I tried I am similar to my previous life. I worked on a book, started a new research project, was offered a job, and briefly considered moving both of us to Philadelphia. When I wasn’t working, I made appointments with therapists, doctors, people, insurance companies, colleagues, family, friends, etc. and called back. Jason continued to go to treatment every week as the scar disappeared from his face. But he was suffering from insomnia. Nightmares and hypervigilance kept him awake at night, watching TV most of his daytime, falling asleep on the sofa in his living room, and getting out of sleep. I scheduled to deliver the meal and dropped the laundry with fluff and creases. I searched Amazon for a blackout curtain and a white noise machine. I fought and fought.
Then I ran away.
On the first anniversary of the beating, I was in Los Angeles on a reporting trip. As I celebrated my second anniversary, I was working on a new research project.
When I was away, I desperately tried to feel something for myself. In Helsinki, Finland, to speak at a conference of Scandinavian social workers, I sit in a 190 degree smoked sauna and pad outside almost barefoot to plunge overhead into an ice hole in the Baltic Sea. I did. With water below freezing, once, twice, three times.
In 2016, I embarked on a 147-day trip. In 2017, I died in 97 days.
I needed the money I earned through speech promises and research grants. But it is dishonest to claim that all my trips are virtually necessary. I wanted space and time away from the whirlpools of PTSD.Me I wanted Leave as much as I need to leave.
December 2017, I decided to travel together. Prior to the attack, we were adventure partners. Drive hundreds of miles on Route 20 and visit attractions in the 1930s. We sifted through the Museum of Petrified Creatures, explored the Howe Cave, and chose your favorite roadside cheeseburger. We trampled on Adirondack and floated in the Sacandega Reservoir. While I was keeping an eye out of the car, he hid under a security fence and took a picture of a collapsing 19th century hotel.
I wanted to regain that feeling. We used all Amtrak points to buy two round-trip tickets in a sleeping car for a seven-day trip to Montana on her mother’s 75th birthday. In theory, it was perfect. Our own small fishbowl was traveling around the country at a leisurely pace. I imagined reading and playing cards. I bought a small electric kettle so that I could brew tea while the world was passing outside the window.
