Sean described his mental state like this. This was when he first came to me. His humor and lightness would not return for many months. He refused to wear a prosthetic. I think he wanted the world to see him as defective or damaged, because that was how he felt inside. You will surely notice the similarities to Jenny Kramer.
I lie in bed at night. The acid in my stomach is gone. The meds took that away—along with my personality, I’m told. I’m not that fun guy anymore. But I’d take that, you know. I’d fucking swallow that down and ask for another if I could stop this other thing. I look at the empty space where my arm should be, and then I close my eyes and try like all hell to remember that day. They gave me the report, but who the fuck knows? We were sweeping for this one bad guy. There was solid intel. Eight of us went in. We had air cover, and a corps unit was on its way. We moved through the streets, breaking off in pairs. The unit was ambushed right after I broke with this other SEAL, Hector Valancia. The corps found him dead next to me. Half his head got blown off. We took it from an IED. I was unconscious. Mangled arm. They got me out. Took off the arm. Then gave me the drugs. I can’t blame them. I signed off on it. We all did. Shit, if someone asked you, “Hey, if you get fucked up in the field, do you want us to give you some drugs to make you forget all about it?” Fuck yeah, I do! But now, all of it is just a story. It’s no more real or unreal to me as any other story. It feels like there’s a ghost inside me—the ghost from that afternoon, and he’s pissed off, just raging inside my body, searching for the story, not the words from the report, but the images of my buddy dying beside me, and the blood seeping from my shredded flesh, it rages for the memory of the pain that I must have felt when the bomb went off, even for a second. This ghost is a strong motherfucker. He just gets bigger every day and it’s like there’s no room for anything else. When I try to hold my son, when my wife tries to hold me, nothing can get in. Then there’s just broken plates, a scared kid, my wife in tears. I’m a monster.
Charlotte Kramer called me after getting my name from Dr. Markovitz. As I’ve said before, she and her husband were eager to employ me. I met with her in my office before agreeing to take the case, although I knew I would be compelled to do so. How could I not? My involvement with Sean, my growing knowledge of the treatment, both its pathology and the potential countertreatment, my work with victims of trauma and crime and my proficiency with medications—I don’t think I’ve ever been more suited to treat a patient than I was for Jenny Kramer.
And I will say one more thing on my proficiency treating survivors of trauma. It is an aside, really, but I was myself the target of an altercation when I was a young boy. I do not disclose this to my patients, because there must be boundaries. But there are times when they say things to me, things like You don’t know what it feels like or I can’t explain how I feel now, when I want to tell them that I do have some idea. Of course, few of us escape childhood without some bullying or aggression, or worse. Most of us can identify to a degree with these survivors of more serious crimes. Still, my patients cannot see me as anything less than a rock. I cannot cry with them. I cannot get angry with them. I cannot let them know they affect me in any way. They must be free to pound their fists into my gut without the fear that they will break me.