Something flickered in his face. Hope.
“When you are fighting yourself, you are fighting emotions that are a direct result of your injury. You are fighting something you can’t control and only making it worse. You’re fighting the healing process of your body. These emotions will subside, I promise. You will heal.”
He looked down.
“Think of it like a broken arm. The swelling is a side effect you can’t control. You have to let your body heal. With a broken arm, you’re put in a cast for a few months. This limits your mobility and tests your patience, but you have to allow the bone to heal. You listen to your doctor, take his or her advice, and allow it to heal. Before you know it, your arm is back to normal and your life is back to normal.”
He stopped fidgeting with the stone and looked up.
“The brain is a very powerful thing and we’re still learning about it every day. Take your ego out of this and try to look at your brain as something separate from you, separate from your body. Look at it like something that has been damaged and needs to heal. It’s not you, it’s the organ in your body called your brain.Youare not damaged.Youare not weak.Youare not crazy. Your brain is simply misfiring, and needs to heal.” I leaned forward, and emphasized, “Phoenix, you’renot only fighting something you can’t control, you’re worsening its effects.”
“But how do Inotfight it when that’s what my body’s natural response is to do?”
“That’sexactlywhy we’re here. That’s what therapy is all about. To teach you how to do that. One way is to control your environment. Until you’re healed, you should control your environment. I’m sure Dr. Buckley gave you meds, which, I’m guessing you aren’t taking. You should consider taking them, at least for the headaches. And he probably advised you to take it easy, stay home, stay off work, lay off the booze, live in as calm of an environment as you can while your brain heals.”
“So don’t destroy my therapist’s desk or walk up on a dead body?”
I grinned. “Exactly.” I sighed. “There has to be a level of acceptance here. You have to accept that your physical body is injured, and that only you can take steps to fix it. I can only guide you. You have to put in the work by being open to therapy, both physical and psychological, taking your medicine, resting, changing your environment. You can control that, Phoenix. You can control it. So, control it.”
Frustrated, he stood and turned his back to me. He scrubbed his hands over his face and began pacing.
“You’re strong, Phoenix,” I said, my own voice wavered at his obvious emotions, maybe even tears. “You survived a gunshot wound that most people wouldn’t have. You can survive this.”
I heard him sniff and forced myself to look away to give him a moment of privacy, and if I’m being honest, to give myself a moment, too.
He ran his fingers through his hair with an inhale, then squared his shoulders and sat back down on the couch.
“Keep going.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
28
ROSE
“Okay.” I took a quick sip of water. “Now that we’ve established thatyouaren’t weak, let’s talk about good things. Tell me something you like about yourself.”
He stilled, blinked. You’d think I’d just asked him to draw a map of the female reproductive system. I was surprised, shocked, even. A man with an ego the size of Texas was at a loss for words when asked to compliment himself. And then I realized, it wasn’t an ego that was driving Phoenix’s unruliness, it was his pride. A pride badly injured.
So I switched tactics.
“Okay… then tell me, what’s the most important thing in your life?”
“My family.” His response was immediate and had nothing to do with his healing, as I’d expected. This concerned me because it suggested not only that his primary focus wasn’t on getting better, but also that he didn’t see himself as worthy enough to put his full focus on.
“What would they say they like most about you?”
Again, no response to this question. He shifted his weight, avoiding eye contact.
“What would they say about you, then? Anything at all?”
An icy gaze met mine. “That I’m a burden.”
“I doubt that.”
“Why?”
