Dex recently shared with me that he wished he could help more war vets (so mistreated by the systems they believe/d in) overcome their PTSD.
Years ago, I watched a documentary about 6 veterans whose lives completely and utterly fell apart on their return from the Iraq War. One was homeless. More than one was a severe addict. One was sitting at his kitchen table with twenty bottles of prescription medication in front of him, describing in a confused and desperate monotone what each pill was supposed to level out, telling how his wife wanted to leave him because she couldn’t stand it anymore.
I couldn’t stop shaking for hours afterwards: the kind of rocking back and forth with tears that eventually ends in catatonia. I had never understood until that film that I had much more in common with those whose lives are literally destroyed by trauma than I did anyone else; so much trauma, in fact, I was suicidal for most of my 30 years of life. And I took so so many different pills, ate so so much chocolate and drank so so much alcohol in an attempt to deal with the fallout constantly happening inside of me.
What Dex did for me was to HEAR me, with the deepest empathy I have ever felt, and without imposing any kind of paradigm on me. Dex sees me and only me. His capacity to hold the truth of what I really felt about everything I’d been through was all I needed to start realizing that I have the power to be who I really am (to live in love, and not in fear).
More and more, all I feel is how truly alive I really am.
Thank you, Dex. The next time I meet a veteran of war, I will tell him or her about the free session you offer; that’s a promise.
– Audrey Davenport, September 2016