...because no true peace needs guns and death to be achieved

A következő történetem a háborúk által okozott érzelmi károkra összpontosít, azt sem gazdasági, sem politikai szemszögből nem közelíti meg. A történet az első szótól az utolsóig, a benne szereplő nevekkel együtt, kitalált, a jelenség viszont nem.
A legtöbbször leküzdhetetlen poszttraumás stresszre szeretném felhívni most a figyelmet egy volt katona szemszögéből.
Ne feledjük, hogy a háború olyan állat, amely pusztulása és pusztítása után is él.

 

Chapter from the diary of a psychiatrist

Doctor: Cathy Stevens
Patient: Michael Julian
Age: 32
Title: Love and War

Michael Julian was my only war veteran patient. He was never able to get over the things he saw in war, even though he was able to carry on with his life, his traumatizing experiences affected the way he saw the world. I treated him for 1.5 years, I tried every method there is to help him out of his trauma, but without any spectacular progress. We had our last session in 10/22/2006.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 I was about to ask him how he’s been since our last session, when out of nowhere he started:

-          While you’re on the battlefield, you don’t think. You fight, you’re trying to make it, you block out reality and you’re trying to stay alive. Your heart races and the adrenaline rush caused by the fear of death and pain keeps you moving forward like a beast. Unconsciously you know that you should run the opposite direction, you should quit, but it’s not an option, you are already in the middle of flying bullets and also “real soldiers are not cowards”, they don’t run from the battlefield. So you fight, until it’s over, until it’s really over.
Then war ends. You survive. You are happy the fight is over. Your heart calms down slowly, the adrenaline wears off and you fall to your knees with both sedation and exhaustion.  You can barely believe: it’s really over.
Then you slowly come to your senses. You look around, and you see corpses everywhere and the smell of blood in the air is disgusting, the battlefield: unrecognizable. You start to gasp, but your heart won’t follow, it’s too tired from racing, so it’s just you there out of breath, unable to believe the agony you feel caused by the sight that lies in front of you.  You put your palms on your face and cover your eyes with horror. You realize: In a war, nobody wins. You either stay alive or you die.
Eventually you get on your feet and quickly move from the battlefield and try to not look around or look back. 
When war ends, whether it ends with a truce, peace treaty or occupation, there’s no peace, because no true peace needs guns and death to be achieved. Selfishness, feeling superior to the others, greed, thirst for more power, bad interest – these things need guns and death. Peace only needs two people who want it, who are willing to sit down and settle their differences for the sake of a good relation between the nations. Communication should be enough.
You go home; family and friends hugs greet you and cherish you for just being alive. Even though their presence and love comfort you, and makes you feel glad you’re alive for them, you’re unable to delete what you saw on the battlefield, what you had to become in order to keep your life. You smile, you laugh, you eat your warm and freshly cooked meal, you hug, you kiss, you love, you dance, you go out for a drink with your friends, you continue with your life, yet it will never be the same as before you got your military letter of invitation, because you discover something extremely important as the days and weeks go by:  what you saw was indelible, awful and sickening. You are unable to just move on with your life like war is a normal part of human existence. Like brutally killing each other and stepping over the dead bodies of hundreds of people while moving forward into killing is normal. You start to think about the damage that’s been done to you, you start to realize that even though you kept telling your family and friends, but most importantly to yourself that you are okay, you are sure as hell everything but okay. You are damaged. The images burn your eyes, and you know, you will need many years and therapy to learn to live with what you had to experience.  You admit this to yourself, and you learn to be patient with yourself, you learn to cope with the anger, live with the horror, but you will never be the same person who you were before you left to join the force. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Even though he admitted he needed more help and he seemed realistic, even semi-optimistic about his future, he never returned to therapy or answered any of my calls.

Months after I found out he overdosed on sleeping pills, the police officer who found him called me and said the only things he had with him were his diaries, and on the last page of his last diary he left a message for a woman named Cathy Stevens: 

“Thank You for trying Cathy, but sadly I was a lost case from the very beginning.”


 

Cathy Stevens

10/22/2006.