Post by Nathan Webb on Nov 10, 2011 19:37:29 GMT -6
“Crazy?” Developmental RP Series Part 4 – Read the Previous Three before reading this one.
"Though inclination be as sharp as will,
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect."
William Shakespeare,
Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3
Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.
C.S. Lewis
Since my experience with Rose literally kicking my wheelchair down that hill I tried to keep my aura a positive one. Even though I still felt like I had no business here at Hill Crest and even though my direct interaction with Rose in the following days was minimal I made sure I didn’t look like I was moping around in a state of self-loathing. Whether I did this due to Rose’s “request” or for my own wellbeing was something I didn’t bother to examine but just did.
During that time as well I found myself also transitioning from a wheel chair to a walking cane. While I did still wear a back brace and found something as simple as walking and bending over a chore I still felt like I had to force myself to progress. Feeling helpless was not going to get me out of my cage.
It took a few days for my next appointment with Dr. Riley to materialize but before long I was in her office with my second face to face with her. There I sat not in a wheelchair but in a nice lounge chair set up in her office with my feet propped on an ottoman.
Dr. Riley was sitting in her chair but this time Rose wasn’t sitting in the chair at her side. In her lap was a notebook full of notes; whether there was anything was on me was to be determined. After a few moments of a stare down Dr. Riley was the first one to speak.
“Before we begin, I am sure you are wondering about Rose. No she is not going to be here today. I have asked her to be a part of a group therapy session. Oh and yes I did have quite the chuckle after I heard what she did to you outside on the terrace. She did get a talking to but I have to admit I could barely do it with a straight face.”
“I… I really wasn’t mad looking back at it.” I said making my first complete statement in almost over a week.
Dr. Riley giggled to herself as she jotted down a few notes. “So the man does speak. I was wondering when I would hear a word from his opinionated mouth.”
I sat there not amused but knew that Dr. Riley was also sitting in her chair trying to hit various pressure points seeing how I would react to various stressors. Dr. Riley looking at me seeing she hit a partial nerve than went to crutch of what she brought me in for.
“So Nathan, let me first ask you why did you get into wrestling in the first place? Why choose a profession so violent, so cut-throat, and so unpredictable when I see a man who could have done anything else?”
I thought a moment before opening my mouth. “I don’t know. I think it really found me. Saw something in the paper for tryouts and before you know it I was wrestling fulltime.”
Dr. Riley nodded and wrote some more things into her notebook. “Okay, fair enough. I apologize for the change in subjects but let me delve into your personal past.”
I knew where this was going to some extent but again I had felt like I had no choice but to nod and relent.
“Okay, so according to you your parents died while you were in Recruit Training, in an accident by a drunk driver? Is this correct?”
I nodded. This wasn’t going anywhere good fast.
“Ok, so also you spent almost ten years serving as a United States Marine as a linguist and a analyst.”
I shook my head in the affirmative.
“You’ve also done tours in Afghanistan and Iraq as well. Is that correct?”
I again nodded in the affirmative which resulted in still more nodding and note-taking by Dr. Riley.
“While you were in combat zones, did you ever see combat directly?”
“No.” I said forthright. I really didn’t know her angle. Could it be PTSD or was it something else.
“Interesting,” Dr. Riley said nodding, “Now of course you are wondering where I am going with this, aren’t you?”
I nodded hearing almost the exact words being pulled from my head.
“Well let me get to this, have you heard of Survivor’s Guilt?”
“Of course…wait…wait…wait, you don’t think I am actually suffering from that do you?” I responded startled by what Dr. Riley was implying.
“Of course it is not as simple as that but I do think what a lot of what you are going through is coming from.” Dr. Riley paused for a second as she put down her notebook. “Your parents died tragically while you were in the most rigid and disciplined oriented part of your military career. You were involved in campaigns that saw comrades that you may not have known personally died in the most tragic of ways. Now with all that said I have never seen you express an amount of emotion. I have never seen or heard of you showing anger, grief, happiness or sadness, just a dry sense of sarcasm.”
“Your point being?” I retorted still not seeing why she was taking this route.
“Okay, now you couple this with a loner activity. You have abandoned your friends, while not making any new ones. You don’t even have a real mentor to help guide you in wrestling. Everything you have done has been done alone and you wonder why these extensions of yourself have manifested.”
I knew the words and the meaning of her sentences but the ideas brought on by them were mind boggling to comprehend. But before I could let words pass my lips Dr. Riley spoke up once more.
“Besides have you ever thought about why wrestling felt right? Why it felt natural? Did you ever think that it was your subconscious hoping to make up for lost time? To make up for the lack of any combat experience? The thing that Marines pride themselves on…the fact that EVERY Marine is a rifleman…something you were not able to be?”
I shook my head not wanting to concede anything. This was my life I didn’t want it to be dictated by anything or anybody. The only thing that I could get out of my mouth was “It’s not that simple.”
“Of course not.” She said calmly allowing me to say my two cents.
“I mean the Marine Corps kept me on track when my parents died. It kept me from getting unglued. Then you go out into country and have to see reports about Marines; lost limbs, sucking chest wounds, horrific brain injuries. I just couldn’t stop. Work needed to get done. Missions needed to be accomplished. That was life. That IS life.”
“This whole thing on me not going into combat is not a statement. It’s not a ****ing game. Combat is not supposed to be a game where you go into and get out of combat based on enthusiasm and motivation. Lives are at stake. If I go into combat not as capable as the grunts…the infantry around me, I am not just compromising just myself but the men around me. Do you GET THAT?!”
Dr. Riley nodded unfazed by my outburst. “I totally understand.” (But did she really)
I paused to stare at Dr. Riley in the eyes. “What do you expect me to do? Do you just expect me to stop being who I am?”
Dr. Riley shook her head. “No, you are Nathan Webb. To be honest I see you with more sanity than some of those in the locker room that you share. Your quirks, your, values and your code make up who you are. I just want you to actually get out of your shell. Make some friends. Actually trust someone and express some emotion. You may be the Cold Spider for your rational being and continue to use that but allow yourself and your emotions to show through.”
Before I could pause to contemplate what she said she gave one final statement. “Also you need to be in control of you. Don’t let conventions, even self-imposed ones control you. Live for yourself and wrestle because you want to wrestle. Not because you are trying to make up for lost time or chances not taken.”
I sat down during lunch time picking at my food. Today they had served spaghetti and meatballs, but frankly I was not in the mood for eating. Just thinking about the session with Dr. Riley drudged up bad memories of not only receiving the news of my parents’ death but also things that I thought I had moved past when I went overseas. I could understand what Dr. Riley was getting at but implementing it and even making subtle changes to who I was without making myself look like a complete fool was going to be hard part. Was I actually suffering from guilt? Who knew?
Suddenly a figure came to my side putting their tray down next to me. It was Rose and while I did not get a good visual of her, the gothic outfit gave her away.
“Mind if I sit here?” she asked.
“Were you going to sit here anyway?” I replied still picking at my food.
“I guess you’re right.” She said giggling taking her seat across from me. “I just had to see how you are doing and by the looks of things you had an interesting appointment with Dr. Riley.”
“Interesting would be a misrepresentation.” I said not looking at her
Rose let out a hearty laugh hearing what I said. “Sounds like she was direct and that made you uncomfortable.”
I shrugged. I guess I was still processing everything. “It’s like you get this piece of advice but you don’t know what to do with it.”
Rose nodded looking like she not only understood but this time sympathized with my position. Pushing her own food to one side, she put her elbows on the table and rested her head on her hands.
“I have been here for ten years, since I was sixteen, you can do the math. When I was younger, I had a real close relationship with my dad, I was his only daughter, in fact I was an only child. I was his angel and could do no wrong in his eyes. That’s not to say I didn’t love my mother but with my dad so busy with work and all the times when he was around I cherished. He did everything he could for me. Came to every one of my dance recitals, and school plays, and everything he could to be there on the more important moments of my life.”
As Rose sat there forcing herself to remember these things I could see her eyes slowly fill with tears knowing where this story would go.
“Then one day, a fall day, over thirteen years ago, my dad and I were playing in the yard, in the leaves that were being raked up, when all of a sudden he collapsed. He had suffered a heart attack and before he reached the hospital he had died. My mother and I were sullen. She could barely do anything. She hardly even left the house. I kept to myself and found myself drawn to the ideas related to death, reading the works of Poe and Dickinson among others. As you can tell my wardrobe changed as well.” Rose said showing a slight smile under her own tears. “I abandoned my friends and didn’t really want to be with anyone else. The one thing I did do was to keep on dancing. I may have looked gothic doing it but I kept it up as a way to keep my father smiling as he was watching over me.”
Rose looked down and I could tell the harder part of her story had yet to come.
“About 3 years later, when I was sixteen, I still was keeping my loner goth personality. My mother was finally convinced by a family friend to put herself out there and go on a date with this guy she recommended. The guy’s name was Chuck and he was nothing but a sweet talking mooch. He had been married twice before, both of his wives died of “natural” causes, whatever that means. With him he brought his own son, Derek, who was a lazy, no class bastard who was like his own father. Whatever Chuck was he was a smooth talker who used his own position, as a widower, to relate to my mother…all the while everyone but her saw the fact that he was low class and was just looking to get after her money…which was my father’s money that he worked his ass off for. My mother could not be detracted for she was smitten. “
Rose took another pause as I saw that the worst was yet to come.
“Frankly I tried to keep as far away as possible. I hoped I would be left alone away from the bull that I saw occurring in the house that I lived in. I guess for whatever reason I didn’t stay far away enough because one night I was up late watching television in my room when Derek came home in a drunken stupor. Suddenly I saw him at the door to my room. In his own graphic words he literally told me he had made a bet with his friends that he would take my virginity and that I should be so lucky that it should be from him and that I should just enjoy the ride. I loudly told him to get the **** away from my room and pretend that he didn’t say that. Of course the bastard didn’t take no for an answer and made an advance at me grabbing and ripping my shirt. I tried scratching and clawing to get him away but of course he simply took this as a challenge, so out of pure survival instinct I grabbed a pair of scissors nearby and stabbed them into his shoulder."
“Miraculously my mother and Chuck arrived at that time to see Derek in the middle of the floor bleeding and my shirt nearly torn off. Of course Derek said that I came on to him and that I wanted it rough and I just freaked out. In the end it was my word against his and I was carted off to jail. Before the trail it got out about Derek’s bet and his previous rap sheet that included a sexual assault and stalking which almost exonerated me. I had thought my nightmare was over but Chuck and Derek would have the last laugh. Chuck would say that I was so depressed and so unstable that I needed to be locked up here in Hill Crest. My mother still very much in love with Chuck despite the incident agreed and I found myself interned in here.”
“So what happened to them?” I asked out of nowhere.
“Who?”
“You know your mother, Chuck and Derek.”
“Oh,” Rose said rolling her eyes, “well Karma is a bitch and Karma dealt them an interesting hand. They died in that house as a result of a tornado. Don’t know how or why, it just did and in the end God served some justice of his own. I mean I still mourned my mother but…**** happens you know.”
Rose’s eyes were welling up with tears as I reached out with my hand and held hers’ to comfort her while also handing over my napkins which she greatly accepted. After wiping her eyes she resumed the conversation.
“The greatest thing that could’ve happened to me in my opinion especially with me being as vulnerable as I was to be here under the care and actual understanding of Dr. Riley, where I was even able to get a psych degree of my own. This place has become home to me and you know what Dr. Riley told me that might help you Mr. Nate? She told me despite the horror of my past the best thing I could do was to live while remembering the good times and keep my father in the way he should be remembered which was an awesome man. I think if you allow you remember and live YOUR life, you will see peace eventually.”
With that Rose left taking her food and left me to contemplate. Here was woman that had nearly nothing except for the walls and the relationship that she has formed and seemed perfectly happy. I had a lot more than she did but I was stuck in my self-loathing.
Did I have a direction or a purpose in my life yet aside from a slim one in wrestling?
No but I had a lot to be thankful for just the same.
"Though inclination be as sharp as will,
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect."
William Shakespeare,
Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3
Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.
C.S. Lewis
Since my experience with Rose literally kicking my wheelchair down that hill I tried to keep my aura a positive one. Even though I still felt like I had no business here at Hill Crest and even though my direct interaction with Rose in the following days was minimal I made sure I didn’t look like I was moping around in a state of self-loathing. Whether I did this due to Rose’s “request” or for my own wellbeing was something I didn’t bother to examine but just did.
During that time as well I found myself also transitioning from a wheel chair to a walking cane. While I did still wear a back brace and found something as simple as walking and bending over a chore I still felt like I had to force myself to progress. Feeling helpless was not going to get me out of my cage.
It took a few days for my next appointment with Dr. Riley to materialize but before long I was in her office with my second face to face with her. There I sat not in a wheelchair but in a nice lounge chair set up in her office with my feet propped on an ottoman.
Dr. Riley was sitting in her chair but this time Rose wasn’t sitting in the chair at her side. In her lap was a notebook full of notes; whether there was anything was on me was to be determined. After a few moments of a stare down Dr. Riley was the first one to speak.
“Before we begin, I am sure you are wondering about Rose. No she is not going to be here today. I have asked her to be a part of a group therapy session. Oh and yes I did have quite the chuckle after I heard what she did to you outside on the terrace. She did get a talking to but I have to admit I could barely do it with a straight face.”
“I… I really wasn’t mad looking back at it.” I said making my first complete statement in almost over a week.
Dr. Riley giggled to herself as she jotted down a few notes. “So the man does speak. I was wondering when I would hear a word from his opinionated mouth.”
I sat there not amused but knew that Dr. Riley was also sitting in her chair trying to hit various pressure points seeing how I would react to various stressors. Dr. Riley looking at me seeing she hit a partial nerve than went to crutch of what she brought me in for.
“So Nathan, let me first ask you why did you get into wrestling in the first place? Why choose a profession so violent, so cut-throat, and so unpredictable when I see a man who could have done anything else?”
I thought a moment before opening my mouth. “I don’t know. I think it really found me. Saw something in the paper for tryouts and before you know it I was wrestling fulltime.”
Dr. Riley nodded and wrote some more things into her notebook. “Okay, fair enough. I apologize for the change in subjects but let me delve into your personal past.”
I knew where this was going to some extent but again I had felt like I had no choice but to nod and relent.
“Okay, so according to you your parents died while you were in Recruit Training, in an accident by a drunk driver? Is this correct?”
I nodded. This wasn’t going anywhere good fast.
“Ok, so also you spent almost ten years serving as a United States Marine as a linguist and a analyst.”
I shook my head in the affirmative.
“You’ve also done tours in Afghanistan and Iraq as well. Is that correct?”
I again nodded in the affirmative which resulted in still more nodding and note-taking by Dr. Riley.
“While you were in combat zones, did you ever see combat directly?”
“No.” I said forthright. I really didn’t know her angle. Could it be PTSD or was it something else.
“Interesting,” Dr. Riley said nodding, “Now of course you are wondering where I am going with this, aren’t you?”
I nodded hearing almost the exact words being pulled from my head.
“Well let me get to this, have you heard of Survivor’s Guilt?”
“Of course…wait…wait…wait, you don’t think I am actually suffering from that do you?” I responded startled by what Dr. Riley was implying.
“Of course it is not as simple as that but I do think what a lot of what you are going through is coming from.” Dr. Riley paused for a second as she put down her notebook. “Your parents died tragically while you were in the most rigid and disciplined oriented part of your military career. You were involved in campaigns that saw comrades that you may not have known personally died in the most tragic of ways. Now with all that said I have never seen you express an amount of emotion. I have never seen or heard of you showing anger, grief, happiness or sadness, just a dry sense of sarcasm.”
“Your point being?” I retorted still not seeing why she was taking this route.
“Okay, now you couple this with a loner activity. You have abandoned your friends, while not making any new ones. You don’t even have a real mentor to help guide you in wrestling. Everything you have done has been done alone and you wonder why these extensions of yourself have manifested.”
I knew the words and the meaning of her sentences but the ideas brought on by them were mind boggling to comprehend. But before I could let words pass my lips Dr. Riley spoke up once more.
“Besides have you ever thought about why wrestling felt right? Why it felt natural? Did you ever think that it was your subconscious hoping to make up for lost time? To make up for the lack of any combat experience? The thing that Marines pride themselves on…the fact that EVERY Marine is a rifleman…something you were not able to be?”
I shook my head not wanting to concede anything. This was my life I didn’t want it to be dictated by anything or anybody. The only thing that I could get out of my mouth was “It’s not that simple.”
“Of course not.” She said calmly allowing me to say my two cents.
“I mean the Marine Corps kept me on track when my parents died. It kept me from getting unglued. Then you go out into country and have to see reports about Marines; lost limbs, sucking chest wounds, horrific brain injuries. I just couldn’t stop. Work needed to get done. Missions needed to be accomplished. That was life. That IS life.”
“This whole thing on me not going into combat is not a statement. It’s not a ****ing game. Combat is not supposed to be a game where you go into and get out of combat based on enthusiasm and motivation. Lives are at stake. If I go into combat not as capable as the grunts…the infantry around me, I am not just compromising just myself but the men around me. Do you GET THAT?!”
Dr. Riley nodded unfazed by my outburst. “I totally understand.” (But did she really)
I paused to stare at Dr. Riley in the eyes. “What do you expect me to do? Do you just expect me to stop being who I am?”
Dr. Riley shook her head. “No, you are Nathan Webb. To be honest I see you with more sanity than some of those in the locker room that you share. Your quirks, your, values and your code make up who you are. I just want you to actually get out of your shell. Make some friends. Actually trust someone and express some emotion. You may be the Cold Spider for your rational being and continue to use that but allow yourself and your emotions to show through.”
Before I could pause to contemplate what she said she gave one final statement. “Also you need to be in control of you. Don’t let conventions, even self-imposed ones control you. Live for yourself and wrestle because you want to wrestle. Not because you are trying to make up for lost time or chances not taken.”
I sat down during lunch time picking at my food. Today they had served spaghetti and meatballs, but frankly I was not in the mood for eating. Just thinking about the session with Dr. Riley drudged up bad memories of not only receiving the news of my parents’ death but also things that I thought I had moved past when I went overseas. I could understand what Dr. Riley was getting at but implementing it and even making subtle changes to who I was without making myself look like a complete fool was going to be hard part. Was I actually suffering from guilt? Who knew?
Suddenly a figure came to my side putting their tray down next to me. It was Rose and while I did not get a good visual of her, the gothic outfit gave her away.
“Mind if I sit here?” she asked.
“Were you going to sit here anyway?” I replied still picking at my food.
“I guess you’re right.” She said giggling taking her seat across from me. “I just had to see how you are doing and by the looks of things you had an interesting appointment with Dr. Riley.”
“Interesting would be a misrepresentation.” I said not looking at her
Rose let out a hearty laugh hearing what I said. “Sounds like she was direct and that made you uncomfortable.”
I shrugged. I guess I was still processing everything. “It’s like you get this piece of advice but you don’t know what to do with it.”
Rose nodded looking like she not only understood but this time sympathized with my position. Pushing her own food to one side, she put her elbows on the table and rested her head on her hands.
“I have been here for ten years, since I was sixteen, you can do the math. When I was younger, I had a real close relationship with my dad, I was his only daughter, in fact I was an only child. I was his angel and could do no wrong in his eyes. That’s not to say I didn’t love my mother but with my dad so busy with work and all the times when he was around I cherished. He did everything he could for me. Came to every one of my dance recitals, and school plays, and everything he could to be there on the more important moments of my life.”
As Rose sat there forcing herself to remember these things I could see her eyes slowly fill with tears knowing where this story would go.
“Then one day, a fall day, over thirteen years ago, my dad and I were playing in the yard, in the leaves that were being raked up, when all of a sudden he collapsed. He had suffered a heart attack and before he reached the hospital he had died. My mother and I were sullen. She could barely do anything. She hardly even left the house. I kept to myself and found myself drawn to the ideas related to death, reading the works of Poe and Dickinson among others. As you can tell my wardrobe changed as well.” Rose said showing a slight smile under her own tears. “I abandoned my friends and didn’t really want to be with anyone else. The one thing I did do was to keep on dancing. I may have looked gothic doing it but I kept it up as a way to keep my father smiling as he was watching over me.”
Rose looked down and I could tell the harder part of her story had yet to come.
“About 3 years later, when I was sixteen, I still was keeping my loner goth personality. My mother was finally convinced by a family friend to put herself out there and go on a date with this guy she recommended. The guy’s name was Chuck and he was nothing but a sweet talking mooch. He had been married twice before, both of his wives died of “natural” causes, whatever that means. With him he brought his own son, Derek, who was a lazy, no class bastard who was like his own father. Whatever Chuck was he was a smooth talker who used his own position, as a widower, to relate to my mother…all the while everyone but her saw the fact that he was low class and was just looking to get after her money…which was my father’s money that he worked his ass off for. My mother could not be detracted for she was smitten. “
Rose took another pause as I saw that the worst was yet to come.
“Frankly I tried to keep as far away as possible. I hoped I would be left alone away from the bull that I saw occurring in the house that I lived in. I guess for whatever reason I didn’t stay far away enough because one night I was up late watching television in my room when Derek came home in a drunken stupor. Suddenly I saw him at the door to my room. In his own graphic words he literally told me he had made a bet with his friends that he would take my virginity and that I should be so lucky that it should be from him and that I should just enjoy the ride. I loudly told him to get the **** away from my room and pretend that he didn’t say that. Of course the bastard didn’t take no for an answer and made an advance at me grabbing and ripping my shirt. I tried scratching and clawing to get him away but of course he simply took this as a challenge, so out of pure survival instinct I grabbed a pair of scissors nearby and stabbed them into his shoulder."
“Miraculously my mother and Chuck arrived at that time to see Derek in the middle of the floor bleeding and my shirt nearly torn off. Of course Derek said that I came on to him and that I wanted it rough and I just freaked out. In the end it was my word against his and I was carted off to jail. Before the trail it got out about Derek’s bet and his previous rap sheet that included a sexual assault and stalking which almost exonerated me. I had thought my nightmare was over but Chuck and Derek would have the last laugh. Chuck would say that I was so depressed and so unstable that I needed to be locked up here in Hill Crest. My mother still very much in love with Chuck despite the incident agreed and I found myself interned in here.”
“So what happened to them?” I asked out of nowhere.
“Who?”
“You know your mother, Chuck and Derek.”
“Oh,” Rose said rolling her eyes, “well Karma is a bitch and Karma dealt them an interesting hand. They died in that house as a result of a tornado. Don’t know how or why, it just did and in the end God served some justice of his own. I mean I still mourned my mother but…**** happens you know.”
Rose’s eyes were welling up with tears as I reached out with my hand and held hers’ to comfort her while also handing over my napkins which she greatly accepted. After wiping her eyes she resumed the conversation.
“The greatest thing that could’ve happened to me in my opinion especially with me being as vulnerable as I was to be here under the care and actual understanding of Dr. Riley, where I was even able to get a psych degree of my own. This place has become home to me and you know what Dr. Riley told me that might help you Mr. Nate? She told me despite the horror of my past the best thing I could do was to live while remembering the good times and keep my father in the way he should be remembered which was an awesome man. I think if you allow you remember and live YOUR life, you will see peace eventually.”
With that Rose left taking her food and left me to contemplate. Here was woman that had nearly nothing except for the walls and the relationship that she has formed and seemed perfectly happy. I had a lot more than she did but I was stuck in my self-loathing.
Did I have a direction or a purpose in my life yet aside from a slim one in wrestling?
No but I had a lot to be thankful for just the same.