The Weight of Silence

Decisions are made with the information at hand, weighing probabilities. To an outsider, and in hindsight, they often seem simple. Yet, even in the face of logic, we make ill-advised choices because emotions overshadow reason.

I never called because, for so long, I believed that behind the walls of every home, the same secrets were kept—addiction, abuse, neglect. I had no words for these things when they began. To me, it was just life. There were no special words because it was not special.

Even when I learned those words, I still never called. I had somewhere else to go—a place that offered not love or affection, but stability. It took me a decade to realize that my place of stability was, in fact, unstable. The psychological and emotional abuse imposed by bipolarism may have damaged me more than the others. I never called because my tormentor was also their savior—the one who rescued them from another too drunk or too high to provide even the most basic accommodations. I never called because it took me years to see that my tormentor was their illness. The abuse was constant, but the relationships were complicated. My physical abuser was their emotional abuser.

I never called because I had to weigh my probabilities. I made my decisions based on what I thought I knew. I tried to protect my siblings the best I could. I tried to make the best choices, and I will forever be haunted by their consequences.

___________________________

Jake is a law enforcement officer and former Army Ranger with four deployments to Afghanistan.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.