Obsession Leads To Darkness. Darkness Leads to Light. By Brad Hawley
In 2012, I had an unhealthy obsession with Crossfit. On August 27 of that year, I was working out at Iron Tribe Fitness in Birmingham, AL and participating in a challenge that was supposed to test my strength, fitness, and resolve. The challenge included five exercises, the fourth of which was an exercise called toes-to-bar. In this exercise, one hangs from a pull up bar and lifts their lower half toward the sky. This is a taxing ab and grip exercise, especially when programmed to perform “to failure,” as it was that day. Having already completed three exercises at maximum effort, I was fatigued as I took in a deep breath and jumped to grab the bar.
This is a picture of the darkness that I describe. This was a month before my injury. I was self-absorbed and angry. I never want to be “this Brad” again. This Brad almost killed himself.
The Crossfit culture is riddled with coaches that preach “no fail…” and Iron Tribe was no different. On this day, I was working one-on-one with a coach named Mike, and he constantly howled at me to continue working harder even though my body was quickly deteriorating. Now, my personality (to a fault) is one to respond to this form of encouragement, which meant that I took no mind of safety precautions and simply wanted to outperform Mike’s and my own expectations
As I pushed through 30 repetitions of toes-to-bar, under the direction of Jekyll-like yells from Mike, my hands began to weaken around the knurling of the pull-up bar. Regardless, I was determined to surpass 30 reps, and steeled myself for at least 10 more. However, as I raised my feet to complete rep number 31, my hands gave away, and I went crashing headfirst toward the concrete floor. There was no safety mat underneath me, because let’s be honest, it is not the Crossfit culture to take precautions.
I have one memory from that day, and there is a good chance that my mind imagined it. I can see my hands slowly slipping from the bar as I look to the sky. My hands covered in chalk, like a gymnast, released a cloud of white “smoke” into the air. I envisioned a slow-motion fall toward earth as I grasped at the air trying to slow my descent. Suddenly, everything went black, and I have no memory for the next six weeks.
Because of Crossfit’s “never quit” personality, most gym-goers continued their workout and only glanced curiously at the situation unraveling in front of them. There is security camera footage of my fall, and the eleven minutes following my crash showed me writhing alone on the floor. Finally, someone dialed 911, and one can see paramedics hauling me out of the gym on a gurney.
My wife and me celebrating our 10 year anniversary. She stuck it out when I was recovering, and it wasn’t pretty.
That morning, my wife, Ellen, had left town for a business trip. She only learned of the accident after a friend from the gym called and let her know that I was unconscious and on my way to the trauma unit at Trinity Hospital. She hung up and immediately called the one on whom we can always depend-her dad, Milton. Upon learning the news, he immediately left work and rushed to the hospital, where he was ushered back to meet the surgeon, Dr. Nguyen. The two men called Ellen, and she learned (over the phone and hundreds of miles away) that I had fractured my skull, severed an artery, and pressure was quickly building on my brain. If it was not immediately relieved, I would not survive.
The nine years since my TBI have been dominated by a sense of darkness. I have been captive to poor memory, unpredictable emotions, and physical limitations. Because I had learned to temper my expectations of what a post-TBI life should be, I started to rest in my new normal and did not expect to experience further recovery. But then, I was I introduced to Love Your Brain and attended one of its retreats in Maine. While my expectation was simply to join a community of TBI survivors that could commiserate and understand each other’s struggles, my experience was much more impactful, addressing emotional struggles that I knew existed but had learned to ignore and/or manage.
My wife, Ellen, and me at the Retreat.
Everyone that attended the Retreat had significant challenges in their lives. Everyone struggled with movement. Everyone struggled with cognition. Everyone struggled with the emotional burden that comes from having your life unexpectedly transformed. BUT, everyone had persevered, and more importantly, everyone had a beauty that I had never seen before. That beauty, I realized, had come from a process of stripping one’s identity and then rebuilding that individual into a better version of what they were before.
Because all 35 of us were at different stages in our recovery, not everyone accepted the re-building process that was happening in their lives. Being nine years out, however, I saw it, reveled in it, and noticed folks becoming more joyful every day. That only contributed to the joy that I also began feeling, and I still feel it today.
A very recent trip to Paris! Thank God for my recovery and ability to do these things with my family.
Upon returning to my home in Alabama, I began seeing people with a new perspective. I realized that TBI is not any different from other traumatic events. Everyone has been challenged in their lives somehow, and while the “circumstance” may feel debilitating at the time, it really is a polishing mechanism that shines the inner and outer person that previously existed. I realized that I could choose to continue the daily fight of conforming to what is “normal,” or I could choose to embrace my disability, thus allowing it to transform me into someone that appreciates breath, joy, and relationships.
Ultimately, I have realized that there are just two possibilities: I can choose to rest in the darkness, or I can choose to chase the light. Because of the community that was introduced to me by LoveYourBrain, I choose the latter.