Unspoken Abandonment (26 page)

I
sat for a long while on the floor, after I finished reading, just letting
my entire thought process
settle. I started to look inside myself and reflect on who I was, where I was, and how things had become this way. I saw the wall I had built around myself and the barriers I had placed between me and every
single person
I
knew
. I
clearly saw how
I was keeping everyone out, all while holding
in
everything
that was causing so much pain
. This could no
t go on any longer
,
and
it
had to come to an end. I had been running from a problem that never went away, and
it
was never going to go away. I had run
so long,
I was
completel
y exhausted. For all my running
though,
I had no
t
even
come close to outrunning
any of
these
problems
.
I had only
worn myself down and
made them
much
worse. I was done running, and
win or
lose,
I wa
s ready to fight to
get
my
life back.

A
FTER READING
MY
JOURNAL
, I had
the
immediate
urge to begin writing
.
I had no idea what I was going to write,
b
ut I just wanted to start
right away
. I
had no lined paper in the house
,
so I grabbed a stack of plain, white paper from
my
computer printer
and
sat
down at the kitchen table. Thankfully, I did
n
o
t have work the following day
, since
I was going into my days off
.
A
lthough it
took a little bit to get go
ing, once I started
I felt like I could
n
o
t stop.

I wrote
page
after page of feelings, emotions, thoughts, ideas, and anything else that came to mind. That first weekend alone, I filled nearly fifty pages wit
h notes, scribbles, and doodles;
h
owever, I continued to write at least on
c
e a day
,
every day
. Some days
,
I would only find time for ten minutes
,
while
other
days
,
I
would
spen
d
up to three hours
writing
. As time went on, something amazing
started
to happen. In the beginning, it took
a
conscious thought for me to write; I had to think about
each thought I was going to
transfer from my mind to the
blank
page
in front of me
. Eventually, I
seemed to develop a
sort of
“
autopilot
,”
where
I could start writing and
just
let my mind go
as
the
words just flowed onto the
pa
per
.

When I would go into that autopilot mode of writing, I would refle
ct on the advice given to me to “put a pen in your hand
,
and let everything flow through your arm and onto the paper.” I was doing just that, and it was showing its first signs of success.

Ninety percent of what I wrote during the following two or three weeks was just gibberish and meaningless. The other ten percent though,
that
proved to be the window I was looking for. I do
n
o
t think it
i
s entirely necessary to focus too much on what I wrote, as much of it is the basis for the very book you
a
re reading now.
T
here are
many
things I wrote that I will never share with an
yone;
t
hose
things
will always be mine
.
H
owever,
o
ne
important
line seemed to
reveal itself
with a regularity that
started to bring everything
in
my life back into focus. I found myself continually writing some variation of,
“How could I (
fill in the blank
)?”

“How could I have
witnessed death,
and
then just walked away like nothing happened
?” I wrote on one occasion.
“How could anyone just go on enjoying anything while knowing that those people are still suffering?” I indicated about myself on another page.
“I had a
machine
gun in my hand, but I did nothing as I watched children
, practically still babies,
being led away by strangers. How could I have just stood there and done nothing? Fuck orders, I did nothing,” I wrote on yet another.

This theme became extreme
ly common, and I realized I was not just angry;
I was furious.
I was furious at all sorts of things
,
but most surprisingly, I was angry at myself. I had somehow allowed the sorrow I felt for the
things
I had seen
,
to turn into some sort of guilt. That guilt then transformed itself into blame, and
it
all
happened
without me ever realizing it.
I wa
s blaming myself for everything I had witnessed.
I was also viewing every feel
ing of misery, discomfort, and
fear I experienced in Afghanistan as
being
some sort of punishment
,
which I was being forced
to endure
,
as a result of that guilt.

I did
n
o
t look at the fear of rocket attacks and bombings, the humiliation of head lice, the discomfort of mice crawling over me as I tried to sleep, or any countless number of negative experiences as being beyond my control.
Instead, I felt
as though
they were my punishment
s
,
the
consequences
for anything my mind felt
I
had or had
n
o
t done. I never, not
even
once, stopped to process any of these experiences in a healthy, constructive way
. I just bottled them away
,
and
I
subconsciously
justified them to myself as something I deserved, for things that were never my fault.

None of this was ever a conscious thought. I never decided to think that way, and none of it was a choice
. It all happened
,
completely on its own, by trying to ignore everything
that
I
had
experienced
. I always felt like I would deal with those feelings and emotions when I was ready. The only problem
with that rationale is
that I never
was
ready, and
I
probably never would have been without
someone forcing me
to confront it.

After weeks of writing, I pored through my piles of paper
,
and
I
realized that the last three years were spent punishing myself for something that was
never
my fault.
A
s I had that
very
thought, a
realization hit me
for the
very first time:
none of this was
my fault.
I spoke the words out loud, “It’s not my fault.”

I repeated that phrase over and over again,
and
I felt a weight being pulled from on top of me.
The death, poverty, suffering, abuse, and misery I had seen
were
not my fault,
and
I was
so very
wrong to have ever loaded any
of that
guilt onto myself.

Although I made this realization, I knew this was
only the first step in a very complicated
solution. Saying it
wa
s not my fault
,
and truly believing it
,
was a great step forward, but a feeling like
that
does no
t have
a light switch
,
and
it
could no
t just be turned off
like a glowing bulb
. I decided that
every day
I needed to take small steps toward
s
putting everything back together.
It was going to take a
constant
conscious effort
, a lot of self compassion,
and a tremendous amount of will
power, but I knew it could be done.

My first step was to make a list of
the things
I needed to improve in my life
,
and
I
prioritize
d
them. The first thing I
desperately wanted
to work on was myself
, on the inside
. I knew
any lasting improvement to
my life needed to be
made
from the inside out
,
and not the other way around. I was
always
looking for some magical answer
to come from someone else when all along
I
was
the
only
one
who could start the rebuilding process.
This time,
I knew I was ready, truly ready, to do what I needed to do.

Within a few days, I
scheduled
an appointment, and
shortly after
found myself seated
once again
in that familiar office
,
waiting for my counselor to enter the room. She was still using the same scent
ed
candle, and the
familiar odor
of clean laundry
was immediately comforting.

She entered the room and enthusiastically announced, “Bryan, I’m so glad you’re back.”

I started to apologize for giving up and not returning
,
and
she
quickly
int
errupted, “Who cares about that?
You weren’t ready th
en, and only you know
if
you’
re
not ready
and
more importantly, when you are
. Are you ready?”

I replied, “I am.” I continued, “But before we get started, I want to give you something. I have something that I want you to see, and that’s
all I want
for today. Next time we’ll start talking.”

Looking puzzled, she said, “Ok. This isn’t normally how we do this, but if it makes you more comfortable, that’s fine.”

I handed her a pile of papers,
a
handwritten
compilation of my thoughts
gathered over the previous weeks.
I also handed her my journal, and
I told her, “If you read this, I think you’ll see exactly where I’m coming from, and we can get started on
an even keel
.
I think you will understand me.
”

A week later, I returned
,
and I began to open up in a way that was intimidating, embarrassing, and
at the same time
absolutely liberating. I went twice a week for several
weeks
and never missed a session. Some sessions were fraught with sadness, some with anger, and some with fear; however, each was an important step towards finally being free.