thedrifter
10-22-03, 09:34 AM
Hearts without Homes: Coping with PTSD
Not all combat casualties appear on the battlefield, nor are all battle scars visible. One woman reveals how she found out the hard way about post-traumatic stress disorder.
by Merlene Reynolds
Voices echoed throughout my bedroom, disturbing the silence of a sound sleep. I rolled over in the bed to see if "Kenny" was still there. He was -- but instead of sleeping, he was sitting upright, in the middle of my bed. His left arm was casually wrapped around his left knee, which he had pulled close to his chest to improve his balance. He hadn’t leaned back against the headboard, as one might expect; instead, he held his knee, the way a boy cradles a football, as he began to rock in his primal rocking chair.
The words he spoke were vague, garbled and indistinct. His voice sounded different, too, as he whispered in his sleep. It was the voice of a younger man, even an adolescent, not the 38-year-old man I knew. I murmured his name. He didn’t respond. He simply kept rocking back and forth. I thought he hadn’t heard me, so I said his name again. No reaction. I waited.
The room was dark, except for the slight glare from a street lamp shining through the slats of the venetian blinds. Kenny’s face was camouflaged by the stripes of light. The wrinkles that had once framed his eyes now seemed to have disappeared. His blue eyes looked gray in the shadows; they shifted left, right and back again, as though he were comparing stars.
I watched Kenny rock back and forth to a silent cadence before attempting to speak to him again. It seemed impolite to interrupt. Several minutes passed before I decided to reach out to touch him, but changed my mind after recalling that it is better to let sleepwalkers or sleep talkers awake on their own. I didn’t want to frighten him.
As he rocked, he would speak and then pause, as though listening to words I could not hear. Watching him rock and talk was similar to watching a silent movie that had recently acquired sound. I watched him move with precision and persistence, yet when he spoke, his words seemed to linger before they could be heard. It was like listening to the soundtrack of a film reel that had started a few seconds too late and played in slow motion. I still do not know whether he spoke too slowly or I listened too late.
When I spoke, he didn’t react. He just kept rocking rhythmically. I felt like a helpless intruder, too polite to interrupt and too afraid not to. I also felt guilty for watching him, yet I didn’t know what else to do. So, in another attempt to waken him, I got out of bed and turned on the light. But when he didn’t respond, I turned it off again. Still frightened and unsure, I turned the light back on -- then, off and on until it was clear there was no reason to continue. Then I left the room.
When I returned, Kenny was no longer speaking softly, as if sharing secrets with someone, but he was still talking. He now conversed with confidence. It was like arriving too late at a business meeting and missing the opening remarks. I listened carefully.
After concentrating for several minutes, I realized that he was telling a joke. I recognized it as the same joke he had told me a few days before. Only this version was slightly different. I was now hearing the original version, the one he must have told many years earlier, not the sanitized translation he had told me.
Kenny paused to light a cigarette halfway through his joke. I knew that was what he was doing because I had watched him smoke for months. He leaned forward to release his knee from the grip of his arm and then leaned back on his left elbow so that he could use his right hand to obtain a lighter from his pants pocket. He wasn’t wearing any pants, but that didn’t stop him from squirming around while he slid his hand deep into a side pocket, recovering something, and then reaching across his chest, pausing long enough to unbutton the top shirt pocket using only the index finger and thumb of his right hand, to retrieve a cigarette from the pack. I watched him light it with his Zippo lighter, then lean his head back while he inhaled the cigarette smoke deep into his lungs and exhaled slowly before he returned to his story. He told the punch line, and then smiled for a long time.
A few moments later, Kenny looked sideways, waved and said, "Take care." Someone else must have walked by, because the expression on his face suddenly changed from cordial to lonely as his gaze returned to the person who sat in front of him. It was an expression of mutual understanding. He sat silent for a long while.
Mesmerized, I also sat silent. I still didn’t know what to do. As I looked around my bedroom, trying to see what Kenny saw, I gradually began to realize that he was mentally reliving his first tour during the Vietnam War. The bedroom, once familiar, now seemed strange.
As I looked around my room, I noticed Kenny’s gun. His "weapon," as he called it, lay on my night stand next to Kenny’s side of the bed, reminding me of the conversation we had had the first time I had invited him to spend the night. As he had begun to undress, he had unsnapped his shoulder holster and placed it on the night stand, in the exact place where it now lay, before he gently and methodically removed the handgun from its holster and placed it underneath the pillow. I had watched from the bedroom doorway before asking with a smirk, "Is there any particular reason you need a gun in bed?"
Kenny had returned the smile before replying, "I never go to bed without my gun." At that point we had compromised by agreeing that the gun could sleep just as well on the night stand as underneath the pillow.
This night, however, I stared across the room at the weapon and wondered whether to retrieve it, fearing that he might unknowingly use it. I didn’t reach for it, though. I was afraid to touch it -- and afraid to leave it alone.
I continued to sit on the edge of my bed, consumed by contemplation. Kenny leaned forward and then hesitated, as if he could hear my thoughts about his gun. He tilted his head slightly to the left, away from me, as if to let some invisible person whisper in his ear.
Then, abruptly, he leaned back and laughed so deeply and long that his entire body shook. I jumped out of bed. Kenny didn’t respond to my sudden movement. Instead, he continued to rock back and forth before he took the last drag of his imaginary cigarette and flicked the remainder of it into the night. The cigarette, it seemed to me, was still lit.
My eyes followed his cigarette as it floated through the air from his hand to the carpet. It seemed to land in the corner, next to the dresser. I reminded myself that the cigarette wasn’t real, but that wasn’t enough. I felt compelled to sprint from the bed to the corner to snuff out the cigarette. I inspected the carpet, rapidly rubbing my hands across the fibers to make sure that the rug was not smoldering. Soon I began to feel foolish. There was no cigarette. I returned to my uncomfortable seat on the edge of the bed.
Still afraid to lie down and try to sleep, I walked over to the wall and hit the light switch. Again, it had no effect on Kenny. He continued to rock in his dream world. Eventually, I turned off the light. Before the long night was over, I turned the light on and off several more times. I paced back and forth across my bedroom at first, and then I began to roam the house, moving from room to room like some kind of restless ghost. Finally, I sat down in the dining room and waited for morning.
As the hours crept toward dawn, sunlight slowly brightened the house. I sought solace in the assumption that Kenny would awaken at 5 a.m. In the months that I had known him, he had never used an alarm clock and had never overslept. I hurried back to the bedroom, hoping for the best. Sure enough, at precisely 5 a.m., Kenny awoke. He seemed fine, apparently unaware that anything out of the ordinary had occurred during the night.
"Good morning," he cheerfully said as he walked past me on his way to the bathroom. Knowing that Kenny would be showering and shaving as usual, I went to the dining room and sat on my chair, the one I had perched on throughout the early morning hours. Exhausted from the long night, I seemingly sat there for hours. But then I glanced at my watch and saw that only a few minutes had passed. I sighed and headed for the kitchen to start a fresh pot of coffee.
In the kitchen, I silently rehearsed various phrases I might say to Kenny. I needed to question him about the night before, but I knew that he was sensitive to any form of conversation that might be considered an invasion of privacy. Finally, I hit on the right approach. Since Kenny was a security guard and a former police officer, I chose the type of question often used to interrogate a suspect. That way he would immediately recognize the setup and be warned to think before he spoke. It was the only approach I could think of to spare his pride while simultaneously inquiring about his heart and mind.
continued.......
Not all combat casualties appear on the battlefield, nor are all battle scars visible. One woman reveals how she found out the hard way about post-traumatic stress disorder.
by Merlene Reynolds
Voices echoed throughout my bedroom, disturbing the silence of a sound sleep. I rolled over in the bed to see if "Kenny" was still there. He was -- but instead of sleeping, he was sitting upright, in the middle of my bed. His left arm was casually wrapped around his left knee, which he had pulled close to his chest to improve his balance. He hadn’t leaned back against the headboard, as one might expect; instead, he held his knee, the way a boy cradles a football, as he began to rock in his primal rocking chair.
The words he spoke were vague, garbled and indistinct. His voice sounded different, too, as he whispered in his sleep. It was the voice of a younger man, even an adolescent, not the 38-year-old man I knew. I murmured his name. He didn’t respond. He simply kept rocking back and forth. I thought he hadn’t heard me, so I said his name again. No reaction. I waited.
The room was dark, except for the slight glare from a street lamp shining through the slats of the venetian blinds. Kenny’s face was camouflaged by the stripes of light. The wrinkles that had once framed his eyes now seemed to have disappeared. His blue eyes looked gray in the shadows; they shifted left, right and back again, as though he were comparing stars.
I watched Kenny rock back and forth to a silent cadence before attempting to speak to him again. It seemed impolite to interrupt. Several minutes passed before I decided to reach out to touch him, but changed my mind after recalling that it is better to let sleepwalkers or sleep talkers awake on their own. I didn’t want to frighten him.
As he rocked, he would speak and then pause, as though listening to words I could not hear. Watching him rock and talk was similar to watching a silent movie that had recently acquired sound. I watched him move with precision and persistence, yet when he spoke, his words seemed to linger before they could be heard. It was like listening to the soundtrack of a film reel that had started a few seconds too late and played in slow motion. I still do not know whether he spoke too slowly or I listened too late.
When I spoke, he didn’t react. He just kept rocking rhythmically. I felt like a helpless intruder, too polite to interrupt and too afraid not to. I also felt guilty for watching him, yet I didn’t know what else to do. So, in another attempt to waken him, I got out of bed and turned on the light. But when he didn’t respond, I turned it off again. Still frightened and unsure, I turned the light back on -- then, off and on until it was clear there was no reason to continue. Then I left the room.
When I returned, Kenny was no longer speaking softly, as if sharing secrets with someone, but he was still talking. He now conversed with confidence. It was like arriving too late at a business meeting and missing the opening remarks. I listened carefully.
After concentrating for several minutes, I realized that he was telling a joke. I recognized it as the same joke he had told me a few days before. Only this version was slightly different. I was now hearing the original version, the one he must have told many years earlier, not the sanitized translation he had told me.
Kenny paused to light a cigarette halfway through his joke. I knew that was what he was doing because I had watched him smoke for months. He leaned forward to release his knee from the grip of his arm and then leaned back on his left elbow so that he could use his right hand to obtain a lighter from his pants pocket. He wasn’t wearing any pants, but that didn’t stop him from squirming around while he slid his hand deep into a side pocket, recovering something, and then reaching across his chest, pausing long enough to unbutton the top shirt pocket using only the index finger and thumb of his right hand, to retrieve a cigarette from the pack. I watched him light it with his Zippo lighter, then lean his head back while he inhaled the cigarette smoke deep into his lungs and exhaled slowly before he returned to his story. He told the punch line, and then smiled for a long time.
A few moments later, Kenny looked sideways, waved and said, "Take care." Someone else must have walked by, because the expression on his face suddenly changed from cordial to lonely as his gaze returned to the person who sat in front of him. It was an expression of mutual understanding. He sat silent for a long while.
Mesmerized, I also sat silent. I still didn’t know what to do. As I looked around my bedroom, trying to see what Kenny saw, I gradually began to realize that he was mentally reliving his first tour during the Vietnam War. The bedroom, once familiar, now seemed strange.
As I looked around my room, I noticed Kenny’s gun. His "weapon," as he called it, lay on my night stand next to Kenny’s side of the bed, reminding me of the conversation we had had the first time I had invited him to spend the night. As he had begun to undress, he had unsnapped his shoulder holster and placed it on the night stand, in the exact place where it now lay, before he gently and methodically removed the handgun from its holster and placed it underneath the pillow. I had watched from the bedroom doorway before asking with a smirk, "Is there any particular reason you need a gun in bed?"
Kenny had returned the smile before replying, "I never go to bed without my gun." At that point we had compromised by agreeing that the gun could sleep just as well on the night stand as underneath the pillow.
This night, however, I stared across the room at the weapon and wondered whether to retrieve it, fearing that he might unknowingly use it. I didn’t reach for it, though. I was afraid to touch it -- and afraid to leave it alone.
I continued to sit on the edge of my bed, consumed by contemplation. Kenny leaned forward and then hesitated, as if he could hear my thoughts about his gun. He tilted his head slightly to the left, away from me, as if to let some invisible person whisper in his ear.
Then, abruptly, he leaned back and laughed so deeply and long that his entire body shook. I jumped out of bed. Kenny didn’t respond to my sudden movement. Instead, he continued to rock back and forth before he took the last drag of his imaginary cigarette and flicked the remainder of it into the night. The cigarette, it seemed to me, was still lit.
My eyes followed his cigarette as it floated through the air from his hand to the carpet. It seemed to land in the corner, next to the dresser. I reminded myself that the cigarette wasn’t real, but that wasn’t enough. I felt compelled to sprint from the bed to the corner to snuff out the cigarette. I inspected the carpet, rapidly rubbing my hands across the fibers to make sure that the rug was not smoldering. Soon I began to feel foolish. There was no cigarette. I returned to my uncomfortable seat on the edge of the bed.
Still afraid to lie down and try to sleep, I walked over to the wall and hit the light switch. Again, it had no effect on Kenny. He continued to rock in his dream world. Eventually, I turned off the light. Before the long night was over, I turned the light on and off several more times. I paced back and forth across my bedroom at first, and then I began to roam the house, moving from room to room like some kind of restless ghost. Finally, I sat down in the dining room and waited for morning.
As the hours crept toward dawn, sunlight slowly brightened the house. I sought solace in the assumption that Kenny would awaken at 5 a.m. In the months that I had known him, he had never used an alarm clock and had never overslept. I hurried back to the bedroom, hoping for the best. Sure enough, at precisely 5 a.m., Kenny awoke. He seemed fine, apparently unaware that anything out of the ordinary had occurred during the night.
"Good morning," he cheerfully said as he walked past me on his way to the bathroom. Knowing that Kenny would be showering and shaving as usual, I went to the dining room and sat on my chair, the one I had perched on throughout the early morning hours. Exhausted from the long night, I seemingly sat there for hours. But then I glanced at my watch and saw that only a few minutes had passed. I sighed and headed for the kitchen to start a fresh pot of coffee.
In the kitchen, I silently rehearsed various phrases I might say to Kenny. I needed to question him about the night before, but I knew that he was sensitive to any form of conversation that might be considered an invasion of privacy. Finally, I hit on the right approach. Since Kenny was a security guard and a former police officer, I chose the type of question often used to interrogate a suspect. That way he would immediately recognize the setup and be warned to think before he spoke. It was the only approach I could think of to spare his pride while simultaneously inquiring about his heart and mind.
continued.......