Page 97 of In This Iron Ground
“Well, I have a, a friend. He suggested it.”
“Was there anything that you think promptedhimto make the suggestion?”
“Um…” Damien thought of the night with Lenard. He remained silent. His throat wouldn’t work.
“Should we leave that for another session?”
“Yes, please.”If there even is another session.
There was another session. And another. And another.
He told Mandy about the night with Lenard.
“Stupid, right? I mean, he was just playing around. It was nothing.”
“Well, I can see why it would be easier to frame it that way, Damien. But it sounds incredibly normal to have been distressed. Sex, even playful, casual sex, can be a very vulnerable and intimate activity. It’s also something which engages our senses and attention very fully. Remember when we talked about flashbacks? How sensory they are? The situation you just described seems like it was, unfortunately, the perfect situation to prime you into being more vulnerable to a flashback. One second you were safe and the next, your body was telling you it was tied up. Now, I know we haven’t talked about your past but…am I right, without having to go into any more detail, that it reminded you of something about your past?”
“Yeah.”
“So, you get that sudden input of sensory information in an already vulnerable situation. Your brain wants you to survive. If it thinks there’s a lion in the room, it’s going to err on the side of caution and send out a red alert. Danger! Danger! Your body goes to where it has encountered that presumed stimulus before. That level of distress and anxiety was adaptive then. It’s not now, but I think we can forgive your body for being scared and trying to help you survive. We can teach the body, kindly and with patience, how to react to that kind of stimulus in this current environment. But that it has learnt the dangers of a past environment so well is by no means stupid.
“What you went through, Damien, sounds like a very difficult, distressing situation. As unpleasant as your reaction must have felt, it was not stupid. It was normal.”
Damien started crying. One moment he was nodding slightly, listening, and the next his breath was hitching in his lungs.
“Shit, sorry, I don’t know why…”
Mandy handed him some tissues. He grabbed a few, scrunching them up and covering his face with his hands.
“Sometimes we refuse to acknowledge the validity of our distress and difficulty so much that when we finally do, it hurts. But it’s a good kind of pain, Damien. It’s the pain of healing.”
His first reaction was to hide from it, but she didn’t let him. She asked him to breathe. To focus on where the anxiety was. Your chest? Your stomach? Your throat? She asked him to acknowledge it.You are not pleasant, but I understand why you are here. She asked him to continue breathing. To connect.
She was right. It was painful.
But it was the healing kind of pain.
**********
Nasir was already looking at Damien when Damien spotted him. Nasir’s dark, thick hair was pushed back, but a strand fell over his forehead. His brown skin glowed blue, green, purple as the cheap party-light device the frat had installed flashed across the dancing bodies.
Damien pointed his chin to the door and Nasir gave him a lopsided smile.
“Taking me somewhere quiet, huh?” Nasir joked as they went out to the still-packed, but significantly less overwhelming yard.
“Guess it’s my M.O.,” Damien joked. He smiled reservedly at Nasir. “How are you?”
They had exchanged a few texts after the last time they saw each other, but even that contact had dissolved with time. It had been months since they’d said more than two awkward words to each other.
“Good. How are you? I’m guessing you’re still with…”
“Hakan. And, yeah. I mean, it’s casual, but…”
“Casual. Sure,” Nasir teased like he had the first time he was told.
“It is, actually!”
Nasir put his hands on Damien’s shoulders, away from his neck, as he shook his head in mock-sadness.
