Emotional Liability

 A friend of mine at church approached me a few days ago in order to gain some perspective concerning her son. He is an adult, married with children, who has been through a major physical trauma that almost cost him his life. His recovery process has been lengthy and challenging, but he continues to make progress and regain the use of his body. The circumstances of his trauma are quite different than mine (illness instead of accident), but the process of surgery and recovery is similar.

This friend of mine asked me if I was more "emotional" after the motorcycle accident as I faced the long period of recovery. I have never spoken to anyone about this, so I hesitated for a slight moment and then answered her honestly with a "yes". I knew that I couldn't withhold this aspect of my recovery from her because she was very much worried about her son's condition. He had told her about the things that he is experiencing with his emotions, and she was quite worried about his wellbeing. I explained to her that my emotional state was altered for a time during the first year or so after the accident, which was a very strange thing for me to experience because I do not generally respond to events in life in an emotionally vulnerable way. I don't cry or say "aw" when dealing with life's events or experiences.

However, during the many months of recovery after the accident things were different for me. I was affected by things that ordinarily didn't cause me much thought or consideration. I would respond emotionally to things that people said, scenes on shows or films on TV, and various songs. There's a scene in a SpongeBob SquarePants cartoon where the character Plankton is freaked out by the beauty of an underground cave, and as he looks around in emotional bewilderment, his computer wife interrupts and he then tells her to allow him the time to process his emotions. It's a funny moment in the cartoon, but it does describe a little of what I went through for months after the accident. I still don't know what was going on inside of me, and I consequently have no explanation for either myself or my friend's son. I can only say that it was real, and that the experiences that I was going through seemed to affect me in ways that I didn't expect. It all began to wear off after the first year as I gradually began to recuperate. The physical aspect of recovery took me another year or so to overcome, but the more unsettling emotional things faded sooner. What I was able to tell my friend was that I knew what her son was going through and I didn't see it as abnormal or as any cause for alarm. I don't know how much of a help I was to her, but you know how emotional mother's can be.