Читать книгу Where War Ends - Tom Voss - Страница 18

6

HAPPY PLACE

I rode the elevator to the sixth floor of the giant cinder-block building and walked along filmy white corridors beneath the hum of fluorescent lighting. I was ushered into a square room with a single window. Dr. Campbell, a military psychiatrist, was waiting for me behind his desk. He reminded me of that bald guy who ripped Tom Cruise a new one in Top Gun. It was as if they hired him just because he looked the part — late fifties, fit, six feet tall, with a buzz cut and a chiseled jawline. He’d been an officer in the army and, later, the navy. While he treated combat veterans at the VA and in combat zones, his background was in child psychiatry. Jack had arranged the appointment for me. I’d woken up on time and driven myself there. I owed it to Jack and Beck, if not yet myself, to make my best effort at getting some help.

Dr. Campbell gestured to an oversize chair. I sat in it with my back facing the window. He peered at my file, frowning. Whatever Dr. Campbell asked me, I was ready. Just as long as it wasn’t, “What seems to be the problem?”

“What seems to be the problem?” he asked.

Before I could answer, he started asking more questions, one after another, like he was reading from a checklist.

No, I can’t sleep. Yes, I drink. One, maybe two nights a week. No, I’m not lying about how much I drink. Yes, I think about killing myself. No, I haven’t made a plan. Yes, it’s clear from your tone of voice that you have seventy-nine other veterans you’re responsible for besides me.

Dr. Campbell calmly pointed to a picture of a cabin that was hanging on the wall behind his desk.

“See this? This is my happy place. Whenever I’m feeling down, I think of this place and I feel better,” he said.

He looked at me expectantly, like a professor anticipating a student’s grand epiphany. Like this technique — the Log Cabin Technique (LCT), I imagined him calling it — was kryptonite for any patient resistant to healing.

My jaw must have dropped, but I didn’t say anything.

“Do you have a place like that?” he asked.

I stared at him. Was he asking me to find my happy place?

“No,” I told Dr. Campbell, “I don’t have a place like that.”

Dr. Campbell scratched something on a pad with his pen. Log cabin does not make veteran happy. Log cabin seems to make veteran angry. Veteran needs to be stabilized.

Dr. Campbell started to rattle off names of medications. Zolpidem. Trazodone. Antidepressants. Antianxiety meds. He wrote them on a prescription pad and handed me the paper.

“Just don’t drink alcohol when you start taking these medications, okay?” said Dr. Campbell.

Sure thing. Easy.

“Do you have anything else you’d like to say?” asked Dr. Campbell when he’d finished writing my prescriptions. I wondered if that question was part of his checklist, too. I said nothing. He looked at his watch.

“Are we done here?” he asked.

I stood up and walked out the door.

Jack nodded his head, hung up the phone, and sighed.

“Dr. Campbell says you need to be more open about your experiences during therapy,” he said.

“Dr. Campbell is full of shit,” I said.

“If you don’t like Dr. Campbell, you can see someone else at the VA,” Jack said.

“Fine,” I said.

“In the meantime, why not try the medications he prescribed? They might help you sleep.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

“And there’s always medical marijuana,” said Jack. “A lot of vets find relief with that.”

“Yeah, already on top of that,” I said, cracking a smile. “Not exactly medical, though.”

“Oh, gotcha. Okay, then!” said Jack.

I got up to leave.

“Hey,” he said. “Actually, when you come in for your next appointment with me, would you do me a favor?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Would you mind bringing me an eighth?” he asked.

“Sure,” I repeated. “No problem.”

Jack was trying to take my pain away. The least I could do was do the same for him.