166 Days: My Journey Through The Darkness

by Clark, Jennifer

  When I recovered from my injury, determined to accomplish my goal, I resumed running. My training; however, was short-lived. One morning in, April 2009, Greg and I were blessed with the news I was pregnant. I couldn’t have been happier. It was the perfect time in our lives for a little one and I wanted to have a baby so badly. Throughout the pregnancy I continued to give my lectures and work in the clinic. Knowing I was going to be a mom served as yet another distraction to what I was feeling. It was no longer about me, but the little life I was bringing into the world and so all of my positive thoughts and energy went towards my unborn child. When I was twenty-two weeks along, at a routine OB appointment, it was discovered I was high risk due to an incompetent cervix. Given this was my first pregnancy, and due to the findings on the ultrasound, I was placed on modified bed-rest for the remainder of the pregnancy. This gave me a lot of time to think. I told myself it would be a great time to dive into the journal and start putting it into the book for my new little one, as I’d planned when I initially wrote it. Yet I couldn’t open it; I would find myself staring at the book in silence while I sat at the computer. I would quickly find something else to do with my time, anything to avoid reliving any of the emotions.

  Thankfully, the remainder of my pregnancy was uneventful and the baby was healthy. On the 4th of December 2009 I delivered beautiful little Ayla Lee Clark. I had no idea how overwhelming a mother’s love truly is until I saw Ayla for the first time. The moment they laid her on my chest and I held her, the heart that had been broken so badly in Afghanistan filled with a new joy and love unlike anything I had ever experienced.

  That joy was tarnished the night of the flashback. I knew I was not ok, and despite the new wonder in my life, my darkness was still there, and there was no hiding from it. From that moment I had several more episodes. We tried to watch a war movie that was incredibly realistic and took me right back to Afghanistan. Not thirty minutes into the film I felt my stomach turn and I began crying uncontrollably. My body became flushed and my heart was racing. I was having an anxiety attack. I ran from the living room and lay on my bed in the fetal position and shook with emotion.

  Greg came after me and hugged me tightly, “It’s ok sweetie, it’s ok,” he tried. I wished so desperately he was right. The memories began to manifest more frequently, my distractions were no longer effective, and I began to notice my haunting reminders impacting me more and more profoundly.

  After my six weeks of maternity leave was over I returned to work. I felt a sense of purpose being back; having been away for several months it felt good to return to what I loved. At the same time, of course, it was bittersweet. I struggled every day having to leave Ayla at home. I wanted to be with her so badly, but I hoped work would help me to avoid the symptoms that continued to surface. I began to experience nightmares filled with gruesome details of crimes that were mainly focused towards women, waking me up at times in the middle of the night in fear. They were the type of dreams you wake up from, and it takes you a minute to realize it was actually just a dream. I eventually opened up and told a friend of mine, who was a psychologist. “You know Tracy, I should probably come over to the Mental Health clinic and talk to you,” I confessed.

  “Really? What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Oh. Well, you know it’s really nothing, no big deal. I can get through it myself. I’m sure it’s due to just having had Ayla,” I said and quickly walked away. I could hear myself lying; I knew it was much more. I still wasn’t comfortable with the idea of relying on someone else to help me deal with my issues. I’d already done so much by myself, there was no reason I couldn’t handle this, right? I also continued to feel so incredibly alone. I told myself no one would be able to relate to what I was going through and because of this there was no way anyone could understand me or help in any way.

  On an intellectual level, I knew better. I went to school and learned about this, and I was surrounded by peers who were fellow PAs, ARNPs (Nurse Practitioners), doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, and social workers. Yet I was still insistent none of them would be of any help.

  Two weeks after I returned to work, I was in the middle of my morning clinic when my new squadron commander came down to the clinic with a blue folder in her hand. As I was about to walk into my next exam room she pulled me aside.

  “Hey, Jenn, I know you’re busy, but do you have a minute to talk?” She had just arrived at the base several months before I was put on bed-rest and knew very little of who I was or what I’d been through.

  “Yes ma’am, of course,” I said and we walked into the hallway. She looked at me and shook her head.

  “It’s against my better judgment to do this, but I’m going to anyway. Jenn, you have a tasking…”

  My heart stopped.

  She continued, “It’s for Afghanistan, for two-hundred seventy-nine days with three months of training prior to your departure.”

  Everything else she said was a blur. I broke out into a cold sweat and my heart was racing. My entire body felt like a giant hive.

  “You won’t be leaving until….”

  “Excuse me ma’am-” I interrupted as I ran to the bathroom to dry heave. I tried to pull myself together but I was clearly shaken.

  “Are you ok?” she asked.

  “Yes ma’am, thank you,” I replied, but inside my heart felt as if it was going to explode out of my chest. I couldn’t even look at the folder. All I could think about was, I can’t go back there. I can’t go back to that place. I am ashamed to admit my reaction wasn’t even due to the fact that I would be leaving my brand new baby. I didn’t even get that far in my thought process. It was a response solely to “Afghanistan.” She was understandably shocked by my reaction and didn’t know what to do other than leave the folder with me, have some of my colleagues check on me, and let me continue with my clinic.

  That moment was my turning point. I somehow found a way to make it through the rest of my clinic, but I honestly had to admit I was not there at all. I went through the motions, half-listening to what my patients were telling me, I couldn’t stop seeing the blue folder in my head. I walked over to Mental Health Clinic later that day, because I couldn’t pull myself out of the funk. I was so embarrassed to be seen, but I called my friend, Tera, a psychologist, who agreed I absolutely needed to be evaluated and would squeeze me in.

  I was concerned about sitting in the waiting room; I couldn’t bear running into one of my patients. “Tera, can you meet me at the back door?” I begged.

  “Of course,” she answered knowingly. As we sat in her office together I began to cry as I discussed what had happened earlier in the day. She had me fill out a questionnaire rating the severity of my symptoms. As she read through it she looked up and smiled and said, “Well, this is good Jenn. By the looks of it, it seems your symptoms are sub-clinical”.

  Great! I thought… and then we started talking. The more she asked, the more hesitant I became to discuss it. She began to dig into things I did not want to feel and I began to show clearly how upsetting it was.

  She looked at me and said, “Jenn, you have really minimized your symptoms on paper, which is not surprising, but you are suffering much more than you admit, and my initial assessment of you is that you have chronic PTSD.”

  Hearing that was like getting hit in the gut.

  “I have what? Are you kidding me? That can’t be true Tera; it’s nothing,” I pleaded. I am a provider, I thought, I don’t get diagnosed with things like this, I help treat people with this, now you’re saying that I have it? She went on to explain the treatment course and what it consisted of. I would require exposure therapy, which would force me to face myself and all the feelings I had tucked away into a pretty little box in the very back of my closet of emotions, the feelings I wanted to forget about. I knew I had to make a decision right then and there. I could give up, let this new reality I was living in consume me and swallow the last bit of who I used to be, or I could begin my recovery,
no matter how painful it may be. After much deliberation with myself, I chose recovery.

  The tasking my poor new commander told me about was declined and I was deemed mentally unfit to return to Afghanistan in my current state. The treatment required me to meet with Tera every week, which was emotionally exhausting. I admitted finally to Greg what was going on, but still could not find a way to tell him my thoughts. He continued to give his support in the best ways he knew how, but still didn’t understand what it all meant.

  Fridays were my meetings with Tera and I would dread them every Thursday night. Greg would try to laugh with me the way we used to, but he would find me quiet and disconnected, especially on Thursdays, not knowing why or how to help. The therapy caused me to feel down the majority of the time, even angry for no particular reason. This was terribly uncomfortable for me; these feelings were so unfamiliar, because I’d been such a happy person before. I felt I was truly lost in a world of darkness that I couldn’t pull myself out of, and every time I met with Tera she found a way to make that emotion surface and forced me to feel it.

  She would ask me about certain instances, which I was able to talk about without issue because I had trained myself to do so in my lectures; but then she would dig, and ask me to describe things. She would ask me to talk about the details; the painful, horrible details that I never wanted to face again, down to how the air smelled. She took me back through all of it. I hated every minute of it. She kept making me remind myself who I had become. I was a person who felt hate and rage and I was so sad. I felt a sense of helplessness, certain I would never find my former self again.

  Overwhelmed with such negativity I found myself going home and picking fights with Greg for no reason other than I wanted to fight. At work I would try to keep my office as stress-free as possible, with dimmed lights, and soft music, but it never failed. Someone was always coming in and complaining about things in their life or at the clinic and it sucked away any serenity and positivity I had gained and fed my negativity within.

  I was about six months into my treatment, when I went to a conference in Atlanta over Memorial Day weekend. Greg, Ayla and Griffen spent the weekend with me but had to leave on Monday because Greg had to go back to work the following day. It was my first time away from Ayla and I was consumed with sadness the day they left. My sadness turned to anger with myself which then turned into disgust. I was up all night pacing and crying and screaming into my pillow because I was so angry with who I had become and how my world was forever changed.

  My daughter would never know who her mother was before. She had to deal with this pathetic shell of who I used to be. After several hours of beating myself up mentally, I turned the light on in the bathroom and I looked in the mirror. My hair was all over the place, mascara streaming down my face, my eyes swollen and red from crying. I looked as ugly as I felt inside. I will never forget what I did next. I looked at myself, banged my head against the mirror and said out loud, “I fucking hate you” to the woman staring back at me, and I meant it from the depths of my soul. In that moment I felt as low as I’d ever felt in my life. I honestly could have cared less about what happened to me, and for the first time, I truly not only disliked myself; I loathed myself. I called Greg the next day and tried to explain to him what happened. It really shook me. I had never felt as bad as I did that night and didn’t know what to do next.

  He brushed it off and said, “Don’t worry. It’s ok. You’ll be fine. No big deal.” This had become his reaction to most of my emotional outcries during my therapy. I knew he meant well, but his misunderstanding and minimizing what I was going through, made me feel even worse about myself. If Greg doesn’t think this is a big deal, why do I?

  When I returned from the conference I told Tera what happened and admitted I was really struggling. I denied feeling suicidal, despite my complete distain for myself, or homicidal (of course, the first questions every healthcare provider thinks to ask), but I didn’t trust myself. I felt helpless. I agreed to see my primary care doctor, who prescribed me an anti-anxiety medication and an antidepressant.

  I couldn’t believe I had reached this point. I never thought I would ever be someone who would require those medications and here I was. As I held the antidepressant medication in my hand, I couldn’t bring myself to take it. I held it for literally hours pacing the house trying to rationalize how I didn’t need it. I thought of the many reassuring conversations I had previously with my own patients, struggling with the same stigma that I was.

  I recalled my own words, “There is no shame in taking a medication for depression or anxiety if it is needed. It’s just like needing to take something to help control high blood pressure or cholesterol.”

  It made so much sense to me from the outside looking in, but now it wasn’t that easy. As I struggled with my personal medication dilemma I thought of Ayla, Griffen, and Greg. I couldn’t keep going the way I was heading, especially after my breakdown. Finally, I submitted, and took the pill. I stayed on the medication for about six months and I do think it eventually helped, but not before I hit the lowest of the lows. My therapy continued to increase in intensity, and it showed. Eventually, Greg and I agreed he needed to come to a session with me and I was so nervous for him to see the vulnerable side of me. How would he react seeing me cry over the memories? He had told me time and time again how it wasn’t a big deal. Now he would see how big I was making it. I just knew he was going to be so disappointed and ashamed of my weakness because I couldn’t handle it by myself.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong. The appointment went surprisingly well, and all of my fears of him thinking I was weak or that my emotions were unjustified began to slowly fade away. He demonstrated no judgment, no disappointment. Instead he showed love and support and sorrow for his wife who clearly was hurting so much. He began to understand what I was going through and learned how to deal with it more effectively. I was able to explain how much damage his minimizing of everything was doing to me. He learned to key in on my emotions at home and when he saw me react to my triggers - the news, or a movie, or a sound - instead of watching me struggle and quickly turn off my emotion, as I’d done so frequently in the past, he insisted I face it. I would start to shut down, and he would pull me aside, sit me down at our kitchen table and hold my hands.

  “Talk to me, Jenn. What are you feeling? Why? Tell me everything that this reminds you of,” he would ask. I would try to dance around it as I always had, but he wised up to that and wouldn’t let me.

  “Tell me every detail, Jenn. It’s okay. I am here,” he said. His acceptance began to pull me through it.

  I still had a long way to go. I will never forget the turning point. I went to my session one day and I was clearly upset and exhausted from everything we had been through. I sat in the chair with my legs crossed and she noticed that I was pumping my leg very intentionally, yet I didn’t realize it.

  “What’s that about?” she pointed to my leg.

  “What?” I looked down and saw my leg. I didn’t have an answer. I was so filled with all of the negative emotions I was being forced to face that they had consumed me.

  Tera looked at me and said, “Jenn, you will get through this.”

  I looked at her and through my tears I said, “I really don’t know if I will.”

  “I can see you’re really in the eye of the storm, just hang in there with me.”

  “Uh-huh,” I replied. I couldn’t even look her in the eye. I didn’t believe there was anything else I could do. I felt defeated. I went home that day and Greg and I got into an argument for something so insignificant I can’t even recall it. But, I needed to be angry, so I provoked him to fight with me.

  He had Ayla in his arms, and as we argued, my voice got louder and so did his. Ayla began to cry in fear as she watched her mother lose control. I found myself filled with rage and I picked up her bottle and threw it as hard as I could against the wall causing milk to go everywhere and stormed out of the house screaming at h
im as I got into my car. I drove and drove and eventually parked in a place on base where I was out of the view of anyone who may have driven by. I turned the car off and screamed at the top of my lungs, “WHY? WHY GOD? WHY?” over and over again. I screamed and I hit my steering wheel as hard as I could. I needed to know why God let these things happen in this world. Why did innocent people hurt and suffer and die in the ways that I was exposed to? What was the purpose in this? Why did I have to witness it? Why did God let my innocence die with them? Why was I no longer that bubbly, optimistic, lighthearted and trusting person I was before I went to that place? Where was that fire inside of me? I used to laugh, I used to make a difference, I used to care. I was none of those things anymore.

  Who was I? I hated. I had never felt true hatred before in my life and now I was living with it every day. I was filled with anger and rage and negativity. I screamed and screamed and screamed and cried and cried until I was physically exhausted. I looked down at my clock; thirty minutes had passed. I turned the car on and drove to the beach. I walked down the boardwalk and saw there was a wedding about to start just a few short yards away from me as I walked down to the shore. I sat in the sand with my toes in the water and listened to the waves crashing against the shoreline. I watched the happy couple celebrate their love with their friends and families, and it reminded me of my own wedding day.

  I smiled as I reminisced on the best day of my life. Everything was perfect. It was such a celebration of the love and the friendship I had with my Gerg. My Gerg…the beautiful man that I just picked a fight with and hurt for no reason. I pulled my knees up to my chest and rested my chin on my knees as I sat in silence. My tears were all dried out from the car, but I felt the lump in my throat forming as I thought of Greg. I had neglected to realize how much my pain was hurting him.