I Can Do This

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Dealing with trauma.
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Bert_Fegg
Bert_Fegg
14 Followers

This is something I wrote a couple of years ago. It's autobiographical, I wanted to compare different kinds of trauma and how we deal with them, or fail to :) The site it was originally posted to has gone west, so I thought I'd transplant it. Names have obviously been changed...

"I can do this..."

A mountain. A climber high on the mountain. Thinking. The ramp that he'd followed had run out and the choices for upward progress weren't looking good. The groove ahead looked loose, overgrown and dirty, the wall to the right looked clean but devoid of holds. Almost. There was a narrow ledge running the width of the wall about a metre from the top, but how to get to it? A step up on to a block and footholds far out to the right. How to use them? A tiny indentation in the smoothness of the wall, a marginal fingerhold, but would it do? Once he was standing on those edges the ledge was in reach and once his hands were on the ledge the route was in the bag, but that fingerhold........

"I can do this..."

He knows he must not fall. The belay is about forty feet behind him with three pieces of protection in between. None of them inspire confidence but that's all there had been. All the way up, the climb had been like that. Loose, slippery and poorly protected. Little chance of falling, but if you did.......

"I can do this..."

Holding on with his left hand he extends his right leg outwards and upwards until it's placed on the outer of the two small edges. leaning into the wall he lets go with his left hand and leans across to lock the fingertips of his right hand into the indentation. He's breathing hard now, but not from effort as he palms the wall with his left hand and drags himself out right until his weight is over his right foot and he can place his left foot on its hold, stand up and grasp the ledge above. The golden key to the climb. He breathes out, heart still hammering and reaches up to the ledge...

"Shit. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. Shit..."

The ledge is a red herring, it slopes so much it's useless and he knows he'll never reverse the moves that got him here. He's in trouble and he knows it, but he's been in worse situations. The wall tops out a metre above his fingertips, less than a metre. He needs to make one more move, where are the holds? What can he use?

"I can do this..."

A pocket out to the left looks promising but it's shallow and muddy, he tries it, takes his hand away. "What can I use?..."

Suddenly he's aware he's falling. Tumbling and bouncing down the face. He has no idea how it happened.

**************

"I can't do this..."

A house. A staircase. Halfway down the stairs a man sits hugging his knees. A song plays in his mind in a endless loop.

"Halfway up the stairs is the stair where I sit. There isn't any other stair quite like it..."

He grins as he remembers the puppet singing the song on a childhood TV show. He knows he's crying in the same way he knows he's breathing. He knows he should get down the stairs. He knows he should eat something. He knows he should go to work. He does not know how to make his body do any of these things. He is aware that something is wrong. His body and his mind seem to be adrift and it's as if he's watching them from behind glass.

"I can't do this..."

His leg flops forward and his heel hooks the stair below. He drags himself downward one step at a time.

**************

"I can do this..."

He's hanging on the rope. The fall has stopped and he knows that soon the pain will arrive. He looks up at Duncan. Duncan looks terrified.

He's aware of the pain now. He can't move the fingers of his left hand and he knows that arm is broken. It hurts to breathe and to twist his torso and he knows that means he's broken one or more ribs on his right side. His right leg is damaged and in pain, but unbroken. He doesn't know it at this time, but his knee is badly dislocated. Later it will occur to him that his injuries are light considering the length of the fall and the ground, but not now. He looks up. The belay is thirty or forty feet above him and the ground is easy angled, less than a minute to get there with the body he had a few moments ago. Now it isn't possible. Can Duncan rig a hoist? A shouted conversation reveals that he can't...

"I can do this..."

The situation is simple. They are alone and tied together. One of them is hanging injured below the belay and the other is holding him there on the rope. It will be night soon and neither of them has bivouac gear. If they remain as they are then the injured one will almost certainly be hypothermic by morning and may not survive. His partner can do nothing until both of them are at the belay but he doesn't have the necessary knowledge to get him there. If he lets go of the rope, the other will fall. The important things in life are always simple and the simple things in life are always hard. This thought arrives perfectly formed and whole in his mind. He has to climb back up to the belay or he will probably die.

"I can do this..."

He shouts instructions up to Duncan, who ties a knot in the rope above his belay plate so it can't run through. Now he has both hands free. He drops a loop of rope down which the injured one clips into his belay plate, configuring it in guide mode so it won't run backwards. He has cord loops clipped to the back of his harness which are for climbing a rope in just this situation, but he can't reach round to them without his injured ribs screaming at him. He takes a sling from round his neck and ties it around the rope in a klemheist knot. It will slide up the rope, but not down. By standing up in the loop with his uninjured leg he can gain height. As Duncan pulls in the slack and shortens the loop he can hang in his harness, push the klemheist up the rope again and stand in it, allowing Duncan to take in more slack. It will be slow, but it will get him to the belay.

"I can do this..."

Because the slope is steep, but not vertical, there comes a point where he is forced to put weight on his injured leg for balance. It folds sideways, he screams.........

This happens three more times before he reaches the ledge.

**************

Six weeks ago she'd told him the relationship was over. She never said why. Yesterday was their son's birthday. She had mentioned she'd be moving out the following day. That morning he'd got the kids up, made them breakfast and walked with them to school. Now he's home from work, at his front door and he knows the house will be empty. It is. Halfway across the front room he slumps to his knees, hugs the sofa and his mind shuts down...

**************

At the belay ledge, he's suddenly bone-tired. He wants to close his eyes and just drift off - Is he dying? Duncan is talking about untying and going for help. He knows this is a bad idea, but he just wants to lie there and rest - He doesn't want to think any more. Part of him tries to believe that Duncan should go, and for a few minutes they discuss ways off the ridge and he lets himself believe he'll be off the hill soon........ Slowly he comes back to reality. He doesn't know what they should do, but he knows this isn't it. It's getting dark, the system of ledges that Duncan proposes to follow is steep, grassy and leads nowhere, he'll die if he tries that. There's no way off the ridge except the way they were going and they've lost the light. They must wait for daylight, suffer the cold and Duncan must finish the route and get help that way. Maybe there'll be a phone signal at the top? - they already know there's none here. He tells this to Duncan and suggests wryly, that the groove that he disdained might be a better idea than the wall.......

**************

He can't stop crying when he's alone. It starts when he wakes up and remembers she's not there. At work he's a zombie. He stops feeling hungry. Eating becomes an effort he often can't be bothered to make. In his daydreams he dies. One night, in desperation he calls the Samaritans and he realises how detailed his suicide plan had become. He slowly forgets what it feels like to be happy. Dark thoughts and this flat lifeless mood become normal to him. His world is shrinking to a point. He sees it and he doesn't care.

**************

The night is cold and stretches on forever. Later it will seem like the beat of a butterfly's wings but there, in that place, there was no time. Just the endless wind and the dark and the cold. The injured one is lying with his feet in Duncan's rucksack which is clipped to the belay. It offers his legs some protection from the wind and gives his good leg something to push against to take weight off his injured leg and also his harness. The ledge slopes steeply away, so they're clipped to the belay and their harnesses are taking weight. There's little comfort to be had here, they can lie flat and that's about it. Duncan has given his companion his waterproof and is lying to windward to shelter him somewhat. And so they pass the night...

**************

Love is what saves him. Love of the mountains; Love of climbing and a good friend. A climbing partner he'd all but lost touch with. Progress is slow and he's painfully aware of how far he's let himself go over the years. Slowly, so very very slowly he learns how to climb again. How to think like a climber, how to turn off his mind and exist in the moment. It doesn't happen often at first. Winter comes and for the first time in more than twenty years he plants an axe into ice. Instantly he's hooked again. He and Robert make a good team, Robert is by far the stronger climber and confident almost to the point of recklessness. He jokes that Robert doesn't know the meaning of fear - or any other word with more than three letters. He on the other hand, has a knack for survival and a talent for rope tricks. In the course of two failed attempts on Tower Ridge and the ensuing epic retreats he learns that he can supress panic in a difficult situation and that he and Robert can depend on each other. They evolve a system whereby Robert climbs the hard pitches and when things go pear shaped he does the scary abseils. He loves epics because he never thinks about his children or their mother during them.

**************

Duncan left the belay ledge over an hour ago. It must be over an hour. The injured one has been belaying him as best he can lying down. The loose, dirty groove that he disdained seemed to go easily enough. Why did he pick the hardest way? he wonders. The rope stopped moving some time ago. He tried shouting up to Duncan but his voice is strangely muted. Later he will discover this is because one of his lungs is leaking but then it passes with barely a thought. Duncan has to be at the top, why hasn't he pulled the rope up? He tries to pull it back down but it doesn't move. Duncan very wisely has tied it off so that the other can't retrieve it and dislodge any loose rocks in doing so, he's not pulled it up behind him for the same reason. The injured one does not know this, all he thinks about is leaving the rope behind and how he's sworn never to do that again, but ropes can be replaced......

Time stops again for him. He's alone on the mountain in the endless present. he's wearing two waterproofs and the sound that the hoods make as he shivers inside them sounds like the beating of rotor blades, so eventually he stops pulling them down to listen for the helicopter he hopes will be coming soon. Once a Christian, his faith evaporated long ago, but he can still recognise the value of this experience as long as he survives it, which, he knows now, he probably will. The stark beauty of the mountain landscape cuts through the pain and fires the fierce love he has for this place. Nothing that happens to him here can be bad.....He thinks of his words to Duncan walking up to the base of the route, this time yesterday "It's a dif, so I'm not going to fall and it's a ridge so I won't lose the route" - He'd done both.... He hasn't said a prayer in a long time, but there on the ledge he offers his thanks to the Mountains for teaching him humility.

When the helicopter noses its way around the ridge he knows the sound immediately........

**************

As he climbs more, he meets more climbers. Because his experience outstrips his ability he finds himself climbing with relative novices. He finds he enjoys teaching people and he makes some new friends. One day he sees a post on a climbing website from a climber whose partner has dropped out of a trip to Scotland - does anyone want to take his place? He contacts the poster for some details. It's a five day trip. A day walking in, another to walk out and three days of climbing. Nothing above Severe, but all long mountain routes. Just his kind of climbing...

"I can do that." He thinks.

Bert_Fegg
Bert_Fegg
14 Followers
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AnonymousAnonymousabout 1 year ago

Interesting, complex as is the topic.

AnonymousAnonymousabout 10 years ago
I had trouble discerning which "he" was being referred to in your story.

Duncan or Robert?

Too many he's, not enough names.

Or neither?

patientleepatientleeabout 10 years ago
Oh my.

This is powerful. I'm sitting here, letting it settle in. This belongs in Chicken Soup for the Soul or something. I started to cry halfway through.

Going back and forth from the mountain to off the mountain packed a powerful punch. Very well done.

tazz317tazz317about 10 years ago
FOR ONE TO HAVE COMPLETE CONFIDENCE

they must remember the only thing for certain one can do Is Die...and most of the time it is not their choice. TK U MLJ LV NV

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