Neurological Warfare
The pain of the mind is worse than the pain of the body. —Publilius Syrus
They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried. —Tim O'Brien
Above: You have to carry the fire, no matter how hot or bright.
For many, the mind is a battlefield.
Neither conventional nor guerilla, the warfare waged between the ears is neurological.
War is hell and this one is no exception.
Instead of green grass or rolling hills, its setting is charged, pink, pulsing matter.
It rages across synapses and axons and soma and dendrites, its barren, pockmarked no man’s land illuminated by glowing barrages of dopamine and serotonin.
Like Gettysburg or Waterloo, it’s beautiful and striking—peaceful, even—before conflict makes its bed and carnage its home.
Unlike the Western Front, here it is never quiet.
Tranquility is an abstract concept like freedom or justice.
Like shrapnel, anxiety whistles
Like gas, depression settles.
Like bayonets, nausea stabs.
Like officers, self-doubt reproaches.
Like shells, self-esteem falls.
Like mines, comfort lies buried.
Like bullets, fear pierces.
Like screams, emotions are stifled.
Like death, chaos is the only constant.
The unwilling draftees of this cerebral conflict walk among us.
They sport different builds, but the same patchwork of scars crisscrosses their psyche.
Some stand shell-shocked, others curl up paralyzed, others lose their limbs or lives or worse.
You can pick them out by their tense, set jaws, by the dark, bruise-like bags that ring their eyes.
Theirs are the grim faces of those who have seen, heard, felt things no one should.
Their wounds gape as much their thousand-yard stares.
They are the soldiers still dug in, seeing the battle through because they can’t unenlist.
Their illness is a splinter lodged inside that they want so badly to dislodge but just can’t get at.
Dear God are they tired, but they don’t dare desert.
They fight—waging war under their skulls, one that is silent and suspenseful and incomplete.
They fight—though everything they do feels so hard and everything they touch seems so broken.
They fight—if not for salvation, relief.
What else can they do but continue the campaign and trust in the slow work of God?
After all, everything is capable of transmogrification.
Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.
Just when Christ died, the world was reborn.
They call the day Jesus hung on the cross Good.
Maybe, just maybe, they too will not suffer in vain.