Living Life Unwounded
A Memoir
by
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20 It wasn’t until three in the morning that I saw a set of headlights shining through our living room windows. Despite the long, panicked drive I made back to Indianapolis, my attempts at getting any sleep up until then had been futile. All I could do was toss and turn, with my unanswered questions and horrifying images of what Adam might look like—bruises, cuts, and broken bones—whirling round and round in my head, so eventually I went downstairs to lie on the couch and wait. As soon as I saw those headlights turn into our driveway, I ran to the front door and opened it, standing underneath the porch light where I could be seen. A female officer stepped out of the twelve-passenger van that sat idling on our cement approach and walked briskly toward me. Even through the darkness, I could see the weary-worn look on her face. It was the type of look I knew all too well, one that had frequented my face on particularly trying school days. She stepped up onto the porch and greeted me. Then she gave me her rank and last name. I didn’t care in the least who she was. I simply wanted her to forgo the pointless social formalities and get to telling me why my husband had been escorted seven hundred miles home in the middle of the night. “Adam is suffering from severe exhaustion,” she said. That’s it? He’s just overly tired? It wasn’t that I thought exhaustion should be taken lightly, but I knew there must’ve been more to the story than she was telling me. How could anyone with brains in their head think that being overly tired warranted such an immediate drive through the night? And who came to the conclusion that dropping him at my door at three in the morning, when he was already sleep deprived, made any sense at all? Why not leave him in the hospital for a few days so he could get some rest? I stared at her and waited for more of an explanation, a sensible one preferably. “Do your best to keep him away from caffeine and help him get some rest, okay?” “Okay,” I said with hesitation. Then she handed me a pill bottle of muscle relaxants that the emergency room doctor had prescribed for him. I stared at the bottle as I turned it around in my hand, looking for some kind of answer. Why would I need to keep Adam away from caffeine or help him get some sleep? Wouldn’t he be capable of doing those things on his own? And why would muscle relaxants be prescribed for exhaustion? “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I understand what you’re telling me.” She repeated what she said before, making it clear that I wasn’t going to get any answers from her. Maybe she didn’t have them, or maybe she was afraid to tell me the truth. Either way, I didn’t push her any further. Instead, I shifted my attention toward Adam and began to prepare myself to see him in whatever vulnerable state he was in. I expected he’d be tired and weak from all the days he’d gone without rest, and that he’d look beat down too—humiliated that he had been sent home from his training almost two weeks early. Except that wasn’t the Adam I saw come hopping out of the van. In fact, the man I saw didn’t look or act like my husband at all. “Lovey! Are you surprised to see me? I accomplished my mission early, so I was rewarded with a personal escort home.” “Uh-uh,” I said unconvincingly. Did he really believe that? Had someone told him that or had he come up with this idea on his own? A male officer stepped out of the driver’s side of the van and joined the three of us on the porch as Adam continued rambling on and on loudly, talking a mile a minute about his mission to no one in particular. “He talked this way throughout the entire drive,” the male officer admitted to me. “He never fell asleep once or even quieted down.” “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I wasn’t completely sorry. It seemed to me that the military had been at least partially responsible for putting Adam in the position he was in, but I did have some sympathy for the officers who had to drive him home. “This seems like more than exhaustion to me,” I said. The male officer nodded his head in agreement. “The doctor in our unit thought so too, and that’s why we took him to the ER.” I was sure Adam was exhausted, but I didn’t think that it alone could account for his strange behavior. But what could I do about it in the middle of the night? Nothing. What could they do? Nothing either. So I let them go. “Thank you for bringing him home safely. You should both go get some rest.” Rest. That’s what we all needed, and I hoped after a solid night of sleep that Adam would seem more like himself again. Sleep, however, was not on his agenda for the night. When he left for his training, we had been two exuberant newlyweds, deep in the throes of our honeymoon phase. Typically when he’d return home from a trip, I’d run down the stairs and jump into his arms, eager to fall into bed with him to make up for lost time. But that was the last thing I wanted to do considering his precarious condition. Adam, on the other hand, couldn’t see how this particular return was any different from the last. “Let’s go upstairs and get some sleep,” I said to him. “I’m tired, and I know you must be too.” As he followed me up the stairs and down the hallway toward our bedroom, his hands were all over me. “Come on, Adam,” I said as I tried to gently push his hands away from me. “I need to get some rest, and the doctor made it clear that you need some too. Can’t this wait until the morning?” “We haven’t been together in two weeks,” he said with irritation in his voice. “I missed you. Didn’t you miss me?” “Yes, of course I did, but I’m tired, and I’m not in the mood now. It’s been a long night. Please, let’s just get some sleep.” He didn’t reply, acting as if he hadn’t heard me, even though I knew that he had. Instead, he undressed himself and motioned for me to join him in our bed. Afraid of how he might react to a more aggressive rejection, I felt I had no other choice than to give in. I lay completely still on my side of the mattress as Adam slipped his hands underneath me and moved his lips across the surface of my skin. His eyes were wild and unfocused, his movements rough and unfamiliar, and for the first time since we met, the feeling of his body against mine made my skin crawl. I tried to get my body to respond to his, which had always come so easily before, but I couldn’t. Although my brain was telling me that the man before me was my husband, my heart was telling me that he was a stranger, and I had to fight the urge to get up and run. When it was finally over, I was left with tears in my eyes and a lot of conflicting emotions. I knew it had only lasted a few minutes, but those minutes had been more than long enough to mess with my mind. For Adam, it hadn’t been anything other than lust, a way of getting his physical pleasures met. But for me, it had been a sacrificial act—one bred out of my love for him and my newfound fear of him.
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About the Book
Sydney fell in love with Adam quickly, enticed by his good looks, passion for life, and charm so when he proposed just two and a half months after they started dating, she said yes. Shortly after they said their I do’s however, Adam was unexpectedly dropped at their front door in the middle of the night, by two of his fellow Army National Guard officers, dismissed early from his summer military training. Why? She wasn’t quite sure. But from that moment on, Sydney was forced to face the ugly reality that she had been lied to, and that the man she loved was a stranger to her.
In Living Life Unwounded, Sydney Oliver James gives her readers an honest look into the adversities she faced as she fought hard to protect her marriage and care for the man she loved, all while trying to maneuver through the dark and unfamiliar waters of mental illness.
About the Author
Sydney Oliver James earned her bachelor’s degree in biology from a small midwestern, Christian university, where she minored in theology as well. She went on to earn her master’s degree in secondary education from Indiana University and has been a science and technology teacher since 2009. She enjoys listening to country music, reading mystery novels, and watching crime tv. She also likes spending time outdoors skiing, snowshoeing, and hiking, particularly with her dog Max. One of her life’s goals is to visit all 63 National Parks.