Sarah Martin

Sarah Martin

Misplaced

“If life was about happiness or love, I would leave with you right now, go MIA, but life’s not like that, Sarah. You’re too expensive.”

His words were acetone against my thin, painted-on skin, each syllable penetrating my weakened muscles. As a girl who never asked for a single materialistic thing in her life, the sentence seemed foreign, as if directed toward someone standing behind me in our apartment. But it was just him and me and my concussion, which seemed to be breathing more life than I was. Since my head injury, I knew I wasn’t the same, like I lost a piece of myself when I fell. My once independent lifestyle seemed to dry up and crumble like the oak leaves drifting in our lawn out front. I couldn’t drive, couldn’t work, and couldn’t get the feeling of dread off my skin.

“Do you want to break up?” I asked, my body tense.

“I guess so,” he said, his demeanor cool to the touch, unforgiving, and strong like slate.

My compressed frustrations erupted from my throat, my words coating every crevasse in the room.

“I left my whole life back in Connecticut for you! Do you know how embarrassing it is to leave behind your friends, family, your job, to be with a guy you love only for it to end after only months?”

“You need to figure out what’s wrong with you. This is never going to work.”

My anger seemed to quickly morph into lava, flowing up my pale, thin arms, searing my shoulders, and splashing its excruciating liquid up my neck. Breath no longer inhabited my chest as I squeezed my fists into a fast-pitched softball, waiting to release into the next object that crossed my path. I had never felt so erratic before, and I couldn’t help but feel I was watching my actions unfold like a spectator in a fight between sanity and reality. My decision-making was overshadowed by the looming cloud of depression, and my anxiety attacks were the only signs of life I had left, their strikes sharp and cruel against my body. I grabbed the purple and green miniature fan I’ve had since ‘95 and catapulted it across our tiny kitchen, pans smashing onto the vinyl floor like dishes at a Greek wedding. His eyes were large; he was shocked, but not as much as me.

“I’m leaving, not that you care!”

I didn’t mean it; I knew he cared at least in some capacity, but the rejection, the humiliation, and the broken pieces of my brain were all battling inside my head, causing me to attack out of self-preservation. I stormed out of our apartment building, slamming the door behind me. My flip-flops slapped against the black rubber no-slip stairs, my legs shaking with each step.

It was dark outside, even with the 10-foot-tall streetlights that lined the sidewalks, each perfectly symmetrical and spaced. Everything about our neighborhood was cookie-cutter. In a military complex, every apartment is nearly identical, kind of like the way it forces its men and women to be: crisp edges, flawless devotion to removing individuality, and personalities mirroring each other, as if the designer sailor was purchased out of a Sears catalog from the 1950s. I knew I wasn’t cut out for the life of a military spouse. My free-spirited mentality was caged by the incessant orders of his Lead Petty Officer, and I knew I would never be a top priority in his life. But I loved that boy, more than I loved myself. But maybe that was my problem? In his defense, it was hard to love someone like me, a prisoner of trauma and my concussion symptoms. I couldn’t go on dates if the restaurant was too loud, sending me into full-blown panic attacks. I had the characteristics of a superhero that first gained their superpowers, the overwhelming sensations and confusion though I lacked any of the goodness that comes with being a hero. I couldn’t even save myself, let alone others. What I didn’t know in that moment was that I wasn’t going crazy. I wasn’t unlovable or unworthy. I was being controlled by an undiagnosed mild traumatic brain injury, and the road to recovery would start after that night.

I walked the streets of the military complex, searching for myself, an answer, and comfort in the lawn-clipping-covered sidewalks. Tears stained my once tight sweatshirt, now falling off my rapidly thinning body.

“When did I lose so much weight?” I muttered, shaking my head, yet still admiring my new slim figure no matter how I earned it.

I walked down each dark side street, my heart palpitating with every car that passed me too slowly. I don’t know whether I was afraid of what violence a stranger lurking in the darkness might inflict, or what the darkness I was consumed by would lead me to do. After an hour of walking, I found the nearest bench to mold my depleted body into. Looking at the bright stars in Saratoga, I laid on my back, wooden slats cradling my spine. To my right, I could see a family through their sliding glass doors, the glow of their television backlighting their children playing with their trucks on the kitchen floor. The parents were harmoniously fixing dinner together. I longed for that interaction, that love. When you grow up in a small town, you can’t wait to get out, make a life somewhere new that you could brag about to your friends. I never thought I would miss Enfield, but I would have done anything in that moment to go home. I contemplated hitch-hiking or taking a bus, but I remembered the lack of bus fare in my sweatpants. I knew it was time to head back to the apartment. I couldn’t hide out any longer.

It took two hours to get back to the apartment. Every turn was corrupted by forgetfulness. Panic engulfed any ounce of stability I had left; I was suffocating in the endless forest of mirroring homes. Loneliness crept behind me, each step pulling me deeper into its stifling grasp.

When I finally walked into the apartment, he had locked our bedroom door. I thought about jimmying the lock, but what was the use in forcing yourself into a place you don’t belong? I grabbed blankets from our guest room and made a nest on our porch balcony. I pressed my torso against the red wood and climbed to the railing’s highest foot hole. I closed my eyes, letting the breeze cleanse away the shadows. I contemplated my life as I knew it, who I was, or what was left of me. My identity stripped had been away before my eyes, by the Navy, by my injury, by the undiagnosed illness that locked my brain into a constant state of panic and torment. The balcony was both calming and detrimental to my own mental deterioration. There was something powerful about feeling high up when my mental state was so low, like the elevation somehow balanced out my mood, giving me clarity and strength. But the balcony also was my chance at escaping. I contemplated jumping, falling to the ground below—not in a suicidal way. I knew the height wouldn’t end me, but it was a way to translate on the outside of my body, the torment I felt from within. My own self-harming thoughts only added to the guilt I felt for subjecting the people I loved to my sanity’s going-away party. Images of my mother flashed into my head, her love radiating all the way from Connecticut, beckoning me home. I knew I had to get back to her somehow. I couldn’t stay in that toxic, soulcrushing environment forever. He needed me to leave just as much as I needed to be free. A week later I packed up my things and my mother drove me home. I didn’t talk the entire way, muzzled by the embarrassment. I knew I needed help.

After a visit to my physician’s assistant, I got the label I was looking for: Post-Concussion Syndrome. The most devastating part was that there was no cure. “Treat the symptoms” became a constant catchphrase amongst experts. I spent months on bed rest, in weekly therapist appointments, and diligently relearning everything I’d lost. As for the boy, he left when I was starting to find myself again. My creativity and fun-loving mannerisms and his money-focused, goal-oriented lifestyle never meshed harmoniously. I may have lost him, but I reclaimed the love I needed: the love of myself, my town, my family, my uniqueness, my freedom.