Some Kind of Peace by Camilla Grebe, Åsa Träff Read Free Book Online Page B

changed after that. It wasn’t that I grew up too quickly or something, but it was different. The conditions of my existence changed and these rituals became a way of trying to hold life in check. I became afraid that something would happen to my parents, that everything would be even more disrupted. I was worried they would get sick, or get in a car accident, or whatever. I started watching over them, always wanted to know where they were and what they were doing. I had meltdowns whenever they left the house. Although it settled down after a while, it’s like those rituals are still there. Routines.”
    “In what way did they change? What were they replaced with?”
    “Other things,” Peter says hesitantly.
    I try to make a quick mental summary of what Peter has told me so far. What he is describing sounds like classic compulsive actions or rituals. Fairly common in childhood, this kind of behavior is often not of clinical significance. It’s part of a child’s normal development. For Peter, however, the grief and fear in connection with his grandmother’s death seem to have made the rituals persist into adulthood.
    For many individuals, compulsive thoughts and actions are strongly associated with shame. You are ashamed of your thoughts and fears, and of your inability to control them. Many times you behave according to rituals that those around you may think strange and odd, and so you do everything you can to conceal them. Often there is a fear of losing your grip or going crazy. And I can sense this fear in Peter. I can see it in his gaze, which avoids meeting mine, and in the slight redness in his face. It is so hard for him to tell me, to break the silence and talk about what I guess he has kept hidden from others since childhood.
    “Have you sought help for these difficulties before?”
    Peter only shakes his head, thereby confirming my suspicions.
    “Tell me about the other things that worry you.”
    I want to signal that what he is admitting doesn’t surprise me, that I have heard similar stories before.
    “There are thoughts about hurting someone.”
    He looks down again and slowly brushes away some invisible specks of dust from his pant leg.
    “Hurting someone?”
    “Uh, it started when I got my driver’s license. I had thoughts that I might run someone over with my car. A child, perhaps. Some poor person who had the bad luck to cross my path.”
    He makes a grimace and looks profoundly sad.
    “And I couldn’t let go of that thought, I started thinking that I really had run over someone, without noticing it. I would drive back in my car to look. I would get out of the car and walk around searching for signs that I had injured someone: broken branches, blood on the sidewalk, abody. Sometimes I’d see a stain on the street or something—an oil stain, maybe—and I simply had to find out what it was. I’d get down on my knees and sniff the stain. Scared to death that someone would see me and think I was strange. Out of my mind. And then, when I was done searching and hadn’t found anything, I still would not believe it. I was forced to go another round, and another.”
    Again, Peter falls silent, his face tormented and pinched.
    “What did you do?”
    “I stopped driving,” he answers very quickly. “It was too difficult. I didn’t drive for almost ten years.”
    “And what happened after ten years? You started driving again?”
    “I had to drive Dad to the hospital. We thought he’d had a stroke. It was Christmas Eve, there were no taxis available. Chaos at nine-one-one. The ambulance was delayed. Mom was going crazy, screaming and crying. Everyone had been drinking except me. Somehow it just worked. We drove to Sankt Göran and I didn’t even think about running someone over. I just wanted to get there.”
    “And then?”
    “And then it worked. Driving, that is. The thoughts didn’t come back. Although by then I had other thoughts, of course.”
    Again, Peter falls silent. This time