Page 37 of Nights Without Night
“Okay, good. Help in his recovery with assistance he can accept. Are you in charge of re-knitting his muscles? His bones?” Mansur asks.
“Um…no.”
“Right. That’s up to him. And if he had to do physical therapy, could you force him to do it if he didn’t want to?”
“I could nag.”
“And if he refused?”
“I…well…Okay, I think I get what you’re saying.”
“Iván, as I say, I’m glad your friend has such a good friend in you, but he is his own person. If you feel capable, you can be there for him for the help he is ready to accept. For that, all you can do is keep offering it, and be present and active. But you can’t force him to take it. It’s not your responsibility to.Hisbody must heal those bones.Hehas to put the time and effort into recovery. I understand how this can be frustrating for both of you, but it can also be empowering. He has autonomy concerning himself. It probably doesn’t feel like that to him right now, seeing as whatever he is going through is not a choice, but as the car crash was not a choice, the physical therapy is still the person’s responsibility. Not exactly fair, in a way, but it’s the way it is.
“So, are you pushing him too hard by simply telling him about a job opening? No. He is an adult. Are you pushing hard by knocking on his door? No, he lives with you, and you’re friends. Treat him like you would any other person with boundaries. Yes, he might not be making the best decisions right now, but as long as he is not putting himself or others at risk, you can’t make those for him. If youdothink he is a risk, call the Crisis Team or the police straight away.”
“So…there’s nothing I can do.”
“No, I didn’t mean quite that. There are things you can do. You can push. You can expect things from him and keep asking and trying. But this all has to happen with the understanding that, ultimately, his recovery is not your responsibility and you must accept his autonomy as a person. Does that make sense?” he says.
I take a deep, shaky breath. My head feels overstuffed. I don’t know what I was expecting. An easy cure? Being absolved of Isadoro’s recovery should be a relief, but it feels exactly the opposite.
“Yes. I just…”
“I get it. You love him. You want to help,” he says. I look at him.
“Yes.”
“Okay. Well, obviously I haven’t met your friend, but I can give you some information and advice. Ultimately, the goal would be for your friend to seek our services or other mental health services himself, as I’m sure you’ve been telling him to do.”
“Yeah, I have.”
“Good. Okay, well, the fact that your friend was Special Ops puts us in a bit of a different situation than the norm because the psychology of someone who can do that job isn’t exactly usual, even in the military. He redeployed many times so unless something very outside the norm happened in his last tour that made him leave the service, he probably developed some resilience to the difficult situations he saw and participated in during his tours. That’s not to say they wouldn’t have had an impact on him, by any means, but that he did so many tours in such a high-responsibility setting complicates the picture.”
“Um…”
“Okay, let me clarify. From what research has shown us regarding mental health, veterans can be impacted by three main sources of stress. Firstly, from any physical wounds obtained in combat, which is obviously not applicable in this case.
“Secondly, trauma and trauma symptoms directly caused by situation seen or participated in during the war. For example, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder falls under this, but that’s a very specific diagnosis, and people can still be impacted by trauma without hitting the criteria for PTSD, such as by having only depressive symptoms and still functioning, so PTSD is not the be-all end-all of impact from difficult experiences. I haven’t met a veteran who wasn’t impacted in some way by their service, but the extent and severity of those symptoms vary greatly. I’m sure your friend has been impacted by the things he has seen and done to some degree, but we won’t know to what degree until he seeks professional help. Many of his symptoms could be explained by trauma, but many symptoms can be explained by different reasons, and those reasons are important when choosing which treatment should be offered, but that’s not something you need to worry about. Have you ever seen him have an episode in which something triggers a sudden onslaught of sensory memories that takes him away from the present moment?”
“No. He has nightmares, I don’t know…”
“Okay, well, similar techniques can be used to bring someone back from a nightmare. Mainly, these techniques are called ‘grounding’. The purpose of these is to remind the person where they are and that they are no longer in a dangerous environment. There are a lot of versions of this technique, and your friend would have to try different ones out to see which is the best suited to him.”
“Can you give me an example?”
“Of course. Sometimes, people benefit from a grounding object, which is any small object they can carry with them all the time that they can hold or rub to centre them. A laminated card with certain sentences helps. Service animals serve a similar purpose. Alternatively, you can use your senses to ground yourself such as by thinking about five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can smell. Do those make sense?”
“Yeah, thanks. That actually makes a lot of sense.”
“Good. Okay, where were we…Right. The third main impact on a veteran’s mental wellbeing, and the one that is especially impactful in veterans of the Special Ops, is adjusting to civilian life.
“Adjusting to civilian life isn’t just a practical adjustment in terms of finding housing, a job you have skills at, education, a partner, dealing with family life, etc. It’s also a psychological one. It’s going from feeling you have a purpose and a place and a team to feeling completely unmoored in a civilian environment you feel foreign in. For people in the Special Ops especially, this is one of the greatest contributors for affected mental health because they have such a great amount of responsibility, training, and time invested in what is ultimately an incredibly involved career. Many a twenty-year-old has felt adrift and rudderless simply due to the economic landscape right now. For veterans, this is multiplied tenfold by the disparity between their service and their life as a civilian, as well as the impact of trauma or traumatic events.”
“So…he’s probably not only impacted by, like, things that have happened, but by feeling…purposeless.”
“Yes. I’m going to guess the reason the incident at the bar affected him so much is because he perceived it as evidence of how he is failing to adjust to civilian life. In one moment he probably felt a lack of control and therefore discipline, a failure of the 'mission', losing his job, affecting you negatively, breaking a handful of civilian social conventions…After an incident like that, it’s easy to think, ‘I’m defective. What’s the point of even trying?’ and giving up.”
“Oh. That makes a lot of sense,” I say. I hadn’t actually given much thought as towhythat particular incident had been so impactful beyond the obvious. “So, what do I do?”
