Chapter 6 #3
“Sure. I had my greens already.”
“A lot more of them are coming too,” Shane pointed out. “I’ll be back in a little bit.” And, with that, he headed to the kitchen, presumably.
Zander curled up on the bed and closed his eyes.
He didn’t tell Shane that his night had been fraught with nightmares.
The same accident that broke his ribs, which punctured his lungs, and dealt a blow to the rest of his body just replayed over and over and over again.
He didn’t know whether that was a result of something he ate or just some of the work he was doing with the shrink or just what.
Yet it seemed as if the images were more colorful and brighter and stronger.
So every time he closed his eyes, he heard and saw all the sounds and sights of vehicles and gunfire and blasts and crying in pain. Stuff that he didn’t want to ever deal with again, and yet it seemed as if he was stuck in this never-ending loop of a nightmare.
He closed his eyes and curled up under the blankets, grateful for a day on his own.
And that was stupid because he was here to improve.
Yet right now there just didn’t seem to be any improvement possible.
When he heard a sound in his room again, he opened his eyes to see Shane walking into his room with a tray. Zander shuffled to sit up.
Shane shook his head. “Just stay where you are.” He put down the tray and then picked up the remote to the hospital bed and worked it so Zander was sitting up a little bit. Shane turned to face him and asked, “Did you get any sleep last night?”
“Not much,” he murmured. “I tried hard.”
“Of course you did, but sometimes life doesn’t always go the way we want it to.”
“That’s very true.”
“And is something being triggered?”
“Lots of things are being triggered, but most of it’s nightmares,” he admitted. “I wondered how much of it may have had something to do with my shrink therapy sessions.”
Shane nodded. “That happens more often than we ever expect.”
“I don’t get how that works. We lock down all this stuff and tuck it away, trying to move on with our life. Then somebody says something to trigger it all again, and supposedly it’s a good thing bringing up all this stuff?”
“Yes, because locking it down doesn’t help,” Shane murmured. “Confronting it and letting it go? Now that’s a different story.”
“How do you let it go?” he asked, staring at him. “The memories of my accident will be with me for life.”
“Maybe, but, as we build up your immune system and get you stronger and have a little bit more muscle to handle some of this,” Shane explained, “then you’ll find it easier to deal with more and more of the mental health issues.
I always like to believe that the body can handle everything that it’s got going on,” he shared, “but the truth of the matter is, sometimes the body can handle it. Sometimes the mind can handle it. Sometimes the heart can handle it, but to get all three to handle everything all at once? That’s a miracle trick that we can’t always do. ”
At that, Zander nodded. “I would agree with that. Sometimes it just seems to be too much.”
“There’s no doubt about it. Sometimes it definitely is but not this time.” Zander frowned at him. Shane shrugged and declared, “We won’t accept that it is too much. A lot is going on in your world, but you can handle it.”
“I would like to think so, but I’m not so sure sometimes.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Shane suggested. “Although we’ve come a long way, still there’s been a lot that we haven’t had a chance to get to yet.”
“And yet I thought maybe I was past this. I have been feeling much better. And, when you do a lot, it’s like ten steps forward and two back.”
“But,” Shane clarified, “if the two back is what we’re really dealing with, then, in theory, that’s great because you’re still eight ahead.”
Zander stopped, thought about it, and nodded. “I guess, but it just seems—in so many ways—as if it’s two forward and two back.”
“Nope, not at all,” Shane corrected. “I’ve seen lots of progress so far. It’s just not enough for you to see it yet, and that’s the sad part because you’re the one who needs it the most in order to stay motivated enough to continue.”
“Oh, I’m motivated,” he stated. “I was just hoping to see progress faster.”
“Everybody is,” Shane said, with a knowing look. “Now drink your new green drink while I’m here, to confirm you get it down,” he added, with a smile. “And then I want you to have some of that hot soup.”
“Good idea.” Zander picked up the green drink, took a sip, and winced. “Wow, this is really… green.”
“It is,” Shane agreed, “and I’m a little concerned about your stomach handling some of this, but let’s do the best we can.”
“I can get half of it down before the soup and then try some soup and see if that’ll help get some more down.” And, working it slowly, Zander managed to get to the end of both the soup and the green drink. Then he laid his head back down. “Now I’m really tired.”
“And that’s fine. Your body has a lot of healing going on,” Shane pointed out. “You’re off today, possibly tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” he said, his eyes opening.
“Right, but we run shifts throughout the weekend here. You need a day off sometime,” he noted. “Sometimes we schedule them in for that reason alone,” he shared. “We hadn’t in your case, because so far, the schedule’s been pretty light.”
“Apparently light doesn’t mean the same thing to me,” he murmured. “That just adds to my feeling of, Hey, I’m not doing enough .”
“Don’t ever feel that way,” Shane replied. “You cannot compare yourself to everybody else.”
“Too late,” he muttered.
“And definitely not to your friends because your friends always seem to be getting everything better, faster, stronger than you. But they may not feel the same way.”
His eyes flew open, and he stared at Shane. “Wow, I guess you really have heard it all.”
Shane smiled. “I’ve certainly heard enough, and I’ve seen enough to understand how the psyche works in instances like this.
The criticism and the judgment and the comparisons are all a one-way street to disaster, so don’t go there,” he murmured.
“You’ll do just fine. If it takes you a month longer, it takes you a month longer.
This is not a race. You don’t have any restriction on your time frame here, so you’ll do just fine. ”
After a moment of silence, Zander nodded. “Thank you for that.”
Shane shook his head. “No need to thank me. I’m not trying to tell you that just so you feel better.
I’m telling you that because it’s the truth.
That is the one thing I will always guarantee you.
I will always tell you the truth, whether you like it or not.
If you’re shirking your responsibilities or you’re not doing enough to get where you need to go, I will be the one to tell you.
However, right now, that’s not part of this deal. ” He grinned.
“I need you to get onto your feet, better, stronger, faster than the others could even have imagined, just for your own sake,” he said, “but not to make you feel better. It’s so that you see progress and so that you continue to build up your body.
The more you do, then the more you can do.
It’s like an avalanche at that point in time.
You’re just not there yet, but you will be.
” And, with that, Shane grabbed the tray and was gone.
Not a whole lot Zander could do but close his eyes and smile because, even if it might be nice to get fed lies to feel better for the moment, the truth counted in the long run.
And, of all the things that he’d seen so far, everybody appeared to come from a point of truth, whether it was theirs or his, but it always seemed to work out for the best to make him feel as if he was doing something right, somewhere along the line.
Sure enough, if it took another week or two—or three or four maybe—before he saw enough progress to make him happy, even to know that they weren’t giving up on him, well, that was huge already. He closed his eyes at that point, took a deep sigh, and fell asleep again.