Missing Without A Trace (25 page)

Interestingly, when Tom was asked why he hasn’t been curious enough about these lost memories to persuade Tanya to remember more, he said, “No. I’ve wanted to stay sane and not choke the police officer. Tanya isn’t ready. I’ll be glad if she never remembers.”

Tanya’s memory of the last time she saw Tom before the accident is “blurry.” “I saw Tom at night. I think he was bringing me food.” This may be an actual recall or it may be a wish-fulfillment fantasy. As a child,
Tanya was starved of food and of the love it represents. Her attempts to eat food that’s healthy and good for her has become a way that she tries to show love to herself. Being trapped in her car, and starving, was all the more traumatic because it recapitulated being a prisoner in her mother’s home, where the cupboards were bare.

Tanya’s cars had always been sanctuaries for her, places where she could get away, be alone and have peace. “I come to my car on my lunch break. It helps me get sane so I can go back to my job.” Imagine, then, how disturbing it was to feel her sanctuary filling up with urine and feces. This was all that much harder because of Tanya’s obsessive-compulsive traits. Her menacing and out-of-control childhood instilled in Tanya a need to be in control of her body, her surroundings and her life, lest she be harmed again by some danger lurking in the shadows.

Being trapped in such a small space has made Tanya claustrophobic. “I don’t like sitting in doctors’ waiting rooms. I have to go out. Flying is an issue for me because you have to sit in a confined space for a long period of time.”

A big part of Tanya’s recovery consists of her trying to let go of anger, especially towards the Sheriff’s Department that delayed looking for her. “It’s like they were saying, ‘You don’t deserve to be found. If you’re a purse, we’ll take a report. We don’t want to look for working people.’ But Tom and I paid a lot of money to King County for our house…. My husband took me away from my abusers. They think he’s an abuser. Tom could have become the next ‘Fugitive’.”

After Tanya’s story hit the news and Tom posted a reward, people came forward with information. “A man said he’d gone to the Fire Department and told them that ‘the road didn’t look right. It looked like someone went off it.’ Later, the Fire Department said they’d searched the wrong place…. People told my husband that others have gone off the road there. After my accident, they filled the hole in and put a guardrail.”

Amongst the complex emotions Tanya is feeling is depression,
which is anger directed inward towards the self. She has struggled with depression throughout her life and, now, it is heightened. She takes supplements like kava kava, ginseng, St. John’s wort and coconut water. “You need to focus on what makes you happy to fight depression,” she believes. “Sometimes, it’s a nice salmon dinner with Omega-3 fatty acids. Sometimes it’s B vitamins, having Tom make me laugh, eating health food or getting exercise.”

“If you end your life, you go to hell,” Tanya asserts. “I have never thought of killing myself. I’ve thought life is really hard. Never wished I was dead. I’ve always known God has a purpose…. Anyway, according to King County’s strict criteria, if I was suicidal they should have looked for me!”

It has long been important to Tanya to feel attractive. The accident not only wrecked her car and her body, but also her self-image and self-esteem. It has left her feeling damaged. In the hospital, Tanya hadn’t wanted to see herself in the mirror. To this day, when reflecting upon her traumatic experience, Tanya gets a ‘deer caught in headlights’ look. But there is also something very spiritual about her, as if she’s seen something mysterious and otherworldly.

When Tanya was found, her “fingernails and toenails were yellow from malnutrition.” Her knuckles had “big monstrous” black scabs on them. But this was the least of it. She still has wounds on her body that haven’t yet healed and she has been left with a scar on her forehead. “When I worked at night, I wore glasses. I have a gouge in my head. We think the airbag crushed my glasses into my forehead.” Each morning, Tanya painstakingly styles her hair in a manner that will hide the scar.

Tanya eventually returned to work at Nordstrom’s in the customer service/credit card department. “I was feeling disabled at my job. I had to walk around every hour. I missed days of work and I was late because my injuries are painful. I had to wear two wrist braces at work for a while. My coworkers asked about it.” Most recently, after her leg wound reopened,
Tanya’s infectious disease doctor put her on disability, so that she could rest, “to try to stop my leg from continuing to get infected…. I’m not gonna be in a victim state.”

Tanya and Tom were two lost souls who found each other, until one of them got lost again. Not only was Tanya lost, but her engagement and wedding rings were also lost somewhere in the wreckage. Tom has told her that their dog, Sheba, ate his wedding ring when he was a puppy.

Tanya tearfully admits, “We haven’t been intimate since my accident. Tom’s afraid he’s going to hurt me. He sees I’m in pain. There’s a lot of ‘ow, ow, ow.’”

Tom agrees that he doesn’t want to hurt Tanya by having sex with her. “When we get into position and she says, ‘Ow,’ I lose my erection.” He also describes their lack of intimacy from a slightly different perspective. “I have a mental block when it comes to sex, from having to dress my wife’s wounds twice a day. I was the only one she would allow to roll her on her side. When she came home from the hospital, she couldn’t reach her wounds. Her left wrist and ankle were paralyzed. And she didn’t want to look at them.”

This put Tom into a ‘care-giving role,’ which unconsciously reminded him of having to be a caregiver to his mom when she was drunk. It is natural for a man to be unable to have sex with a woman who reminds him of the taboo against having sex with his mother. To complicate the situation further, Tom, as a little boy, had been helpless to protect his mother from all of the abuse she received from men. Now, since he was helpless to protect Tanya from languishing in the ravine, it has triggered these memories and made him feel like less of a man.

The lost eight days have also interfered with their plans to have children. Tanya explains, “My husband is very passionate about having kids. I didn’t want to have children and hurt them like my parents did. I don’t want to be like my parents. I always said, ‘When we have a house, we’ll have children.’” The sad irony is that, now they have a house, but
they are having problems with sexual intimacy.

“It’s very hard. But it’s not breaking us up. I know he’s into me…. I had no self- esteem when I met Tom. He’s told me for eighteen years that I’m beautiful and I’m his princess…. In the hospital, I had dreadlocks, no bottom, no chest, no femininity. That’s when he would’ve left me. But our love survived.”

Memories: Setting Tanya Free

Touch me, it’s so easy to leave me
All alone with the memory
Of my days in the sun
If you touch me you’ll understand what happiness is
Look, a new day has begun
.

Tanya has come forward with her story because “people don’t want to believe I survived eight days…. I feel it’s my duty to God to let people know about this miracle. Maybe God is leading me to do this, making it my time to shine.”

Although Tanya has escaped her childhood prisons, and the cold metal carcass that entombed her in the ravine, she still holds memories of eight days of horror locked deep inside. Has she imprisoned them, or are the memories still holding her captive?

Shepherding Tanya into meditative guided imagery—or waking dreams—seems to be the only way for her to feel safe enough to retrieve fragments of her memories from these lost days. Following the suggestion to visualize herself in a meadow, Tanya saw:

“Blue sky … mountain … butterflies … wind blowing the bushes … bugs flying around me … my bottom half is buried in flowers. It’s hard to get up … Blue sky … the white peak of a mountain … I’m in a dark space … I see a field … bluish darker mountains … trees cut on top … mountains are getting darker … white hat on a girl … I’m disconnecting from it … black ribbon around the white hat … girl … no movement in this picture … not cheery … girl …
just seeing the back of her head … wind just blew her hair … large wind gust … nothing moving, but wind blowing around girl’s hair … wildlife … I’m afraid of snakes … not safe.
”

To help her move through this scary part and to continue her reverie, Tanya was asked to visualize herself in the safest place she’s ever known. Under her breath she said, “I never had a safe place.”

Soon Tanya returned to the meadow-like ravine, where she saw:

“Shadows of the sun on a tree … the tree grows dark.
” She then began seeing
“things that that resemble things on the side of the road … black and white square … yield sign … stake like in the ground … yellow and black bars … road signs in the way … the light thing that hangs down at the intersection—yellow, red, green, hanging over the road … red, yellow, green … they’re not lit … one-way sign … a seagull on top of the light … a car with headlights on … Jeep … Why is everything rolling around? … crying noises … man with brown hair, black sunglasses, rainbow colors on his t-shirt … laughing, looks upset … road signs … black and white markers … yellow and white.
”

Here, Tanya started breathing hard and holding her neck as if in pain. She covered her face and rubbed her painful left wrist.

“Rocks in road in front … there was green grass … it became dead grass … it’s paved … the road is changing … round rocks, big, solid, now sharper rocks … Washington state highway sign with a green background and a picture of Washington … shadow of something on the pavement … I’m on the road … looking at the road … Lady smiling. Lady has a cute smile, white teeth … blue flashes of color of my car … Washington license plate … Lady is my dog … I keep seeing black and the hood of my car … confused
… white car in and out, in and out … house has a dome roof like the top of a cathedral … trees … like I’m floating … I went in the cathedral … the sky is so pretty … the top of the cathedral is golden … sunset … dark orange, yellow … look at the water … the horizon … waves … I see the black part of my car … the driver’s inside molding of the window … I have Lady. She looks startled but then she smiled. She’s sticking her tongue out. I could see her teeth. There’s the shadow of Lady on the window—or it’s a reflection of her … We’re in a different kind of water with canyons … It’s dark in the middle … The sun’s hitting the canyon … Lady’s in front, looking out at the scenery … water with trees, flat stagnant water … Now Lady’s looking out the front window … always a pretty picture in the background … Lady’s smiling … road … stagnant water … Lady turned her head in front of me … road went down … road that has broken off … running water over it … Lady is always right here.
” Tanya points to the space in front of her and on the left, the driver’s side.

Once again, visualizing herself in the ravine, Tanya continued:

“I’m stuck in a sandcastle … I see a bald eagle sideways. He’s looking at me with yellow-greenish eyes … I see his head, his beak … He’s white with a little black. But I don’t see the rest of him … on the road, why are the white lines not together? … The bald eagle is very interested in me. He has not left … I’ve never been that close to a bald eagle. He has a white head … I see his eyes … The color of the front of my SUV keeps coming. He’s on the edge of my hood … green in front of me … the eagle has not left … There’s something dark in front of me. I don’t want it to be the inside of my car … yellow and orange car controls … yellow feet of the eagle. He’s trying to keep his grip. Skinny legs … he seems
more interested in getting off the hood. He’s looking down in front … black-and-white road sign … Why does he get to hop off the hood? He’s thinking about it … Now the eagle is not looking at me. He’s focusing on what’s below. I see his back, yellowy legs … black in front of me … my vent … stagnant picture … I’m trying not to see more … I see the color of my car, the hood of my car, the eagle, and green in the background.
”

Here, Tanya started sobbing, as the vision of the eagle—perched on her car hood, keeping her company—came flooding back. She could still see the light shining from within the eagle and radiating outwards. It is her most poignant memory of these lost days. And how profound! The eagle is believed to be the liaison between man and God. For every prayer, an eagle soars inside of us, lifting our prayers to the sky. And, as a messenger of God, the eagle brings us strength, courage, healing, and spiritual protection. How Tanya became trapped in the ravine is still a mystery, but the eagle knows how she survived!

A Final Note for The Reader

As you’ve read of Tanya’s harrowing experiences that culminated in her miraculous survival, you have undoubtedly marveled at the strength of the human spirit. Though none of us sets out in the morning thinking that we will become trapped and missing for eight days, we each have endured or will endure our own traumatic experiences.

What would
you
do if you were suddenly ‘trapped’ in a decimated car, another type of accident, or a natural or man-made disaster?

Of course, it’s best to prepare for such catastrophes before you find yourself ensnared in one. For example, you should build stamina by exercising regularly, eating healthy foods and getting enough sleep. Keep water and energy bars with you. Store safety kits in your car and home. And make sure that at least one person knows where you are at all times,
so that, if you seem to be missing, they will know where you’re likely to be.

If you do become trapped, here’s some psychological advice to help bolster your will to survive.

Never let go of hope. Make a mental list of all the forces that are coming to your rescue, such as people who will notice that you are missing, passersby who have seen the traumatic event, other victims who have managed to escape and will notify the authorities, and so on. Close your eyes and visualize paramedics in ambulances, firefighters in engines, pilots in helicopters—all rushing to your aid.