Off the Deep End (45)
“Did you want to talk about them?” Dr. Stephens asks after a few seconds pass and I don’t say anything more.
“I wouldn’t have brought them up if I didn’t,” I blurt without thinking. I quickly cover my mouth. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“No worries,” he says. “It’s been a long day.” He breathes slowly in through his nose and lets it out through his mouth, watching me like he expects me to follow suit. Normally I would, but not today. Taking deep breaths only makes me feel like I don’t have enough air, and then I get scared. “I’m just interested in why you want to talk about those.”
“It seems pretty important, don’t you think? I mean, that’s what they blame all my feelings about Isaac on.” I lock eyes with his. I’m not ashamed of my feelings or my behavior.
“The hypersexuality from traumatic brain injury?” he asks, slipping into doctor mode and inserting the clinical language so he doesn’t insult me and it’s easier to talk about. That’s sweet of him.
“That’s what the doctors call it anyway, but I’m not hypersexual, and I’m not super sold on the idea that I have a traumatic brain injury either.” I don’t know how many times and in how many different ways that I have to tell them that my relationship with Isaac wasn’t sexual. Yes, we touched. Physical contact was part of our relationship, but not like that. What we shared wasn’t sexual. It was beautiful. Perfect. Pure. Transcendent.
He reaches across the table and takes my hand in his. “I just want you to know that hypersexuality following brain injury is extremely common even though it’s something that we don’t often go around talking about or think of as one of the consequences of those types of injuries. Damage like you have on the orbital parts of your frontal lobe almost always result in some type of sexualized feelings and an uncontrollable urge to act on those feelings.” His voice softens. “You don’t have to be ashamed.”
I shake my head and pull my hand out from underneath his. “I’m not. There’s nothing wrong with me.” That’s why I want to know if he’s reviewed the scans. I want a second opinion.
“You didn’t get knocked out during the crash?”
I shrug. “Did I hit my head in the accident? Pass out from fear? Drown? Who knows?” I shrug again.
All my hospital MRIs showed I got knocked out—either from impact or terror. Nobody knows, and I can’t remember. The last thing I remember is sailing through the air. The acute and penetrating awareness of what was about to happen. The powerlessness to stop it. And then nothing.
Nothing until I woke up in the darkness feeling like I was being buried alive by the water. It was so sinking and heavy. This massive pressure pushing me down. Sluggish and slow. I made it up to the surface once, but it didn’t do my brain any favors losing consciousness again when I went back in for Gabe. According to Isaac, I was gone for over a minute, so that’s why he dove back in for me. He said it took forever to find me. Who knows how long I was really down there, though. Time was too warped in those moments to have any base in reality.
The doctors say the minutes spent without oxygen underwater might’ve damaged my brain too. It only takes three minutes without air for brain damage to occur. Four minutes until it’s permanent. That’s how they think of me now: permanently brain damaged.
The doctors say those minutes are responsible for the grayed-out areas on my frontal cortex. It’s that damage that they blame all my disturbing behaviors on. The reason why I’ve rubbed myself raw and got caught with my hands down my pants at the park. It was only that one time, and I was asleep, but nobody sees it that way. Lack of impulse control is what they say, like that explains my compulsions. They give each other knowing looks when they think I’m not watching. They speak to my parents—especially my mom, since she’s in charge of my conservatorship—like I’m not sitting right there in the same room with them. As if I’m a child again, except I don’t feel young, and my parents have never looked so old. I don’t see them as elderly or frail, but that’s exactly the way they look now. All this loss and uncertainty have taken a toll on them.
Some of the other people at Samaritan House are really angry with their parents or loved ones for putting them here and controlling their every move. I could be mad at my mom, but I’m not. I get why she did the conservatorship, and she’ll keep doing whatever the doctors tell her to do because she’s terrified of losing me. And trust me, I get it. Losing a child is hell.
“Seriously, though, no matter what has happened or not happened to your brain, I think you’re incredibly strong,” Dr. Stephens says, interrupting my thoughts and bringing me back to the present moment like he always does.
I snort. “It’s not being strong when you don’t have any other choice. It’s not like you can say, ‘No thank you. I don’t want to do this anymore.’”
“That’s not necessarily true. The level of resiliency that you’ve demonstrated is astounding. You should take a moment and just really let that sink in,” he says. “I’ve never met anyone who has escaped death twice. That’s quite a feat.” He beams proudly at me, but I didn’t have anything to do with that. “I can’t imagine how it must’ve felt waking up after you’d beat death a second time.”