Ten Degrees of Reckoning (17 page)

She had been invited to accompany her friends Martha and Dana Robes, from the sailboat
Sarah Jane.
One morning Martha found Judy huddled and weeping on the floor in one of the campground showers. Judy confessed that although she could not understand why, she felt agitated each time she took a shower in the cold water. Martha and Dana took her to a hotel, and as soon as she warmed up, she made light of the episode.

When it was time for Judy to return to the United States, it was Martha and Dana who accompanied her on the long flight to Los Angeles. They had not forgotten the incident at the campground.

Following her emotional crisis over the movie with the little girl and the birthday cake at Tim’s house, though, Judy’s past and present experiences became inseparable. She became watchful, believing that even on dry land, a rogue wave could topple her over at any moment.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has become a familiar term. It was first recognized as a complex medical condition after the experiences of American soldiers in Vietnam, but any terrifying or harmful ordeal can cause this disorder. Most of us have experienced a rush of adrenaline in ordinary situations that creates nervous tension or stressful anticipation. Your heart pounds, your stomach muscles contract, you breathe more rapidly. But imagine you are confronted with a catastrophic or life-threatening situation. Your body is flooded with these stress hormones, shifting you to “fight, flight, or freeze” reactions. Blood is directed away from organs not essential to your survival and toward the large muscle groups that empower you to fight or flee. Your body is priming to defend itself. It is this cascade of adrenaline and noradrenaline that prepares you to fend off the threat. Highly regarded researchers have proposed that the longer the duration of this cascade, the more likely the events that triggered it will be imprinted on your brain. Psychiatrists call this memory consolidation. People with PTSD repeatedly relive the trauma, which in turn causes sleep problems, panic attacks, anxiety, and difficulty in concentrating.

Judy’s flashbacks were horrific. Powerful and debilitating images came unbidden. She could be in a store, and suddenly her attention would be diverted by a curly head of hair like Annie’s or the color red. She would drop her purchases, paralyzed. Or she could be in bed drifting off to sleep, with the window slightly open, and suddenly she was there, cold and alone in the frigid waters of the ocean rather than in the safety of her bedroom. The images were vivid and crystal clear, as if she were actually experiencing the situation in its immediacy rather than recalling it in a more muted memory. She had always been resilient, but these flashbacks brought her to her knees. She made sure to close all the windows and turn up the thermostat. She tried to eliminate any other stimuli that might slide her back into the past, but she was staggered by her mind’s ability to flip that automatic switch and replicate events from the disaster, even when she was in a friendly, relaxed environment.

In her other life, her pre-collision life, Judy never had any doubts about her own determination and capabilities. She had always been resourceful, and an imaginative problem-solver. But she was strikingly ineffective in stemming these flashbacks. She had all kinds of strategies to fend them off, but she never knew when a sight, a sound, or a smell would trigger the horror. She thought of her flashbacks as gremlins scheming to occupy her mind and her body. The gremlins were also there when she walked past the kitchen knives, and they made her look at those knives; they told her how to use them to find peace and be with her husband and children. She knew she had to outwait them without doing anything dangerous. She talked aloud, wrote in a journal, went for walks or to the gym, and spent time with friends. Above all, she kept herself as warm as possible in all her activities. Cold took her back to every excruciating minute in the dinghy. Cold iced her up and shattered her heart, again and again. Some days those gremlins were altogether too seductive, and she surrendered to her grief and desolation. Some nights she wanted to die, just so she could sleep.

There was another great change. Judy once had pretty impressive organizational skills and a mind that took in ten things at once. But because of the PTSD she was unable to follow simple instructions. She had been able to toss Risa’s explicit instructions of early-morning tasks, but she was unable to function without a daily list of activities. She couldn’t concentrate enough to drive anywhere that included more than two turns on a straightaway road, and she got lost in a simple recipe. Her journal entries from that time reflect the impatience she felt for herself and for the advice she received from her psychiatrist. She preferred to simply recite the details of her day rather than organize those details in the larger context of managing her new life.

Judy enrolled in the Rehabilitation Program for Head Injury Patients at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup, Washington. She chose to rename it the Brain Academy. The staff was concerned for her welfare but reluctant to admit her, even for the outpatient program: the events surrounding the cause of her brain injury were so significant. They wanted her to be aware that one eight-week session would not be enough to create a successful outcome. Judy’s psychiatrist persuaded them to take her in, and to limit the scope to exercises that would increase her concentration, help her organize her days, and give more structure to future goals. Their therapeutic methods and exercises gave Judy some focus and lessened her anxiety about her visual agnosia. They taught her how to use voices and hair patterns to recognize people so she wouldn’t be hesitant about engaging in social activities. Her therapy included an assignment: talking to people outside her immediate, close-knit circle of friends. She had always taken her friendliness and her outgoing personality for granted. Now it was homework.

Judy loved the vocational therapy program; its intent was to give the patients an opportunity to consider suitable jobs. Judy visited quilt stores and the Almond Roca factory and dreamed of pursuing a career in the chocolate business. Her concentration skills improved when she actually designed a quilt. The flashbacks still had a huge dismantling effect on her psyche, but with the distraction of these new activities she was making some progress.

Things weren’t going so well on another front. Judy had taken it for granted that she could look forward to justice at some point. She had witnessed the persistence and professionalism of the New Zealand Maritime Safety Authority as they gathered evidence about the movements of the sixty ships in the area. Just before she left for the United States, the investigation had come to a successful conclusion. Not only had the pertinent ship been found, a South Korean bulk carrier of logs, but there was conclusive scientific evidence regarding its involvement. In the United States, Judy was kept current with the step-by-step proceedings, and to begin with, the results were gratifying.

Then she got news she had never anticipated. The ship’s duty officer had been arrested by his country’s maritime police on a charge of accidental homicide, due to his failure to act more quickly to avoid the yacht, failure to return promptly to the scene, and failure to assist the survivors. The police requested that their government’s prosecutor indict the duty officer, but he refused and dismissed all charges. According to applicable international laws, neither the United States nor New Zealand had any jurisdiction over the criminal actions of the crew. Judy was also informed it was unlikely the shipping company would take any disciplinary action against the captain or the crew members. If Judy wanted justice, she would have to file a civil lawsuit.

Over the next several months Judy met with an attorney from San Francisco who specialized in maritime law. Initially, he traveled to Tacoma for the meetings, and later, when Judy could manage, she and Tim flew to California. While in San Francisco, Judy was evaluated by a psychiatrist with an international reputation in the field of PTSD. His report read, in part, “Judith has experienced a combination of traumatic stressors that ranks with the most horrendous cases . . . reported in the world literature on PTSD.” The report also acknowledged that people who were exposed to Judy’s degree of initial trauma experienced intensified suicidal despair, and thus there was a “guarded prognosis.” He recommended a therapy program specifically for PTSD.

Tim was very concerned about Judy. He remained with her in San Francisco and accompanied her to her medical and legal appointments. Her diminished ability to concentrate and resolve issues with the maritime attorney was making her feel desperate and dejected. Tim knew Judy had very little time before she would face a clump of stressors. There were many post-collision firsts waiting to topple her: Annie’s birthday in October, Ben’s at the beginning of November, the anniversary of the collision at the end of November, Mike’s birthday in the middle of December, and then a festive holiday season for everyone but her. Tim was particularly impressed with the psychiatrist and told me that he was the most brilliant and kindest man he had ever met. He urged Judy to get into the psychiatrist’s therapy program for PTSD.

This would have also pleased her attorney. He wanted her to move back to California, where she was a legal resident and where she could be more immediately available to discuss her case. He told Judy about the difficulties of proceeding against a shipping company outside the United States. Apparently, they could ask that Judy file the suit within their country and request her presence there. She wrote a letter to her friends in New Zealand.

I’ve been evaluated by all sorts of doctors, neurophysiologists, relatives, friends, ex-boyfriends and even a golden retriever. They all come up with the same diagnosis: this woman needs a vacation.

Judy didn’t get her vacation, but she did become a nomad, traveling often between California and Washington. Her attorney had made the idea of her living in California seem so reasonable, and she didn’t want to admit how apprehensive she was at the thought of starting over again. She had dear friends in the San Francisco area, and her family resided in California, but she still needed to be with Tim, who could be on call twenty-four hours a day in Tacoma.

Judy promised her attorney that she would make a permanent move to California after she completed her therapy and rehabilitation sessions in Washington. However reluctant she might be to relocate, she did want justice and authorized her attorney to file a civil lawsuit.

Judy returned to Tim’s house and continued her psychotherapy in Seattle. At the end of September she completed her first eight-week rehabilitation course at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup. It was just before Annie’s birthday, and she went to Colleen Polley’s house to decorate cupcakes with her nieces and nephew. It was the first time she had seen them, but she knew this was exactly what Annie would have wished her to do. She called and told me that it had been fantastic, and she wondered, as Annie’s godmommy, would I be interested in celebrating her birthday with Judy on October 2?

We met early in the morning, in downtown Seattle, and went to the Sheraton Hotel for breakfast. I brought a beautiful Mexican ceramic candlestick holder I had purchased for the occasion. I knew Annie would have loved it. It was bright blue and pink, with colorful ceramic flowers and birds attached, and places for three candles. We placed it on the table before us, lit the candles, and ordered from the children’s menu—everything in miniature, including the muffins. We cried instead of eating and stayed for three hours, until the little candles burned down, while the waitstaff remained patient and respectful. Then we browsed through toy stores and went on the carousel at Seattle Center.

Judy and I discussed all the recent events.

“Did you get an evaluation from the Brain Academy after the first session?” I asked.

“Not a very good one,” Judy replied. “They said I make decisions too quickly and change my mind too much. They said I should definitely enroll for the second session.”

“Will you?” I asked.

“It would be a problem, because my attorney wants me to move back to California immediately.”

I pointed out that in San Francisco she could get therapy for her PTSD. She was going to have to confront all those vivid memories in testimony, under duress, and I was afraid it would increase her flashbacks. I asked which would be worse: reliving the events of the collision in a lawsuit that could last several years, or not following through?

“I do feel I have an obligation to make them accountable, and I don’t want anybody else to go through this kind of catastrophe,” Judy said. “You know, I’ve been thinking, if I win we could start a foundation to support maritime safety. Would you help me?”

I agreed to help but reiterated my belief that her mental well-being should be her first concern.

To my surprise, Judy said, “I just realized while we’ve been talking exactly what I need to do to be the best witness. I’m not going to the second session at the Brain Academy or to the PTSD therapy. If the therapy is too effective, it might diminish my memory for all the details and impair my ability to help with the depositions and testimony.”

I stared at her in wonder.

“Judith Ann, you are the most extraordinary person I know,” I said. “This doesn’t have to be final, though. Remember, you failed decision-making at the Brain Academy.”

We both laughed, but I worried for her welfare.

Judy made plans to return to San Francisco in time for Ben’s birthday, November 3. Bonnie, his godmother, lived there, and Judy looked forward to spending time with her. She knew her appointments with the attorney would go easier after some time with Bonnie.

Her attorneys were patient and empathetic, but the process was grueling. Judy spent her mornings reciting the facts of the collision and her afternoons weeping about the wreckage of her life. She yearned for the little cottage in Tutukaka, where she might be able to ward off the nightmares and indiscriminate memories. It was the spiritual home of her family, and that’s where she felt closest to them. What was she doing away from them on the anniversary of the collision? She made a plane reservation and returned before November 24, Southern Hemisphere time.