After a car accident left her with “emotional amnesia” Theresa Byrne was dismayed that the first emotion to return was one she’d always considered useless.
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For the past fifteen months I’ve been pretty apathetic. “Committed but detached” I call it. It sounds more Zen that way. Loving but unattached. “I’m passionately detached from outcomes.” And it’s true, I feel empathy for others, but don’t have a lot of my own feelings.
I received a brain injury in July 2014 from a car accident that was the equivalent of getting approximately six concussions at once. My emotional, physical and mental systems went haywire. I’ve been in brain training, cognitive re-training, vestibular therapy, massage, physical therapy, functional neurology, chiropractic care, and under doctor’s supervision since then.
I have amnesia from emotions: any trauma, drama, or celebration in my life I am unable to recall the emotions I experienced. I can’t relate to the feeling.
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As a result of the injury I have memory recall issues and emotional amnesia. (That’s what I call it, my doctors hadn’t heard of it yet. Brain science is still so new.) But clinical terminology aside, I have amnesia from emotions: any trauma, drama, or celebration in my life I am unable to recall the emotions I experienced. I can’t relate to the feeling. I remember the event and I can say “that sounds awful. I must’ve been upset.” Or “Yay! I must’ve been happy.” But I can’t feel it. See the difference?
It’s not all zen; I do suffer from panic/anxiety attacks, depression, PTSD, suicidal voices, insomnia, and that side of things. I wrote about that part of the experience here . It’s part of my brain’s inability to produce certain neurotransmitters and continue her healing journey.
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After a year of consistent therapies I expected things to change. Knowing that I want a full life back, and knowing that my old life has changed: I’m healing so I can move forward. I’m in a constant state of surprise, and with my main focus in doing healing work I know things will shift. But what I didn’t expect was that when any feelings returned I’d get this one emotion back first.
I don’t want it. Take it back.
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The first emotion to return after all the intensive brain therapies for over a year is regret. Regret. I did not expect it to be regret. Wow. That’s one I could live without. And happily have been, in fact I thought I was free from it forever.
You know the thoughts that circle around in your head wondering if you could’ve-should’ve done or said more? Or less? That’s regret. You know that voice that makes you wonder if you said too much to someone or were too harsh? Yeah that’s regret. You know that sadness in the pit of your stomach when you’ve lost someone or something important to you because you didn’t do something “right?” Regret.
I teach students to keep their eyes focused forward, be informed by the past but don’t spend too much time there.”Don’t build a summer home there,” was my quip stolen from The Princess Bride.
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Regret? Really Universe? Really God? I have to admit I was hoping for joy. Happy would’ve been fine. Fun could’ve been cool. Pensive I could handle. But regret?Not my first choice on the Wheel of Emotions!
I’ve always thought of regret as a worthless emotion, a “throw away” emotion — because I can’t go back and fix what has been lost. I can’t change the past, so why dwell there?
I’ve counted myself lucky since the wreck, all of my old life has changed since I’ve been on medical leave from teaching martial arts, and the thought and feeling of “missing” or regret would probably crush me. I’m glad I haven’t felt either of them, only because the pain would have been too great.
I teach students to keep their eyes focused forward, be informed by the past but don’t spend too much time there.”Don’t build a summer home there,” was my quip stolen from The Princess Bride. So why hads my brain chosen this particular emotion as its first emotion to come back? Why that? Why?
Regret is an emotion I thought locked us up wistfully in the past and held us frozen in the present: both keeping us from moving forward.
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The irony isn’t lost on me. I believe life is always teaching us, and here’s a new lesson for me. The universe is lovingly having me review something I arrogantly skipped over in my own life (and in my teaching) by making it the first emotion to come back to me.
Regret is an emotion I always thought held us back. “I wish things had gone a different way. I wish things were different.” It’s an “I wish” emotion. And barring the use of a magic wand, we only have the present and future.
Regret is an emotion I thought locked us up wistfully in the past and held us frozen in the present: both keeping us from moving forward.
It’s an emotion I thought would make us question everything. Yet with no access to making changes in the past it all seemed so futile. Regret is the emotion that I thought would keep us stuck in our heads. Is that the point? Is my brain wanting me now to be stuck in my head? Is it penance for all those months I couldn’t be in my head?
Since I live in belief that life is always supporting my growth, I am approaching this with an open mind, as a question. How could regret serve me?
Maybe regret is like the Ghost of Christmas Past. It all happened to serve Scrooge, right? The Ghost showed up in order to help him make different choices going forward. Is this my Ghost of Life Past? Regret? To show me the parts of my life I don’t want to repeat? Am I Scrooge in this equation? Oh boy. I really Scrooge’d that one up.
Maybe regret gives us a chance to review who we were, so we can show up differently? Given everything we have going for us, given all of our faculties. We can make new choices. Maybe that’s the purpose of regret.
I’m still trying to figure it out. It’s not something I ever saw coming. Developing a new relationship with regret was definitely not on my to-do to get better list. Thanks for listening.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: Istock