-induced coma in 2011. I knew my name, address, birthdate. I did NOT have a strong sense of who I was after the aneurysm rupture, and it took quite a while to regain my sense of self.
- I think we should all be asking ourselves who we are because life is not experienced in a vacuum, and we experience, react, adapt, and evolve throughout our lives. Do I know who I am? Yes. Will I be the same person five years from now? Probably not. I'll be mostly the same, but life will continue to shape me just as I will continue to shape my life.
2. Do you understand what's happened to you?
- I recall both my medical team and my parents asking me this question after we determined that I knew who I was. I struggled to comprehend the magnitude of the medical emergency I had just survived, and I certainly was not fully aware of how my life would change.
I felt like I was an imposter wearing a damaged costume (mostly) shaped like me. Intensive physical, occupational, speech and neuropsychological therapy helped to "patch up" the parts that the doctors could patch up.
- In a greater sense, I feel that this question is much more cerebral (get it? brain pun!) since it requires an awareness of the past, the present, and the future to provide context for any hardship we endure, especially during the moment itself.
- In the broad spectrum of trauma (of which I have had plenty...some from circumstance, some medical, some caused by other humans, and some created in my own anxiety-focused mind), the scariest part of this is knowing that some of the worst experiences of my life happened when I was incapacitated and I cannot actually recall everything. I am certain, though, that if I did remember all of it, I would probably have even more issues and triggers. There is an odd peace in missing some of the more horrific pieces.
3. Do you want to live this way?
- No one asked me this question until I was in therapy for trauma caused by another person. After my aneurysm rupture, subarachnoid hemorrhage, and stroke, I was not given a choice. I was told that I needed to get up and try to fix what was newly broken and damaged in me. There was no option to choose a life in which I did not regain my physical, emotional, intellectual, and social determination and independence. By seeing only a path in front of me to slowly gather and glue back together all the pieces of me, I did not even consider that I had a choice to make.
- Living this way made it easy to tell myself I was far more healed than I actually was. I only realized that I was not as okay as I believed when someone inflicted additional trauma on me that left me alone, confused, and scared.
I was referred to a therapist who specialized in this particular type of counseling, and she asked me one day when I was talking (probably ranting) about the anger I felt: Do you want to keep living life this way? She explained that anger feels stronger than fear, but courage is about facing the issues head-on and dealing with the fallout...which will eventually transition into strength and pride in my ability to overcome anything. It took almost two years to work through that pain, and I emerged with a stronger sense of self.
Thank you, Shonda Rhimes and Sandra Oh, for giving me questions to ponder!
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