All Is Not Forgotten(23)

Tammy wrote to Sean and told him she was pregnant. A few weeks later, a small engagement ring was delivered to her office, where she worked as a dental assistant. That was all. Just the ring. She wrote him back a long letter, explaining that while she loved the gesture, it was not necessary, that they could work something out. He wrote back three words on a piece of plain paper. Yes or no? She answered right away. Yes.

That is the kind of man Sean Logan is.

Still, this was not a romantic love affair. Sean returned to marry Tammy and be with his young infant son, Philip. But his anxiety, and the behavior he used to self-medicate, were not conducive to marriage and fatherhood. He had no patience with his child. And by that I don’t mean that he lost his patience and was abusive. He just could not spend time with his family for more than an hour or so at a time.

I started to see that he wasn’t normal. It was like he had this itch he couldn’t get to and it tortured him. I wanted to just wrap him in my arms the way I did with Philip, wrap him so tight, he felt safe and would settle down. I loved him so much, but I couldn’t help him the way I could help my baby. He was beyond that. I didn’t understand about his anxiety back then. Neither did he. When his name came up again, we went to the base together, all of us. His mother was there, and two of his brothers. His father had said good-bye the night before. Everyone was crying, hugging him, making him promise to come home safe. I had the baby in my arms, and God help me, I couldn’t cry. I wasn’t happy to see him go, not exactly. But I was grateful that he was leaving.

Sean left for a fourth tour. He was on a sweep for a target in a small village. There were eight SEALs on the mission. He was the only one to come out. A platoon of marines found him unconscious, his right arm blown to shreds. He was dragged to the safety of an armored tank. His arm was amputated at a field hospital. It was there that they gave him the treatment.





Chapter Nine

Sean Logan became my patient exactly seventeen months before I began my work with the Kramer family. He was referred to me by a physician at the Naval Health Clinic in Norwich. This is the same doctor who sought Jenny Kramer’s records for her study of the treatment. She had followed Sean’s case closely upon his return. She had supervised his therapy sessions, allowing the hacks assigned to his case to misdiagnose him with PTSD. The symptoms were not dissimilar. Anxiety, depression, anger, suicidal thoughts. But this young man had been given a drug protocol in the field that was new and unpredictable. It was meant to reduce PTSD, not create it. And no one bothered to factor in his history with anxiety. It was not even listed in his records.

People wonder what is wrong with our health care system that we have fallen so far behind the rest of the civilized world. People blame it on our laws, or the drug companies, on the areas that have become “socialized” or the areas that are not “socialized.” Excuses, excuses. I don’t care what you’re getting paid or how hard you’re being worked. A patient sits before you. He has lost his arm in battle. He has lost his memory of the battle. Or, more precisely, it has been stolen from him. And now he has lost himself to his own mind. Is this man not worthy of your time? Is he not worthy of you taking a proper history—the kind I know you were taught in medical school, and again and again throughout your residency? There is no excuse. None at all.

Sean was asked one question: Have you or anyone in your family ever suffered from any mental illness? Sean answered no. He had never been diagnosed or treated for his anxiety and had spent most of his life believing it was just “who he was.” Until he came to see me.

I am angry. There is no use continuing the story without making this additional confession. I am angry that Sean Logan suffered for nine months before he was sent to me. I am angry that Jenny Kramer was given the treatment and that I was not employed to observe her in the months that followed. Surely the Kramers would have sought my help sooner had they known that right here in their little town a doctor was treating a man who had been given the same drugs and suffered as a result. What might have come to pass? I will tell you what. Jenny Kramer would have studied math instead of techniques for ending her life. She would not have taken a blade to her soft pink flesh and cut into her skin and then deeper into her veins until her blood spilled onto the floor.

Looking back on the months between the rape and the suicide attempt, it all makes sense to me now. Everyone in Fairview knew about the attack. But the use of the treatment to make her forget was not widely known. It was certainly not known to me. And yet, when I saw her around our town, the same way I had before, at the movie theater or the ice cream shop, I was surprised by her demeanor. Not that there is one way a rape victim should behave. I have treated victims of trauma for most of my career. I suppose it is odd, my work with the criminals in Somers and my work with victims of the same crimes they have committed—rape, murder, assault, domestic abuse. It makes perfect sense to me. Most of the men in Somers were victims before they were criminals. You would be surprised at how many people have been victims of trauma. Most of them (unless they have become criminals) seek help years later, when they have stopped moving and settled down into a family life. It is then, while they sit at their desks or drive their children to school, that the pain resurfaces. My practice in Fairview is thriving. The line outside the metal door in Somers grows longer each week.

I cannot pinpoint what it was about Jenny that did not ring true. Is it enough to say for now that after all my years as a psychiatrist, I know it when I see it? And while I am confessing things, I will add to the list that it bothered me. Knowing something was not right but having no business to inquire—it was not easy to sit with this. I wanted to know why no one was treating her. I wanted to know why she did not behave the way I would have expected. I wanted to know why I could not see the rape in her eyes. Not knowing was causing me to question myself and my professional competency. As angry as I was with the local medical community when I learned the truth, I was admittedly relieved that my observations had been correct. And I was beyond eager to help.