Scars

I don't know how I had gotten to that point. The only warning sign I knew for sure was that I had wanted a beer once we got home from my friend's wisdom teeth surgery at a military facility.

I had the surgery at a military facility. As I waited and waited, the sight of surgeons confidently striding about later sent me into vivid flashbacks of getting called back by my own surgeon to go over the details of my highly-invasive Whipple procedure... the one that would change everything.

I called my dad as I waited in line to pick up my friend's meds at the pharmacy across the road. He said I sounded nervous, anxious. "Huh? I'm fine!" I chirped. Little did I know that with each passing set of fatigues, I was coming closer and closer to an encounter with my PTSD.

My dictionary app defines a scar, firstly, as: a mark left by a healed wound, sore, or burn. But it defines it, secondly, as: a lasting aftereffect of trouble, esp. a lasting psychological injury resulting from suffering or trauma. Bingo.

That night, as I spiraled into a drunken stupor to escape the pain, I did remember my scar hurting in the waiting room. A counselor once told me that our bodies hold memories, too. Maybe my body knew this was a bad situation before my brain.

I hadn't gotten drunk in months. I had my drinking firmly under control (praise God). But this, this was too much.

Physical scars fade, but they can still hurt. What if it's the same with emotional, psychological scars. We think we're better but we end up tearing open the old wound. Besides flashbacks, I get nightmares that my nine-inch scar is wide open and I feel the pain of trying to hold my stomach together.

I asked my counselor if I would ever be a fully functional, contributing member of society with all that's fucked up in me. She said she didn't know.