When I finally walked into the apartment, he had locked our bedroom door. I thought about jimmying the lock, but what was the use in forcing yourself into a place you don’t belong? I grabbed blankets from our guest room and made a nest on our porch balcony. I pressed my torso against the red wood and climbed to the railing’s highest foot hole. I closed my eyes, letting the breeze cleanse away the shadows. I contemplated my life as I knew it, who I was, or what was left of me. My identity stripped had been away before my eyes, by the Navy, by my injury, by the undiagnosed illness that locked my brain into a constant state of panic and torment. The balcony was both calming and detrimental to my own mental deterioration. There was something powerful about feeling high up when my mental state was so low, like the elevation somehow balanced out my mood, giving me clarity and strength. But the balcony also was my chance at escaping. I contemplated jumping, falling to the ground below—not in a suicidal way. I knew the height wouldn’t end me, but it was a way to translate on the outside of my body, the torment I felt from within. My own self-harming thoughts only added to the guilt I felt for subjecting the people I loved to my sanity’s going-away party. Images of my mother flashed into my head, her love radiating all the way from Connecticut, beckoning me home. I knew I had to get back to her somehow. I couldn’t stay in that toxic, soulcrushing environment forever. He needed me to leave just as much as I needed to be free. A week later I packed up my things and my mother drove me home. I didn’t talk the entire way, muzzled by the embarrassment. I knew I needed help. After a visit to my physician’s assistant, I got the label I was looking for: Post-Concussion Syndrome. The most devastating part was that there was no cure. “Treat the symptoms” became a constant catchphrase amongst experts. I spent months on bed rest, in weekly therapist appointments, and diligently relearning everything I’d lost. As for the boy, he left when I was starting to find myself again. My creativity and fun-loving mannerisms and his money-focused, goal-oriented lifestyle never meshed harmoniously. I may have lost him, but I reclaimed the love I needed: the love of myself, my town, my family, my uniqueness, my freedom.
12
