Therapy: The Beginning

Dr. Samuel looked down at his notes for a moment and then jots down a thought during the pause in the conversation. His patient was obviously agitated from the rhythmic shaking of David’s legs. This was another one of a series of weekly meetings that began shortly after David returned from a military engagement in Afghanistan. David just finished explaining that he was not sure the medication was working, because he was still having panic attacks and heavy depression. He told the doctor that he was not able to sleep through the night due to reoccurring nightmares.

Worried about the possibility of David hurting himself Dr. Samuel asked him if he was thinking of suicide. David’s answer was slow coming. He finally said that he had thought of it but knew that he could not because he knew that his wife and child were depending on him. He knew better than telling the doctor much more due to a previous experience where another psychiatrist tried to have him hospitalized because of his honesty of the deepness of his depression.

There was no way he would address the path his thoughts were taking after the possibility of suicide was taken from him. If they were willing to lock him up in a crazy house due to expressing his self-hatred how would they react hearing that he had been having homicidal thoughts? Things were bad enough as they were, he was sure being locked up and taken away from his family would not help things.

The rest of their meeting was going over processes to reprogram David’s thought patterns, through isolating negative thoughts. Each time a negative reaction occurred in his life he would endeavor to stop and try to examine his hot thought. Push that form of thinking through a series of questions in order to debunk its validity and re-examine his emotional reaction. The thinking behind this was that most of the negative things that he reacted to were figments of his own mind and not based in reality. After an hour of talking he walked out of the doctor’s office and continued on.

The next Friday while driving his nine year old daughter home from school his little angel surprised him with a request. She was explaining how a girl in her class was bullying her in and out of class. Her frustration and anger were more than apparent when she mentioned that she wished this girl was dead. This outpouring of emotion resonated with and angered him. How could he just sit back and do nothing knowing the situation his little girl was going through? Amazingly it was her final question that moved and freed him the most; she looked up at her beloved father and asked him to kill her tormentor.

All the reasoning was there; He had already been thinking along those lines, there was a villain causing a loved one pain, and how could he not do anything? As he sat at the end of his bed and held the Gorkha Army knife he got overseas calmness and determination came over him. It made it much easier for him to take the next steps.

He made some excuse to his wife about having to return late from work the following workday. While his wife picked up his daughter he stalked his intended victim. She was a bussed student which made his work much easier. All he needed to do was follow the large yellow school bus till she exited. Everything moved along exceedingly smooth for him as she stepped off the bus. Her pink booted feet jumped off the shelter of the school transport onto a secluded country road. All was quiet and no one noticed as he pulled up behind her, exited his vehicle brandishing his foreign knife. Eerily there was hardly even a sound in the winter country air as he cut her throat. Even the sound of her dead body falling into the woods just moments from her home sweet home was muted and still. Red mixed with the snow releasing her once vibrant lifeblood as he drove away.

David’s normal tormentors did not visit him for the extent of his week. He was too high on the emotion and nerves from his recent actions. Instead of sitting alone reliving old painful memories he found himself excitedly glued to the news. When he normally was haunted by war tinted nightmares he slept peacefully and dreamless. He even began to pick up his old dusty guitar that he had left to rot in the corner of his basement. While others searched and mourned the loss of that young life he started to enjoy a renewed beginning. It was not strange to him at all that that was his phoenix moment, rather everything became much clearer to him.

Life made more sense; it was as worthless as he had come to realize it to be during his time in Afghanistan. He did not have to fight the inner battle of inbred ethics and a contrary reality. The only thing that mattered was the moment at hand and how he could milk every bit of life from it before it was violently taken away. Life was kill or be killed emotionally and physically.

It is said that all good things come to an end. David found that to echo truthfully in his life as well, for as the unsolved crime of that young girl was put to bed his old companions returned to him. Nights were cut short to repeating war induced dreams, and their daily compatriots’ anxiety and depression began to bully their way back into his days. All the pain that bled away had returned with a vengeance. At least he knew what to do.