Future

There was a silence, there had been lots of silence at both the sessions Andy had been to so far. People moved a little in their chairs, each time someone leaned forward the others would turn slightly towards them hoping that it might be the beginning, the end of the silence. But the person would rock back and look at their hands and everyone would let out the breath they found they’d been holding. Andy was unsure of his thoughts, unsure how they would measure up against those of the woman next to him, she looked as if she hadn’t slept in years. How they would stack up against anyone’s.

“I don’t think about it at all. I just get from one day to the next. One appointment to the next.” He was a big man, two down to Andy’s left and the words came out in a loud rush, his eyes wide as if he had not known they would come. He looked terrible. Really tired, the darkness around his eyes spreading so far down his face that it seemed to weigh upon his mouth, his neck, seep down the length of his body.

“That’s exactly what happens for so many people who go through what you are experiencing John. That’s why I wanted to start with talking about the future today”, Angela said.

“Is that what a lot of you are feeling, today?”

There was a murmur around the circle as they all nodded assent, looking to her, glancing over to John and then quickly away as he looked to the floor.

Andy had never spoken at either of the sessions he had been to. He waited for the next voice and none came, and then he began.

“I think for me you’ve hit the nail on the head with those two words”, he said, clearing his throat as his voice grew husky. “I was a firefighter. I can’t see myself as one anymore. Apparently that’s a really good thing, to have decided one way or the other. Specialists tell me that it’s the beginning of me getting well.  Some people manage to get well, find a way to do again what it was that was making them sick, without falling to pieces.

Part of being here may be that people don’t want to give up what they do. I was the same, I fell to bits because I was so scared of a future that was different to the one I’d always imagined.

But in the end, I didn’t want to get up every day thinking that it would be the one that meant I could go back to being a firefighter. When it couldn’t be, I would go back to square one, or worse.

Sometimes I feel like I have failed because I had to admit I was giving up trying. Sometimes I feel like I’ve won a booby prize of a future.”

John turned towards him, Angela had made to speak then stood back and waited.

“I would get up and put on my uniform. Make my lunch and pack my bag. And get to the door and throw up at the thought of opening it. I still fight myself. As if I am two people, one shouts at the other to not be so weak. The other says you don’t even know what strength is.”

Andy looked from John to Angela, and she nodded, willing him to give them his answer.

“I was a firefighter so long I will never really be anything else. It gave me days that made me proud of myself in ways I don’t believe I’ll have again.

I didn’t want to believe it was over. But for me it is. I feel like I have saved myself from something I don’t want to think about, that I have seen happen to a lot of men. But my prize is thirty years pretending I don’t miss something that it tears me to pieces not to have anymore. I understand addiction.’

Angela stepped forward slightly so that both John and Andy looked towards her.

“You are here for different reasons. John you simply have to begin to get well. Well enough that you can make the decisions that Andy already has. And it is a long process. Andy, now you understand something that is maybe even harder, that becoming well may not be everything that you had hoped to begin with, something that needs to be redefined.”

“If I was asked about the future Angela, I would say today that I didn’t make any decision, PTSD did.

I have been selfish all my life, loving the firefighting. My marriage went quickly. My relationship with my daughter disappeared almost as quickly. I destroyed another relationship because I was starting to not cope with these things, even though I didn’t know it at the time.

I have had drinking problems all my life. I recognise things I learnt in trying to beat that. I have to give up the one thing that I gave up everything else for. I don’t know if I feel more sadness, or shame. But I don’t get any other choice.”

He looked back to Angela standing with her back to the whiteboard, and smiled. He looked at John and the man held his eyes, then leant back in his chair, spent.