32. Jamie
“ I’ve approached my CO and told them I want to go down the medical discharge route.
They’re organising a date for me to go in front of the medical board for assessment,”
Dr Munroe is sitting opposite me again in what I can only describe as his standard work uniform; smart, but casual trousers and an open-necked shirt.
His glasses are sat on the top of his head as he listens to me speak.
“He said I need a report from you to outline why you think the medical discharge is appropriate.
It’ll cement my request, basically.”
Dr Munroe slides his glasses back down over his eyes and jots a note down on the pad he keeps by his side.
When he’s written down the details he needs, he turns his attention back to me.
“That must have been a very difficult decision for you to make, Jamie,”
his hands rest peacefully in his lap.
Jealously like I’ve never experienced before rages through my veins.
I can’t think of time in recent years that I’ve ever felt peaceful.
My mind whirls as I try to recall a time or place when peace has been a thing for me.
Reaching up, my fingertips pull at the neckline of my T-shirt, my body feels like a furnace.
Dr Munroe must notice because he reaches forward and fills my glass with water.
“Thank you,”
I say as I down the full glass in one go.
Once I feel a little more composed, I continue.
“It has been hard.
But the army isn’t where I see my future anymore.
I’ve thought long and hard about it, but I keep coming back to the same decision.”
He nods his head as he listens but he doesn’t respond, so I carry on because I have a need to fill the void in the room.
“It’s not the easy way out as most people think.
It’ll take months, and I may end up having to go back before it comes through but I’m hoping not.
There’s nothing left there for me.
My life’s here, well not necessarily here, but the army isn’t my life now.”
I’m well aware I’m rambling but I can’t stand the silence.
Thankfully, Dr Munroe doesn’t leave a gap in the conversation this time.
“I’d be surprised if anyone thought it was the easy way out.
Far from it, I’d say.
The path you have stretched before you will be difficult to traverse,”
he pauses momentarily to flick back through his notes before he carries on.
“And how does your girlfriend, Scarlett, feel about you leaving the Army?”
his eyes are burning holes into my soul as he waits for me to answer.
“I’ve no idea how she feels about it, we’re not together anymore,”
a part of me wants him to be shocked or even just show some kind of reaction to that news but of course he doesn’t.
“I ended it a few days ago.
She hasn’t spoken to me since.”
My shoulders shrug like its water off a duck’s back.
“It’s my fault, I’m to blame for all of this.
I know I’ve hurt her and her parents, and I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life but she deserves better.
She can do better than settling for me.”
Still, he shows no emotion, maybe his eyebrow raised a fraction but there’s no other recognition from him.
“I don’t deserve her love.”
That sparks his interest and he shuffles in his seat a little, moving nearer the edge of the chair as he places the notebook down on the table next to the water jug.
“Why do you think you don’t deserve to be with Scarlett? Help me to understand your thought process and how you arrived at the assumption.”
“Well, I don’t know, it just seems fair.”
Emotion bubbles in my throat and my chest feels a little tight as I allow myself to remember the look on Scarlett’s face when I ended things between us.
Dr Munroe balances his elbows on his knees and steeples his fingers together so he can rest his chin on them.
“Fair? To say that it’s fair implies that you did something that requires punishment.”
“These sessions have made me realise that I didn’t do anything wrong and I couldn’t have prevented Tom’s death but,”
I take a moment to gather myself and calm my racing heart before I carry on, “I still feel like I did something wrong, and I don’t deserve to be happy when Tom’s life was cut short.
I still feel bad.”
My eyes begin to sting with unshed tears, and my throat feels dry and sore all at the same time.
“I keep going back over the session where we talked about there being nothing I could do to stop them driving over the IED.
I know, rationally, I couldn’t have warned them, there wasn’t anything that would have prevented the explosion, but… I still feel guilty.”
And that’s the bottom line.
I cannot get over these feelings of guilt that remain buried in the pit of my stomach.
Maybe I’ll never be able to make peace with it.
Dr Munroe holds a box of tissues in front of me, allowing me to take a break and dry my eyes.
“Please don’t doubt that you are making progress, good progress in fact.
You are well on your way to recovery.
Your head is starting to understand it but your feelings need to catch up, and that will come.
The CBT you’ve been practicing is what helps with forming alternative thoughts and will help to elicit the emotional change.
You just have to keep chipping away at it, piece by piece.”
He leans in to fill my water glass again.
“The problem is, you’ve drip fed yourself a diet of the type of thinking that has resulted in you feeling guilty.
What you need to do now is start a new diet, one where you allow yourself to think truthfully about what happened.
Eventually, that will become your new normal.”
Thoughts of happier days dance through my mind’s eye.
“I want that.
I’ll always feel sad about Tom but if I can get to a place where I don’t blame myself or feel guilty for being alive, that would be the ideal,”
I just need to believe I can get to that point now.
“Okay, so let’s take it to the next step, shall we?”
He pauses as I adjust my position on my seat for the millionth time.
“If you didn’t blame yourself or feel guilty about Tom’s death, would you believe that you deserve to be happy with Scarlett?”
I take a minute to go over that question in my mind before I simply say, “Yes,”
Dr Munroe smiles at my answer.
“So, what you need to do now is practice this new way of thinking about the accident and that you are not to blame.
Your feelings will catch up with the truth.”
He’s settled back in his seat again, comfortable with his teaching.
His relaxed body language rubs off on me and my shoulders drop into their normal position, no longer hunched and tight.
A smile pulls at my lips as I contemplate a brighter future.
“I supposed it’s a lot like training to use a weapon.
We’re trained to do things a certain way over and over again, until it becomes second nature.
Our weapons are then an extension of us, a part of who we are.”
It’s almost a lightbulb moment for me.
“Exactly.
Only this time you’re training your thoughts.”
Dr Munroe stands to indicate today’s session is over, “I’ll get my secretary to type up that report for you, my recommendation will be that you are not medically fit to return to active duty.
Leave the details of your CO at the desk and I’ll have it emailed across to them in the next day or two.”
The relief I feel is instant and I reach out to shake his hand in thanks before I turn to head out of the clinic.