Oliver: Honestly? I have no idea.
-The robot man plugs the USB stick into the back of his head as he warms up the projector-
Oliver: Hopefully it's nothing traumatizing.
"Seven is here too, dressed like the concept of choosing clothes that look nice together was an arcane secret far beyond their grasp."Oliver: ...that's weird. No video file first off. Just audio.
-BOOP-
I'll play it anyways.
Dear diary...
The therapist says that if I'm not comfortable with that term I should call it a "journal". But hey, why should I mince words? This is a diary, and I'm writing... or, well, speaking into it because we've decided it's probably the best choice for my continued mental health.
Honestly thought that he'd be a little pissed off about the whole "I got all of the people I served with killed" thing, but even if he is, he's doing a good job of not showing it. I guess every job has its restrictions on how you're allowed to think about the people you interact with. If a therapist is talking to somebody who, by rights, should be rotting in a jail cell right now, he has to approach them as though they've made an honest mistake.
Kind of like how right now, my job is to view IMC soldiers as targets. They're people, too, undoubtedly - people fighting for the wrong cause, maybe, but if you want to avoid having a mental breakdown in the field you need to view them as targets. Depersonalize them. It's a concept I'm familiar with, but... I don't really think I've done that. All this time I've just been shooting them because they've been shooting at me. Kill or be killed, you know?
Dr. Hilford says that it was inevitable. I mean, it's not like the whole "hospital ship" thing helped any, but the big thing was that I wasn't depersonalizing them. I was fighting for my life and scared as shit, I didn't have the time or mental capacity to do that, so... I bottled how I felt. And you know how badly that ends.
Or, at least, you should, dumbass. Who else is going to be listening to this, some type of... I don't know, giant ninja? That's just absurd. But that's a digression. Therapy's going well. I'm learning a lot of... ugly truths, I'd say. Good thing I don't have a lot of plans to do much, because thinking on the sessions is draining. Like half a panic attack every day.
Anyways, that's about all that's noteworthy about my life that's gone on so far. If you are me, you know about everything beforehand. And if you aren't me, first, get out of my audio diary, and second, ask me about it. I'll probably talk.
Oliver... signing out? Oh man. That sounds weird. At least it's not 'Sincerely.' Like I'm writing some sort of letter to me ten years in the future.
Maybe stop rambling. This device only has so much capacity, even if me verbally crapping into the microphone does little more than scratch the surface.
Hi-ho, Oliver away?
"Seven is here too, dressed like the concept of choosing clothes that look nice together was an arcane secret far beyond their grasp."Oliver: Uh... what can I say? I must have had some imagination before whatever bonked me on the head hard enough to turn me into a robot, uh... bonked me.
Next one's up.
Idiot's log, stardate look-at-the-file-name-you-dingus. I'm starting to get better at being "selectively empathetic", as Hilford puts it. It's dehumanizing your enemy, but I think I've been consciously underestimating the power of language. Truth be told, I was having difficulty with it until Hilford told me something that really stuck with me.
"Just because you are good," he said, "doesn't mean you have to be nice." Killing people is morally wrong, but the IMC didn't leave us any other options. Protests? They ignored them at best, brutally dispersed them at worst. Colonies that tried negotiating never got favorable terms. There were a few colonies that got "liquidated" - slaughtered to the last child because they wouldn't go when the IMC said they should, and the perpetrators were never removed from their positions. All in all, they were pretty content with grinding our face into the dirt.
The only language they understood was violence, so we got fluent. And whaddya know? It worked.
So that's kinda helped out. I'm doing... better than I was before, as vague as that'll sound to the hypothetical snooper listening to this. I've heard that some soldiers get twitchy as hell when they're suddenly relocated to an entirely civilian area, but then again I got shuffled off to one or two progressively quieter bases before I finally went on leave. From what I've been reading regarding Militia code of conduct that's apparently what they recommend, to prevent that sort of "waiting for the shoe to drop" anxiety.
But there's a negative side to practically everything these days, and now that I'm starting to get me under control, well... I... I just...
-Laughter over the feed-
God damn, not like I'm gonna be judging myself. I wanna go home. But I don't think I can. I mean, I'm probably worrying Mom and Dad sick, but for all I know the only thing they heard was how much of a bad boy I was. I may not be staying up three hours too late visualizing the faces of everyone I've ever shot, but...
...I don't think I can look them in the eyes. Not even over a vid feed. Especially not in person. And they're the people that love me. Unconditionally. The people that don't are...
-Sigh-
Man, that sucks to think about. Should talk with Hilford about it.
I should go distract myself. I've cried enough over the past two or three weeks. Oliver, signing off.
edited 19th Dec '17 6:27:00 PM by SpartyMcFly
"Seven is here too, dressed like the concept of choosing clothes that look nice together was an arcane secret far beyond their grasp."Oliver: Apparently.
The weirdest thing is? I feel... normal. A little bad that I have to murder people, but... it's not something that keeps me up. I don't feel like I'm gonna explode any moment.
Listening to all this is surreal.
Dear diary, I can't believe I would ever think I would want to go back to the land of pain and murder that is military service, but here I am. I've been getting out and doing things but I'm just going so... stir-crazy here! There's not as much to do where I'm stationed as there is with my squad, and I hope they're all still alive.
Sent out the letter today. I figured that'd be a good way to tell Mom and Pop "hey, I'm still alive" without actually having to go back there. Let everyone else think what they may. Hell, let my parents think what they may. At least they know I'm still here, and that I've started kicking.
I'm a few days out from being transitioned back into active service, same slow way I came in. And Hilford says I'm probably going to have a clear bill of mental health, too. I can't help but think that I'm making myself into a killer, but... I'm pretty good at telling that part of me to shut the hell up nowadays. I think I can live with whatever I do in the future. Which is good, because the IMC are going to be really intent on not letting me get away with extrajudicial self-defense.
No idea how I've been getting this better, this quickly, but I'm feeling good about things. Last appointment with the good Doctor is tomorrow, and then I've got two days before it's back to killing people. Should probably be thankful for that.
All I can think about is how I'm gonna have to keep speaking into this dumb audio diary. I'm gonna have to get real crafty, I won't have a nice room to myself to speak my thoughts aloud. Might need to do it whenever I can get spare time. Not really on a set schedule or a daily basis, just "whenever I'm not being shot at and can get a moment's time to speak alone". It's not gonna be easy.
But I guess nothing worth doing ever is. Rifleman Second Class Jackson, signing off.
Oliver: ...that's it?
"Seven is here too, dressed like the concept of choosing clothes that look nice together was an arcane secret far beyond their grasp."

Oliver: Oh.
Good.
By the way, I'm gonna play back more of my private diary in a few minutes if you wanna watch.
"Seven is here too, dressed like the concept of choosing clothes that look nice together was an arcane secret far beyond their grasp."