CHAPTER 8
Dr Whittaker was a lucky find, the first piece of real luck I can remember having since Stewie and I survived that shithole down South.

It was odd, but I had never felt really threatened in Bosnia, just soiled. I digress; the luck came in two parts.

Firstly, he was ex-RAMC, an army M.O., and he therefore had some idea of what it was that ate at me in the small hours of the night. He had actually been at Gosport on attachment to RN hospital HMS Haslar when the poor sods from Bluff Cove were being repatriated. He shared a little of his own nightmares with me, very unprofessionally but in real comradeship.

“Burns, Michael. Burns…”

The second piece of luck was that he was not an old school military crusty, but a real healer. There was no request to pull myself together, no instructions to be a man (which would have been hilarious); he just asked me how I felt, and apart from the truth about Melanie, I told him, and I cried in front of an Officer. When I got to Bosnia, he had me lie down as I started shaking almost beyond my control.

“You’re a bright lad, Michael. I can tell you’ve been doing some reading, and that always gives two possibilities. You are either trying very hard to pull a fast one, or you are in deep shit. I am not going to talk a load of crap here, you are not some civvy I have to be politically correct around. I don’t think any of this is bullshit.

“What worries me is your talk about self harm. I get a lot of that, and to be honest most of it is complete attention seeking, but I have known enough of you boys to realise that if you set out to do something, you do it.

“Mike, sod the courtesies, I don’t want that. You are one of the good guys. This world is short of good guys”

He held up a hand to shut me up.

“No, you ARE one of the good guys. I get ticked off when I see the abuse that you and others get, from people who owe you. From what you have revealed to me, most of what is haunting you is a result of caring about others, and that makes you a good guy in my eyes”

He made a few notes, thinking, and then asked me if i had ever heard of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

“Yes, Doc, I’ve read about it”

“Mike, I am not a trick cyclist, but as a GP I have to have some of their tools in my bag. I am not qualified to diagnose things like that, but you have a choice now. I can either whack you onto some industrial-strength anti-depressants, or dope you into a vegetable on Valium, or you can see a friend of mine. Make me a promise, Mike?”

“What?”

“Please don’t do anything stupid, no matter how clever it seems at the time”

His friend turned out to be a woman called Sally Flint, a psychiatrist, and she was to change my life more than any other woman I ever met.

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My first appointment with her was a week after that with Dr Whittaker, and he was obviously hauling hard at a number of strings to get me in so soon. She looked a little younger than me, not bad-looking in a businesslike way. She had a very soft look around the eyes, a look that said “No judging”, and a way of listening to me talk that made me eloquent.

I have heard psychoanalysis referred to as “the talking cure”, and apart from her stressing that she had no intention of trying to “cure” anything, talking was what I did. She would ask a question by making a statement, no inflection to her voice, no hint as to which answer was “right”

We talked about all those things have already dwelt on, about children, and Legs, and sensible shoes in the wind, and after three or four sessions she started making comments. Six weeks or so down the line, I turned up for my normal session and she sprang the surprise.

Get rid of any notions of couches, and beards, and notepads. Sally had a couple of armchairs, and we sat there together with a cuppa and I talked, and she unobtrusively recorded things, partly by tape, and partly on a small pad where she kept what I assumed were what are now called “bullet points”

“Mike, I am going to tell you what I think, but remember these are early days, and I like to refine things as I go. A bit like a single malt, I suppose.

“As far as can see, Joe Whittaker was spot on. You appear to me to have quite a severe case of PTSD, compounded by an evil little syndrome known as ‘survivor’s guilt’

“This is made worse in your case by your own personality. You think it should be Legs sat here, am I right?”

She quietly handed me a box of tissues.

“What do you think he would be feeling if you had caught that burst of fire instead? Would it be any different? I think it would.

“Mike, why do you hate yourself?”

We talked past that one. Sally took me through my years in Seghill, asking why a lad with as sharp a mind as I clearly possessed had simply walked out of school and into a uniform.

“Mike, you have a massive inferiority complex. Everyone is better than you in your eyes. Tell me, why do your lot hate the paras?”

“We don’t hate them. We’re just better than them, and every so often they need reminding of that fact”

“Did you notice how you sat up when you said that? You feel you belong, that your regiment-“

“Corps”

“-Corps gives you meaning. But without it, you see no worth in yourself. What is it, Mike? What’s the secret you are not telling me?”

I wondered what ideas she had in mind, what oddities she suspected I might be hiding. Bluebeard? Train spotter? Sunderland FC fan? I giggled at that thought, as even though I am a rugby player, was a rugby player, I still hated the mackem football team by reflex.

She wrote something down at that.

“Can I speak to the other one now, Mike?”