Don't Say A Word
By Alexandra Marx
“NO!” I sat up abruptly with a gasp, shirt drenched in sweat. Silence. I looked around, getting my bearings. Lamp, couch, coffee table, window--ajar, with a breeze rustling through the curtain. It had been a nightmare. I drew my knees into my chest and dropped my face into my hands, attempting to take deeper breaths and calm my racing heart. I was still quivering. I felt a soft hand on my shoulder and I jumped violently, letting out another startled gasp.
“Hey, hey, it’s just me. You’re okay. It wasn’t real,” whispered my husband softly, “Just try to go back to sleep.”
He kept saying that. Every single time, he would attempt to soothe me, repeating “it’s not real, it’s not real.”
But it was real. It is real.
I was deployed in Afghanistan as a medic for 7 months and returned home in March of 2005-- six months ago. Truth be told, I was expecting a gracious homecoming, with flowers, airport signs, and overwhelming love and. Sure, that’s what I got. But does anyone ever talk about what happens the second you set foot outside of that airport? How every time you go to sleep you get a one-way ticket back to war? How every time you hear a car backfiring or the house settling or celebratory fireworks, your blood runs cold for a minute because maybe it was a gunshot or a bomb? How a well-intentioned, loving touch feels all too similar to that invasive, violating touch? I spent 7 months imagining how perfect that moment would be—like the movies-- but I didn’t even think beyond it. When I did finally arrive at the airport, it was a movie scene: I was an omniscient viewer, watching from above as some woman in a uniform run into the arms of my husband and daughter. It didn’t feel real.
It didn’t take long after I’d returned to slip into a routine, though it was certainly not the routine I had imagined for my post-deployment home life. I had been in relatively good standing in the military; I had assumed this would boost me in the eyes of a potential employer. But the stark reality that I stumbled into was that no one wanted to hire me. I couldn’t understand why, seeing as I had all the same qualifications as some of my male counterparts whom I knew were getting jobs without a problem. In the first three months after my return, I applied for job after job, gradually becoming more and more desperate as the responses became fewer and farther between. It was a rather vicious cycle:I would go to a job interview, get rejected, explain myself to my hopeful and expectant family, have a drink or two (I deserved it, didn’t I?), go to sleep, relive that night of November 4th, 2004, and all of the other, smaller, times after that, wake up, repeat.
David didn’t know, of course. He obviously knew I had nightmares related to deployment, but I had decided not to burden him with the specifics, and he hadn’t asked. He would worry too much—more than he already did, and I didn’t know if I could handle taking care of double the fragility. After all, this was normal, right? These nightmares and flashbacks are the mark of a soldier; part of the deal--no surprises there.
When I’d finally lifted my head out of my hands, David was back in bed, sound asleep. Across the hall, our thirteen-year-old daughter, Marie, hadn’t stirred. I had taken refuge on the couch in the living room--I had made a habit of moving out here after David had fallen asleep so as not to wake him with my little episodes, though he usually heard me anyway. I stood and walked over to the kitchen, glancing at the mirror on the wall when I got up. What I saw was rather ghastly—there was a woman staring back at me with ratty hair, a sickly pallor, dark, purple-black bags under deeply sunken eyes. That couldn’t be me, could it? I pulled out a glass from the cabinet and took it over to the couch. I knelt in front of our small liquor cabinet and chose a bottle of gin, delicately pouring a generous serving into my glass, careful not to wake anyone again. I sat there like that for God knows how long, mesmerized by the clear liquid swirling around in its glass, refracting flickers of light every which way as distorted reflections of an unrecognizable face appeared and disappeared. I raised it to my lips and gulped it down, numb to the burning in my throat.
Later that day, David had returned home from work and made dinner, though I hadn’t left the house all day. I suppose I should have taken care of it, but I often found myself spending the empty hours sitting in front of the big bay window in our living room, watching the traffic below change as the day ticked on. It gave me something to focus on, as if concentrating as hard as I possibly could on the shiny moving colors drifting along the Pittsburgh streets would somehow fight off the looming cloud persistently trying to invade my thoughts, until suddenly it was five o’clock and David was coming through the door. On this particular evening, Marie was studying at a friend’s house, and I was sitting placidly at the table, not touching my food, when David broke the silence.
“I’m worried about you, Val.”
“Don’t be,” I replied without looking at him. “I’m fine.”
“You aren’t. The nighttime episodes are getting more and more frequent, aren’t they? I really think we should go see someone about it. I’ve heard the VA can find a support group or something for you to go to. I think it would help you.”
“No. I’m not talking about this anymore.” Every time he brought it up, a flash of fear flared up in my stomach.
I closed my eyes and stood, turning away and drifting from the table back to my spot at the window. Why should I? I couldn’t tell them what happened any more than I could tell David what happened. I didn’t know if I could trust the VA, either. Why would they waste their time and resources on something that would be seen as nothing more than a figment of my imagination? My perpetrator had had connections-- he could find out if I confessed. Besides, I had tried already. When I first came home, I went to see a psychiatrist-- not through the VA-- and, sitting there in that chilly, unrelenting space, I had attempted to spit out some sort of recollection of what had happened, but whenever I skirted anywhere close to the climax, the threatening whispers returned.
“If you say a word…”
I heard them as clearly as I had the first night; the hairs on my arms stood on end and I shivered compulsively.
“…I will kill you.”
I could never finish the story. The doctor figured from these broken attempts that I may be having some sort of memory loss or something as a result of combat shock--after all, that was the usual situation with veteran patients. I left the office with prescriptions for anxiety and sleeping medications, which slightly dampened but never erased the dreams, and not another word.
One time, I got up the courage to call the VA and request therapy, but once again, I couldn’t bring myself to detail the nature of my situation. They sent me to a support group, and when I walked in, I found myself within a circle of men sharing accounts of traumatic bodily damage they had incurred from battle. I said nothing, yet again, and hurried out of the meeting at the first chance I got, red-faced and prickly with embarrassment and shame to have sat amongst these crippled soldiers in my full, physically healthy glory.
True to my word, I said nothing more on the subject, but simply gazed out the window with the same blank intensity as I had all day, as if my life depended on it.
Over the next month or so, David brought it up more and more frequently, chipping away at my bulletproof refusal bit by bit. He was becoming increasingly intent on fixing me, whatever was wrong, while I became increasingly unfixable. The random smattering of job interviews had sort of petered out and died, and my spot by the window, in all of its safety, had become my full-time job, typically accompanied by a glass or two of gin and tonic. When David and Marie would return from work and school, I’d frantically shove any empty bottles into the first hiding place I could find and muster up the effort to sustain a short-lived conversation, the depth of which never dipped far below the topmost of surface levels. Every night, I travelled back to November 4th, 2004, but recently, this would be accompanied by a jumbled toss-up of all of the other times, images of objects that illustrated those nights intermittently weaving their way in and dislodging any fragment of peace that existed within my sleeping mind. Hands. Heavy breathing. The salty, tangy scent of sweat. Clothing in a heap on the ground. A whispered threat.
Marie had begun to tiptoe around me, and had long since stopped asking what was wrong, why was her once-energetic mother now a mere shell? There was no doubt we had drifted since my return, but lately it seemed as though our relationship barely resembled that of a mother and daughter at all. Not that I resented her at all-- my own dependence simply left little room for hers. Things were different now. If I let myself become close with Marie again, I might confess what happened. The thought of that sent chills down my spine, making me shudder. I wanted so badly to protect her. Once, after being jarred out of another nightmare, I had caught a flash of her brown hair through the crack in the doorway--she’d heard me from across the hall. I spent the rest of the night crying silently in the bathtub with my forehead pressed up against the cool porcelain, praying that I hadn’t screamed anything that would reveal the truth of my nightmare.
One afternoon, I had spent the afternoon on the couch, attempting to read a book so as to occupy my roaming thoughts, and eventually I dozed off. I slipped, yet again, into the world I’d inhabited for seven months, falling right back into that same moment that played over and over again like a scene on a frozen DVD. Play, freeze, rewind. Play, freeze, rewind. Maybe it was the added component of the afternoon sun baking down on my spot on the couch through the window, or maybe it was the fact that it happened to be the one-year-anniversary of the first incident that made this one even more vivid than usual. It was him, standing in front of me. In the corner of a dark room. It was going to happen again. My heart rate skyrocketed, and my vision went black at the edges. Sweat pooled at the base of my neck and the in small of my back. I began to shake as I backed away until I hit the wall behind me and there was nowhere else to go.
“Please,” I whispered. His hand shot out and grabbed my shoulder, and as I jerked back into consciousness, I thrust my arms out in self-defense and shoved the nearest thing I could touch--hard. I opened my eyes to see Marie sprawled on the ground in front of me, backpack still on, her mouth agape. Her eyes widened in worst of all, fear. I stood there, paralyzed. We stayed like this for an eternity, staring blankly at each other, both of us attempting to comprehend what had just happened, until finally, Marie got to her feet and, saying nothing, backed away until she was out the door. With the slam of the door echoing through the silent room, I fell to my knees. The sobs began to seize my chest and throat, intermittent at first, then uncontrollable.
That’s how David found me two hours later, curled in a ball on the floor, still convulsively wailing, tears streaked in every direction across my face and dripping off to form small pools on the floor under me. He picked me up like a child and rocked me back and forth right there on the floor, kissing my face and whispering in my ear that he couldn’t watch this anymore, he was taking me to see someone. I didn’t even try to resist.
We ended up in another doctor’s office early the next morning, waiting to see a new psychiatrist, one that had been recently recommended by one of David’s buddies whose wife had served and suffered from PTSD-related issues. I sat numbly in the waiting room, barely registering what anyone was saying to me as David sat beside me, stroking my hand. After a while, I was taken to a room alone. It was warm and softly lit, the pale-yellow walls lined with framed landscape scenes. Two cozy-looking armchairs sat angled toward each other on either side of a window, which overlooked a park behind the building. It was a stark contrast to the cold, clinical atmosphere of the other offices we’d visited. The psychiatrist, Dr. Bracher, followed me in. She sat across from me and asked a few questions, never probing too hard. She listened intently but silently as my story came tumbling out of my mouth in full for the first time, jumbled and incoherent and mixed thickly with tears. My face burned as I spoke, and every so often, a surge of nausea would rip through me. When I finally trailed off, hiccupping, I forced myself to meet her eyes. Her brows were furrowed, and the seriousness etched into the lines around her mouth paired with the soft sadness in her eyes told me instantly that she believed me. A staggering wave of relief washed over me and I went limp, releasing my breath for what felt like the first time in years. A fresh flood of tears welled up and spilled down my cheeks.
“I’ve…I’ve never told the whole story at once before,” I whispered.
---
Dr. Bracher did not want me to continue taking antidepressants until the drinking was under control, but she wanted to keep seeing me. As I exited the office into the waiting room where David was anxiously sitting on the edge of his chair, she pressed a brochure into my hand and leaned in close to me.
“This group is specifically for women like you. I have sent female veteran patients here in the past who had been through similar experiences. You are not alone, and I promise you will not regret going.”
I nodded weakly and took the brochure with some skepticism, judging by the way the last support group went. A part of me hoped maybe this time there would be a place for my story to be heard. There happened to be a meeting that afternoon, and before I could talk myself out of it, I had David drop me off.
“Do you want me to come in with you?”
“No,” I replied. I drew in a deep breath and squeezed his hand. “This is something I need to do myself.”
The meetings took place at a rec center a few streets away from our house. My heart skipped a beat as I pulled open the doors. A fountain near the front desk trickled peacefully and the receptionist glanced up and smiled. Behind her, a group of older men played racquetball on a court enclosed by clear, thick walls. In front of the desk stood a whiteboard sign in the shape of an arrow, pointing down a hallway to the side of the entryway. Scrawled on the sign in purple marker was “Meeting Rooms A, B, and C this way.” I looked down at my brochure, crinkled from my sweating hands. That was where I needed to go. I stared down the hallway, feeling my legs begin to quiver.
“Can I help you find something?”
I snapped out of my trance, turning toward the voice. The receptionist was looking at me, her eyebrows raised expectantly.
“Oh. No…no, I’m fine. Thanks,” I said.
My heart still racing, I began walking slowly down the hall to the meeting room, still clutching the brochure tightly to my chest as I followed the other signs for the meeting room.
The further in I stepped, the more I wanted to turn and flee to the safety of David’s car, to the safety of my spot by the window at home, to the safety of keeping my confession solely to myself. But another part of me, a small but curiously determined part, was starting to speak up. Every time I paused and started to turn back, this newly awakened part of me would interrupt.
This is a good thing. I could start getting back to normal.
I’d fight back, recoiling at the thought of how terrifying and difficult it would be to utter my story to a group of complete strangers.
But they know. They understand.
I don’t think I can do it.
Saying it out loud to someone other than Dr. Bracher is the first step in the right direction. I have to do this. I owe it to myself.
I continued like this down the hallway of the rec center, stopping and starting and going back and forth in this internal dialogue for what felt like miles, until I finally reached the room of the meeting.
The room smelled of vanilla candles and gave off a sense of warmth that drew me another step into the doorway.
They had already started: there were nine women sitting in plush chairs arranged in a circle, and one towards the front of the room was talking. I stood in my spot in the doorway and shuffled my feet, glancing around nervously. My perpetrator’s face suddenly flashed before my eyes, bringing with it all the usual flashes of memories associated with him. The images kept materializing, one after the other. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to shake them away.
I have to do this.
“Hello there, dear, are you here for the women’s veteran support group?”
Heat began to creep up my neck and prickle my cheeks, but I nodded shyly.
“Well, come on in! Here’s a seat for you. Can you tell us your name and a little bit about why you are here-- if you are feeling up to it today?”
I walked tentatively over to the open chair the woman had pointed at, sat down, and took a deep breath, closing my eyes for a beat.
Hands. Heavy breathing. The salty, tangy scent of sweat. Clothing in a heap on the ground.
I have to do this.
I swallowed hard.
“My name is Valerie Nichols, and I am a survivor of military sexual trauma."
“NO!” I sat up abruptly with a gasp, shirt drenched in sweat. Silence. I looked around, getting my bearings. Lamp, couch, coffee table, window--ajar, with a breeze rustling through the curtain. It had been a nightmare. I drew my knees into my chest and dropped my face into my hands, attempting to take deeper breaths and calm my racing heart. I was still quivering. I felt a soft hand on my shoulder and I jumped violently, letting out another startled gasp.
“Hey, hey, it’s just me. You’re okay. It wasn’t real,” whispered my husband softly, “Just try to go back to sleep.”
He kept saying that. Every single time, he would attempt to soothe me, repeating “it’s not real, it’s not real.”
But it was real. It is real.
I was deployed in Afghanistan as a medic for 7 months and returned home in March of 2005-- six months ago. Truth be told, I was expecting a gracious homecoming, with flowers, airport signs, and overwhelming love and. Sure, that’s what I got. But does anyone ever talk about what happens the second you set foot outside of that airport? How every time you go to sleep you get a one-way ticket back to war? How every time you hear a car backfiring or the house settling or celebratory fireworks, your blood runs cold for a minute because maybe it was a gunshot or a bomb? How a well-intentioned, loving touch feels all too similar to that invasive, violating touch? I spent 7 months imagining how perfect that moment would be—like the movies-- but I didn’t even think beyond it. When I did finally arrive at the airport, it was a movie scene: I was an omniscient viewer, watching from above as some woman in a uniform run into the arms of my husband and daughter. It didn’t feel real.
It didn’t take long after I’d returned to slip into a routine, though it was certainly not the routine I had imagined for my post-deployment home life. I had been in relatively good standing in the military; I had assumed this would boost me in the eyes of a potential employer. But the stark reality that I stumbled into was that no one wanted to hire me. I couldn’t understand why, seeing as I had all the same qualifications as some of my male counterparts whom I knew were getting jobs without a problem. In the first three months after my return, I applied for job after job, gradually becoming more and more desperate as the responses became fewer and farther between. It was a rather vicious cycle:I would go to a job interview, get rejected, explain myself to my hopeful and expectant family, have a drink or two (I deserved it, didn’t I?), go to sleep, relive that night of November 4th, 2004, and all of the other, smaller, times after that, wake up, repeat.
David didn’t know, of course. He obviously knew I had nightmares related to deployment, but I had decided not to burden him with the specifics, and he hadn’t asked. He would worry too much—more than he already did, and I didn’t know if I could handle taking care of double the fragility. After all, this was normal, right? These nightmares and flashbacks are the mark of a soldier; part of the deal--no surprises there.
When I’d finally lifted my head out of my hands, David was back in bed, sound asleep. Across the hall, our thirteen-year-old daughter, Marie, hadn’t stirred. I had taken refuge on the couch in the living room--I had made a habit of moving out here after David had fallen asleep so as not to wake him with my little episodes, though he usually heard me anyway. I stood and walked over to the kitchen, glancing at the mirror on the wall when I got up. What I saw was rather ghastly—there was a woman staring back at me with ratty hair, a sickly pallor, dark, purple-black bags under deeply sunken eyes. That couldn’t be me, could it? I pulled out a glass from the cabinet and took it over to the couch. I knelt in front of our small liquor cabinet and chose a bottle of gin, delicately pouring a generous serving into my glass, careful not to wake anyone again. I sat there like that for God knows how long, mesmerized by the clear liquid swirling around in its glass, refracting flickers of light every which way as distorted reflections of an unrecognizable face appeared and disappeared. I raised it to my lips and gulped it down, numb to the burning in my throat.
Later that day, David had returned home from work and made dinner, though I hadn’t left the house all day. I suppose I should have taken care of it, but I often found myself spending the empty hours sitting in front of the big bay window in our living room, watching the traffic below change as the day ticked on. It gave me something to focus on, as if concentrating as hard as I possibly could on the shiny moving colors drifting along the Pittsburgh streets would somehow fight off the looming cloud persistently trying to invade my thoughts, until suddenly it was five o’clock and David was coming through the door. On this particular evening, Marie was studying at a friend’s house, and I was sitting placidly at the table, not touching my food, when David broke the silence.
“I’m worried about you, Val.”
“Don’t be,” I replied without looking at him. “I’m fine.”
“You aren’t. The nighttime episodes are getting more and more frequent, aren’t they? I really think we should go see someone about it. I’ve heard the VA can find a support group or something for you to go to. I think it would help you.”
“No. I’m not talking about this anymore.” Every time he brought it up, a flash of fear flared up in my stomach.
I closed my eyes and stood, turning away and drifting from the table back to my spot at the window. Why should I? I couldn’t tell them what happened any more than I could tell David what happened. I didn’t know if I could trust the VA, either. Why would they waste their time and resources on something that would be seen as nothing more than a figment of my imagination? My perpetrator had had connections-- he could find out if I confessed. Besides, I had tried already. When I first came home, I went to see a psychiatrist-- not through the VA-- and, sitting there in that chilly, unrelenting space, I had attempted to spit out some sort of recollection of what had happened, but whenever I skirted anywhere close to the climax, the threatening whispers returned.
“If you say a word…”
I heard them as clearly as I had the first night; the hairs on my arms stood on end and I shivered compulsively.
“…I will kill you.”
I could never finish the story. The doctor figured from these broken attempts that I may be having some sort of memory loss or something as a result of combat shock--after all, that was the usual situation with veteran patients. I left the office with prescriptions for anxiety and sleeping medications, which slightly dampened but never erased the dreams, and not another word.
One time, I got up the courage to call the VA and request therapy, but once again, I couldn’t bring myself to detail the nature of my situation. They sent me to a support group, and when I walked in, I found myself within a circle of men sharing accounts of traumatic bodily damage they had incurred from battle. I said nothing, yet again, and hurried out of the meeting at the first chance I got, red-faced and prickly with embarrassment and shame to have sat amongst these crippled soldiers in my full, physically healthy glory.
True to my word, I said nothing more on the subject, but simply gazed out the window with the same blank intensity as I had all day, as if my life depended on it.
Over the next month or so, David brought it up more and more frequently, chipping away at my bulletproof refusal bit by bit. He was becoming increasingly intent on fixing me, whatever was wrong, while I became increasingly unfixable. The random smattering of job interviews had sort of petered out and died, and my spot by the window, in all of its safety, had become my full-time job, typically accompanied by a glass or two of gin and tonic. When David and Marie would return from work and school, I’d frantically shove any empty bottles into the first hiding place I could find and muster up the effort to sustain a short-lived conversation, the depth of which never dipped far below the topmost of surface levels. Every night, I travelled back to November 4th, 2004, but recently, this would be accompanied by a jumbled toss-up of all of the other times, images of objects that illustrated those nights intermittently weaving their way in and dislodging any fragment of peace that existed within my sleeping mind. Hands. Heavy breathing. The salty, tangy scent of sweat. Clothing in a heap on the ground. A whispered threat.
Marie had begun to tiptoe around me, and had long since stopped asking what was wrong, why was her once-energetic mother now a mere shell? There was no doubt we had drifted since my return, but lately it seemed as though our relationship barely resembled that of a mother and daughter at all. Not that I resented her at all-- my own dependence simply left little room for hers. Things were different now. If I let myself become close with Marie again, I might confess what happened. The thought of that sent chills down my spine, making me shudder. I wanted so badly to protect her. Once, after being jarred out of another nightmare, I had caught a flash of her brown hair through the crack in the doorway--she’d heard me from across the hall. I spent the rest of the night crying silently in the bathtub with my forehead pressed up against the cool porcelain, praying that I hadn’t screamed anything that would reveal the truth of my nightmare.
One afternoon, I had spent the afternoon on the couch, attempting to read a book so as to occupy my roaming thoughts, and eventually I dozed off. I slipped, yet again, into the world I’d inhabited for seven months, falling right back into that same moment that played over and over again like a scene on a frozen DVD. Play, freeze, rewind. Play, freeze, rewind. Maybe it was the added component of the afternoon sun baking down on my spot on the couch through the window, or maybe it was the fact that it happened to be the one-year-anniversary of the first incident that made this one even more vivid than usual. It was him, standing in front of me. In the corner of a dark room. It was going to happen again. My heart rate skyrocketed, and my vision went black at the edges. Sweat pooled at the base of my neck and the in small of my back. I began to shake as I backed away until I hit the wall behind me and there was nowhere else to go.
“Please,” I whispered. His hand shot out and grabbed my shoulder, and as I jerked back into consciousness, I thrust my arms out in self-defense and shoved the nearest thing I could touch--hard. I opened my eyes to see Marie sprawled on the ground in front of me, backpack still on, her mouth agape. Her eyes widened in worst of all, fear. I stood there, paralyzed. We stayed like this for an eternity, staring blankly at each other, both of us attempting to comprehend what had just happened, until finally, Marie got to her feet and, saying nothing, backed away until she was out the door. With the slam of the door echoing through the silent room, I fell to my knees. The sobs began to seize my chest and throat, intermittent at first, then uncontrollable.
That’s how David found me two hours later, curled in a ball on the floor, still convulsively wailing, tears streaked in every direction across my face and dripping off to form small pools on the floor under me. He picked me up like a child and rocked me back and forth right there on the floor, kissing my face and whispering in my ear that he couldn’t watch this anymore, he was taking me to see someone. I didn’t even try to resist.
We ended up in another doctor’s office early the next morning, waiting to see a new psychiatrist, one that had been recently recommended by one of David’s buddies whose wife had served and suffered from PTSD-related issues. I sat numbly in the waiting room, barely registering what anyone was saying to me as David sat beside me, stroking my hand. After a while, I was taken to a room alone. It was warm and softly lit, the pale-yellow walls lined with framed landscape scenes. Two cozy-looking armchairs sat angled toward each other on either side of a window, which overlooked a park behind the building. It was a stark contrast to the cold, clinical atmosphere of the other offices we’d visited. The psychiatrist, Dr. Bracher, followed me in. She sat across from me and asked a few questions, never probing too hard. She listened intently but silently as my story came tumbling out of my mouth in full for the first time, jumbled and incoherent and mixed thickly with tears. My face burned as I spoke, and every so often, a surge of nausea would rip through me. When I finally trailed off, hiccupping, I forced myself to meet her eyes. Her brows were furrowed, and the seriousness etched into the lines around her mouth paired with the soft sadness in her eyes told me instantly that she believed me. A staggering wave of relief washed over me and I went limp, releasing my breath for what felt like the first time in years. A fresh flood of tears welled up and spilled down my cheeks.
“I’ve…I’ve never told the whole story at once before,” I whispered.
---
Dr. Bracher did not want me to continue taking antidepressants until the drinking was under control, but she wanted to keep seeing me. As I exited the office into the waiting room where David was anxiously sitting on the edge of his chair, she pressed a brochure into my hand and leaned in close to me.
“This group is specifically for women like you. I have sent female veteran patients here in the past who had been through similar experiences. You are not alone, and I promise you will not regret going.”
I nodded weakly and took the brochure with some skepticism, judging by the way the last support group went. A part of me hoped maybe this time there would be a place for my story to be heard. There happened to be a meeting that afternoon, and before I could talk myself out of it, I had David drop me off.
“Do you want me to come in with you?”
“No,” I replied. I drew in a deep breath and squeezed his hand. “This is something I need to do myself.”
The meetings took place at a rec center a few streets away from our house. My heart skipped a beat as I pulled open the doors. A fountain near the front desk trickled peacefully and the receptionist glanced up and smiled. Behind her, a group of older men played racquetball on a court enclosed by clear, thick walls. In front of the desk stood a whiteboard sign in the shape of an arrow, pointing down a hallway to the side of the entryway. Scrawled on the sign in purple marker was “Meeting Rooms A, B, and C this way.” I looked down at my brochure, crinkled from my sweating hands. That was where I needed to go. I stared down the hallway, feeling my legs begin to quiver.
“Can I help you find something?”
I snapped out of my trance, turning toward the voice. The receptionist was looking at me, her eyebrows raised expectantly.
“Oh. No…no, I’m fine. Thanks,” I said.
My heart still racing, I began walking slowly down the hall to the meeting room, still clutching the brochure tightly to my chest as I followed the other signs for the meeting room.
The further in I stepped, the more I wanted to turn and flee to the safety of David’s car, to the safety of my spot by the window at home, to the safety of keeping my confession solely to myself. But another part of me, a small but curiously determined part, was starting to speak up. Every time I paused and started to turn back, this newly awakened part of me would interrupt.
This is a good thing. I could start getting back to normal.
I’d fight back, recoiling at the thought of how terrifying and difficult it would be to utter my story to a group of complete strangers.
But they know. They understand.
I don’t think I can do it.
Saying it out loud to someone other than Dr. Bracher is the first step in the right direction. I have to do this. I owe it to myself.
I continued like this down the hallway of the rec center, stopping and starting and going back and forth in this internal dialogue for what felt like miles, until I finally reached the room of the meeting.
The room smelled of vanilla candles and gave off a sense of warmth that drew me another step into the doorway.
They had already started: there were nine women sitting in plush chairs arranged in a circle, and one towards the front of the room was talking. I stood in my spot in the doorway and shuffled my feet, glancing around nervously. My perpetrator’s face suddenly flashed before my eyes, bringing with it all the usual flashes of memories associated with him. The images kept materializing, one after the other. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to shake them away.
I have to do this.
“Hello there, dear, are you here for the women’s veteran support group?”
Heat began to creep up my neck and prickle my cheeks, but I nodded shyly.
“Well, come on in! Here’s a seat for you. Can you tell us your name and a little bit about why you are here-- if you are feeling up to it today?”
I walked tentatively over to the open chair the woman had pointed at, sat down, and took a deep breath, closing my eyes for a beat.
Hands. Heavy breathing. The salty, tangy scent of sweat. Clothing in a heap on the ground.
I have to do this.
I swallowed hard.
“My name is Valerie Nichols, and I am a survivor of military sexual trauma."