Page 58 of To Save Him

That night, after the kids were in bed, Brandon and I sat at the kitchen table where I’d brought my laptop.  I had links to several sites, but I also had a small list I’d typed up with talking points.  “I’m pretty sure you’re familiar with traditional forms of therapy for PTSD, like medication, psychotherapy—”

“Yeah…shock therapy.”

“Really?”

He shrugged and shook his head.  Was he just saying that or did he maybe not remember?  He had talked about having big memory gaps, so filling in the blanks with imagination wouldn’t seem completely unheard of, as far as I was concerned.  “What else?”

“Well…there are a lot of alternative things you can do, some involving diet and exercise and stuff like that.”

“Like what?”

“Well, a lot of sites talked about nutrition.  You know, making sure you’re getting all the vitamins and minerals you need.  But also cutting out the crap—getting rid of processed food in your diet, excess sugar, stuff like that.  Several websites recommended yoga—”

“You could teach me that.”

“Yeah.  But other forms of movement were recommended as well, such as tai chi and chi gong.  Oh, and along those lines, getting extra sleep, especially if you’ve been struggling with insomnia.”

“Shit.  That’s a lot.”

I paused.  “That’s just the…standard advice.”  I glanced down at the list of links I’d created on my computer.  “Then there are things like meditation, art therapy, herbal remedies, aromatherapy, acupuncture, pet therapy—even service animals…and I had to stop looking finally.  I can’t keep researching.  We have to start somewhere.”

“What would you recommend?”

Our natural inclination as human beings is, of course, to look at the world through our own lens.  There’s nothing strange about that, even when it’s not the best or wisest thing to do.  Of course, that was the first thing I thought of at that moment—how I struggled with my own previous mental and psychological problems.  I should have continued psychotherapy and pharmacology but, inside, those things felt wrong for me and they didn’t seem to help my depression.  Not one bit.  What finally helped was…the list.  My list.  Don’t get me wrong—I knew to that day that I sat there with Brandon trying to help him find a starting point that I still suffered from a good many symptoms of the depression I was choosing to ignore and fight against—but at least I was living.  I chose to stop taking the medication that made it worse, just as I had opted to stop giving in to the desire to sleep my life away.  I decided to fuckinglive, even if my quality of life was lacking.  I had to start somewhere.

It wasn’t until I struggled internally, trying to give Brandon an answer, that I realized I still had a lot of work to do on myself.  My list had only been a partial answer and, because I had a lot of life left to live, I would need to finish what the list had started.  Right now, though, I needed to worry about the young man I’d fallen in love with who needed whatever help I could offer.

And maybe the place whereI’dstarted wasn’t such a bad spot to begin.  It had, at least, made meactmore alive than I had previously.  “Well…maybe we need to look at meditation and yoga—and maybe nutrition, exercise, and sleep in general.  Just focus on keeping your body and mind as healthy as possible and go from there.”

“Do you do that?”

I shrugged.  “Well, I do the yoga…”

He tilted his head.  Oh, so sweet, and I loved the way the lamp overhead highlighted his cheekbones.  “Is this gonna be a major pain in the ass for you?”

I shook my head.  “No.  Maybe these are things I need to do too—for me.”  It was true.  I wasn’t going to say it aloud, but maybe I could help us both heal.

I could see then in his eyes more than I could even fathom, but I could sense that he had never expected this from me—maybe not from anyone.  I got the feeling that he’d planned to carry his burdens alone for his entire life, but the wistful look in his eyes reminded me that maybe we’re not meant to walk through this journey alone.  “Thank you,” he said—words of gratitude, but they communicated so much more than that.

 

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