To mark Mental Health Awareness Week, we share a powerful and creative monologue written by Kevin Shore who served in the Royal Navy and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following his time in the military.
Meet Kevin Shore
My name is Kevin Shore MBE, OstJ. I was brought up in Bristol and joined the Royal Navy and trained as a Medical Assistant when I was 19, finally leaving when I was 51! – 32 years later (2011).
I was diagnosed with PTSD and undertook treatment with an organisation called Combat Stress. This was caused by my time in the military, having served in both the Falkland War (1982) and Gulf War (1999), and treating numerous other medical emergencies. I sustained a debilitating injury in the Falklands, whilst on land in Ajax Bay.
Managing my condition is sometimes difficult, but the key to ‘getting better’ is to talk. I take medication to help me overcome some of the symptoms I suffer. I try to keep busy and that takes my mind off things and ruminating.
I have a UK-based charity called Friendship Clinic Nepal – fundraising for a primary care facility in Nepal. I like photography, travel, writing and doing up houses.
The monologue – A China Cup – was written during the time I was undergoing treatment at Combat Stress for my PTSD.
A China Cup
An ‘explosion’ not only shatters the status quo and the well-balanced equilibrium but sometimes the fragile hypersensitive mind of those suffering (seemingly silently) from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The resulting ‘shock waves’ disperse from the fragmented particles and debris scattered far and wide, never to ‘be put back together’ and become whole again.
Again their life force, chi, is being sucked out and thus nakedly exposed.
The nature of the ‘explosion’ would be from a harrowing event in your personal history, as a result of trauma, Something that’s happened or witnessed, mental turmoil, the pain you are suffering, – an episode that means nothing will ever be that same again. A life-changing event or to use an extended metaphor, a dropped china cup.
Yes, the cup can be mended to resemble being whole again: but even microscopic cracks are still visible if you know where to look. Some of the particles of porcelain dust lay discarded, not required on the repairer’s workbench, so it’s not fully mended as it might see. Something is missing.
Mirroring life, as though it were a cup.
Though it looks and performs the function of a ‘normal’ one, the imperfections which are not always visible as still there and can only be seen by an experienced eye. Therefore the vessel is not unblemished and as such deemed by the manufacturers to be flawed – it’s a second, imperfect.
The ‘mended cup’ is just like me. The outside people looking in see an able-bodied soul, with no visible injuries. However, once they spend time with me they notice the ‘small nuances’ (anger, aggression, hostility – to name but a few) and it seems not all the synapses are functioning correctly. They deem something’s wrong, but can’t put a finger on it! If confident enough, one innocently asks “Are you OK”, to which I reply an emphatic “Yes” – but does that answer your question satisfactorily? I very much doubt it.
My life can be described as living in a freewheeling hamster ball. I go around at will, never feeling threatened, and when I bump into things I instinctively say ‘sorry’. Nothing sticks to the shiny surface, nothing can penetrate the protective ‘skin’ and I feel nothing can harm me. I am in a little world of my own, a plastic bubble.
I roll over sharp and dangerous objects, antagonise the dog (forever courting danger), shouting weeeeeee as the ball gets out of control. When kicked ‘you gotta roll with it’ as Oasis sang. In a topsy-turvy world – I always appear to fall upright, standing tall and proud, with not a care in the world. I feel impervious and as long as I am in the bubble: I AM SECURE. I believe that everyone else is also in their own little bubble and happy and content with me ‘rolling around’.
Alas, all is not well. They feel excluded, not consulted, taken for granted.
However, it will take something catastrophic to break into that shell and expose me for what I am.
Eventually, the crack appears and it’s not until the ball rolls over a void that it breaks and my ‘oh-so-perfect sphere’ is destroyed. Reality intrudes and I wake up to smell the yellow roses. Unfortunately, the flowers have died.
So have my relationships.
My life is in pieces.
A broken cup.
Kevin Shore MBE | 7th May 2015 | ©LeMonaDe
Have you been suffering from PTSD and can relate to Kevin’s experience? Share your stories in the comments box, on social media or contact us to feature your own personal story.
