Thursday, December 11th 2014

Jack sat stiffly on the worn leather couch, his hands clasped tightly in his lap. The room was warmer than he expected, filled with soft lamplight and the faint scent of incense. It didn't feel clinical, like he had imagined therapy would. Instead, it reminded him of a sitting room—bookshelves filled with novels and knickknacks, a sunset lamp casting an orange glow across the space, and a small potted plant perched on the coffee table between them.

It was too inviting.

Too intimate.

The woman sitting across from him was watching him patiently, her pen resting against the open notebook in her lap. She had kind eyes, but that didn't put him at ease.

I came here to talk about being confused. About the fact that I kissed my male housemate. About the man I slept with last week. About the fact that I don't know what I am, and that it terrifies me. About how I'm afraid that if I am what I think I am, I'll be disowned by my family. About how scared I am.

That was what he had rehearsed in his head before walking in. That was what he needed to talk about. So why was his chest tightening? Why did he feel like there was something heavier, something older, pressing at the back of his throat?

Just say it, Jack. Say something.

The therapist tilted her head slightly. 'So tell me, what do you want to start with?'

And before he could stop himself—before he could think—he blurted out a sentence he had never really said aloud before.

'My brother killed himself,' he said, shocking himself as the words left his mouth. His hands clenched. 'And I found his body.'

The silence stretched between them. He wasn't sure what he expected—shock, maybe. Pity. But she didn't react like that. She just nodded, like she was waiting to see if he'd continue.

Jack didn't.

His throat felt tight.

'I'm sorry to hear that, Jack,' she said after a moment. 'Was this recent?'

'Yeah...' He hesitated. 'Well, no. I was twelve. I'm eighteen now.'

She nodded again, as if filing that information away. 'Do you think about him often?'

Jack swallowed, his eyes flickering to a smudge on the carpet. 'Not really. I mean... kinda.'

'Kinda?'

'I didn't really know him that well,' he admitted. 'I was so young. I don't really remember a lot about him. Just...' His fingers curled into his hoodie. 'I remember finding him in the barn.'

'I'm sorry you had to experience that, Jack. That's a deeply traumatic thing to go through at any age, but especially as a child.'

He nodded absently. He wasn't sure why he was telling her all of this. He had never really talked about his brother—not with his parents, not with Mark, not with anyone.

'He... he hung himself,' Jack said, barely above a whisper. 'I found him hanging from the rafters near where we kept the lambs.'

He could still picture it. The way his brother's body had swayed slightly, the way his skin had gone pale, waxy, wrong. He could still feel the burn in his throat from screaming, the way his father had wrestled the rope loose, his face unreadable, his hands steady even as his world collapsed around him.

'Jack?' He blinked, his vision refocusing on the present. 'I asked if you suffer from flashbacks,' she said gently. 'Nightmares? Unwanted images?'

He swallowed. 'Sometimes. I remember passing someone in the street once who was wearing the same aftershave my brother used, and suddenly I saw him again. Hanging. Except he wasn't really there. Like a hallucination.'

'Has this happened recently?'

He nodded. 'In the last year or two.'

'That's very normal in the aftermath of trauma,' she explained. 'But for it to persist for years suggests that this is still having a significant impact on you. Have you ever talked to a professional about it before?'

'No,' Jack admitted. 'I spoke to a friend briefly at the funeral. But that's it.'

'Not your parents?'

He shook his head. 'We don't talk about it.'

It wasn't just that they didn't talk about it. They had almost erased his brother from existence. No mention of him. No stories. No memories. The door to his room had been locked ever since. His mother refused to enter it, refused to move anything. As if keeping it frozen in time would somehow keep him from being truly gone.

His father had cried at the funeral —as he carried the coffin from the church. Jack had never seen him cry before, and never since. That was it. That was all they allowed themselves.

'That's common in families dealing with grief,' she said carefully. 'It's a way of coping. But avoidance doesn't erase trauma—it just buries it deeper.'

Jack let out a slow breath. The tension in his shoulders hadn't lessened. If anything, it had grown heavier.

'Here,' she said, sliding the tissue box toward him.

It was only then he realised his face was wet.

'Thanks,' he muttered, quickly wiping at his eyes, clearing his throat. 'I used to be so mad at him, you know? For leaving me. He didn't even write a note. And I—' His voice wavered. 'I miss him. Or at least... the idea of him.'

'The idea of him?'

Jack nodded, rubbing his sleeve across his cheek. 'Someone to talk to. Someone to confide in. I don't really get on with my parents. I don't really like them. I love them and all, but I just don't...If my brother was still here, maybe I wouldn't feel so... alone.'

'It's completely valid to feel angry, Jack,' she said. 'And to grieve not just the person he was, but the person he could've been in your life.' He exhaled slowly. He hadn't even realised he'd been holding his breath. 'How do you feel talking about this now?' she asked.

'Sad.' He paused. 'But a tiny bit relieved too. Like... like I can breathe again.'

'That's good,' she said. 'A lot of people suffering from PTSD develop avoidant behaviours around their trauma. The more they suppress it, the more it manifests in other ways—trouble concentrating, trouble regulating emotions, trouble sleeping, being vulnerable, trusting others... does that sound familiar?'

Jack hesitated. 'Sounds like my mam.'

She studied him for a long moment. 'And what about you, Jack?'

'I don't have trouble sleeping,' he said quickly. 'Or concentrating.'

She didn't look convinced.

Jack ran a hand over his face, his fingers pressing against his temple. You didn't come here for this. You came here to talk about—

His stomach twisted. His mouth opened before his brain could stop him.

'Sometimes I'm afraid I'm going to kill myself,' he said, like it was the most casual thing in the world.

Silence.

The weight of the words hung between them.

The therapist's expression didn't change. 'How often do you have these thoughts?'

Jack shrugged. 'I dunno. Usually late at night, if I'm lying in bed and thinking.'

'Thinking about what?'

He hesitated. He could feel it rising in his throat—the reason he had come here in the first place. The thing that had been gnawing at him for months.

Say it.

'I feel like I'm a bad person,' Jack admitted instead, thinking about what happened with him and his housemates; and with Róisín. 'Nobody likes me. I don't even think I like me. And I don't know who I am. Sometimes it'd just be easier to not exist. To not have these worries. About the future. About what my life will be like. About whether I'll ever actually be happy.' He let out a shaky breath. 'Suicide would mean escaping that. And maybe I'd actually do it, if I wasn't such a coward.'

He stared at the floor, waiting for a reaction.

She didn't rush to fill the silence.

'You're not a coward, Jack,' she said finally, her voice calm, certain. 'And I think you came here today because some part of you doesn't want to feel this way anymore.'

Jack swallowed.

She was right.

He just didn't know where to go from here.