therapy…

I never in my life thought that there would ever come a time that someone  would be interested in my lifes story-especially this history which took place in barracks D over 35 years ago. I had been seeing a doctor at the veterans hospital near my home in Florida and a routine question was asked me during a regular check up-was I depressed? I felt that I might have been at that time so I said yes-then the second question was if I’d like to talk to someone about it…and for some reason I said yes. Then the pills came out…here-take these in the mean time. I admit-I did. I tried them for about a week and they made me feel like I was tripping on mesculine and about three weeks later I told them that at the VA and the person I said it to almost flipped-it was the truth! They had called me in to the mental health department and it turned out it was a ‘training’ session on how to use this medicine-there were about five other guys there and they all had thier wives with them and each guy looked awful and drowsey and plain out of it…but when the woman in charge asked what we felt of the medicine and I said it felt like mesculine I think it was the most alive those other guys felt in years. Even the wives noticed they perked up-but the woman in charge did’nt like it at all…but it got worse when she learned I dumped them out-so I was ordered to see a shrink. That was about as effective as something out of a comic book. So-with my new prescription in hand for me to dump in the toilet when I got home I decided to write a letter and keep myself from looseing my privledges there at the VA. I wrote and told them it was interesting that the things I endured in my life  during the service and after the service made me a drunk-which over long years is no more….and a drug addict,cocaine-and that too long ago. But my letter asked what is the difference? Why am I NOT supposed to mask my problems that way when they offer nearly the same solution-pills.

It was about two months later I got a call from a guy who only introduced himself as Jack from the PTSD clinic at the VA and he said they were going to get back with me and set up an appointment. Another few weeks went by and that happened. Thats been about two years ago-not quite , almost. An interesting time.

The woman I see and has been my therapist since the beginning is the only person that knows me the best-knows my entire life…and each week when I return she is pin point accurate on my life and the details I have told her….and , trust me-I am a complicated individual to follow.

One of the things that happens to me when I enter a building I feel a copression on my body that makes me feel like I’m being squeezed really tight and the peoples sounds-because I try not to make eye contact…suffocate me makeing me feel like someone is squeezing my throat and I feel like I am gagging. I hate it. My therapy begins at eight in the morning-I get the almost two hours early to walk the entire building over and over up and down to adjust. When ever the conversation in therapy goes into any part of the details or something has struck me wrong my energy flow must be incredible because afterwards for the rest of the day I feel like I am wadeing chest deep through mud and everything seems in slow motion. I am a gentle person-but people who don’t know me and come across me become intimidated because of the look I impress on my face and into my body langauge giving the impression I am about to kick ass-when even my ass is quivvering from the fear of others approaching. It is sort of a hypnosis that I have to do entering any enclosed place where people are-I park way far from places and walk towards them building this persona of the tough guy and try to blank out where it is I am going and usually I adjust myself to one grocery store and one this kind of store and one that kind of store and then I keep it at that because its easier to become adjusted to one place then it is to enter strange places-where at times I become very choked.

I started going to a group session the day after I see Charlotte-my therapist. I don’t like the group-none of us seem to like each other…I don’t like them,but it has become worse-two days in a row now pushing through that chest deep imaginary wall of mud and because this group is four men and the doctor the energy being spent in that room is in overdrive and yesterday afterwards I was so exhausted from it.

What did I do? After more than 35 years ago this happened to me and no one cared. Once my mother asked me-she said she always knew something was wrong…but when I began to tell her she had no more interest in hearing the details than she would have jumping off the Empire State Building. Trust me-when my mother asked me that time I was overwhelmed with peace when she asked and it felt like a semi truck came through the living room wall and crushed me…it hurt that bad. Hey, and you don’t sit and have many a chat with your aquaintences . I don’t think I told either of my wives-oddly I know I told my sons when they were too young to hear it.

I cannot say what I feel about the therapy other than I am thankful that the person I finally was given to open up to about this was Charlotte-to finally have someone hear and believe my bizarre story is a relief.

I cannot say any more now.