Page 72 of Actions and Reactions
I don’t think it is, but it feels wrong to repeat myself, so I just go back to staring at my shoes.
“I know you don’t believe you’ve lost something significant enough, Silas, but we only have three months.”Only three,I think to myself sarcastically, but I manage not to roll my eyes. It seems like an eternity right now. “So I think we should get down to it. You know what the difference is between you and Colin here?”
I look up to see her nod her head in his direction.
I can’t stop my eyes from going to his prosthetic legs this time, but I at least make it quick.
“He has experienced trauma?” I ask genuinely.
“No.” Dr. Jody shakes her head and even chuckles. “You want to enlighten him, Colin?” she asks.
“Sure.” He shrugs then leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees—prosthetic knees? Fuck, I don’t know. “Every morning I wake up and see my legs missing. Wherever I walk, even if I’m wearing pants, people can see that something happened to me. I don’t have to defend my trauma to anyone, not even to myself. Even though I had training and I knew I was risking my life every day for years, I knew this could happen, and still, I know what I’ve lost because I can see it and so can everyone else around me.”
He straightens then points at me.
“You don’t have that. Even though we can see on your sad face that you lost something, not everyone can recognize it. Not everyone pays enough attention. And you can’t see the loss so you’re trying to pretend it’s not there. I can’t pretend, because if I do, then I wouldn’t strap these on in the morning and I’d have to drag myself to the bathroom to take a piss.”
“That only makes me feel worse,” I tell him, tired of it all.
“What he means,” Dr. Jody pipes up. “Is that your loss isn’t any less real than his even though you can’t see it every day. You have to believe you lost something before you can work on accepting you lost it. You have to believe it was important enough to you that your world drastically changed when you suddenly didn’t have it anymore.”
I keep staring at her, hoping she’ll realize soon that even though what she’s saying seems logical enough, it can’t apply to me because...
“Losing hockey doesn’t count,” I tell her through gritted teeth.
“It’s not a competition,” Annie mutters from next to me, sounding as angry as she looks. “You don’t get to look at us and think you have it better, because we’re all in the same boat. We all have to deal with it, and not dealing with it is what got us all here. It’s what’s making that anger in your eyes fester inside you.”
She practically spits the last words at me, and yeah, she does look very fucking mad.
“Angrier than I intended to say it,” Dr. Jody says, in analmost jovial tone. “But that’s the gist of it, yes. This exercise is meant to show you that saying what happened to you is hard, but not as hard as the real work, not as hard as actually dealing with the changes your loss has caused. So Silas, do you think you belong here now?”
I’m backin Dave’s office the next day, and yesterday’s group therapy has been on a constant loop in my mind.
So I’m here because I didn’t deal with the loss, not because my loss is so fucking big.
I guess I can get behind that, but...
“What are you thinking about?” Dave asks me, so I tell him all about my first session in group therapy.
He crosses one leg over the other and nods.
“Can I just ask you one question, Silas?”
“Isn’t that what we’re here for?” I’m only half joking, but he laughs like I’m a comedian or some shit, and dammit, that makes me smile back at him.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Si?—”
“I mean as a person. What defines you? What do you dream about? What do you want your tombstone to say? Or your obituary?”
“Those are a lot of questions,” I mutter.
“Yes, but you get it. Who are you really? Not who’s son, not how old, not where you live.Who are you?”
I really don’t want to tell him the first thing that comes to mind, but it’s like he can see it on my face or something, and I really don’t like that.
“Can you just please tell me what I need to do to get better? Can you give me steps? Show me? I don’t want to be angry at my bo—best friend anymore. I don’t want to punch walls, and I don’t want to quit my job or have to avoid anything that has to do with hockey, so just please tell me.”
