Trip of Compassion (2017) - full transcript

I wanted to be in a recon unit,

the best one.

I was summoned for tryouts

and I made it through, which made me so happy.

I was setting out on a new and challenging path.

I felt there

what was hard for me to feel at home.

I felt at home.

I get home at 6 a.m.

I was tired.

was around 6:15,



my father came in on his way to synagogue with his tefilin bag,

I remember that blue bag with the golden letters.

And... he set it aside.

And he said, "I want to talk to you."

Something felt very strange,

my dad wasn't the type to come and talk,

he was an introvert who...

He spoke about technical matters, he didn't talk or share things.

And I felt somewhat tense.

He sat down in front of me.

At first he spoke a little.

And then he...

started touching me.

I remember it vaguely, I remember the heavy breathing.



He touched me like one would touch a woman.

He was being intimate with me.

And I, the big combat soldier,

froze.

I froze for many years.

In the moment of truth

I froze.

I wasn't there.

Only my body was there.

As if my soul had left my body.

Because in that kind of situation

you must be dead.

If you're in there, you must be dead.

We arrived in South America

and I was so excited.

My first big trip, alone.

I really opened up, I felt a wall had broken down inside me.

I felt so free and happy, I was having so much fun.

I had totally different plans but I thought: "dump the plans and go with the flow."

I just traveled around, with different people all the time.

I became friends with a girl and we traveled together for a few days.

Then we decided to go to Lima.

We walked out of the central station, looked for a taxi, a taxi drove up,

We drive away, but something's not right.

I say, "I don't think we're in the right direction."

"Something's wrong, let's get out."

We start arguing

and then the taxi suddenly stops.

I blacked out, but she says she heard a boom.

I didn't...

I wasn't there.

It all happened in slow motion,

I turned my head and saw four guys

with their faces all black,

I couldn't see anything, and...

that's it, I blacked out.

We couldn't see anything.

I could just barely see the floor.

They hit me on the head and back,

they grabbed me hard...

We really got beaten up

and then we hear shooting.

Lots of shooting.

She says to me, "Ortal,"

"they're gonna kill us, they're gonna murder us."

And I started praying.

I closed my eyes and recited "Hear O Israel."

In Israel there are many PTSD patients.

A state of severe anxiety after being exposed to a traumatic event.

In Israel

unfortunately

there are many terror attacks and wars, road accidents and high-pressure situations,

therefore we have many victims.

we look at the broad picture,

there is no successful treatment for PTSD.

This morning at 8:45 a huge blast rocked downtown Tel Aviv.

A No. 5 bus exploded

on the corner
of Dizengoff and Esther Hamalka

it seems a suicide bomber blew himself up.

I heard an explosion, can't explain what I heard.

I saw people running frantically towards Dizengoff Square

and I instinctively ran ahead

to try and save someone.

When you arrive at such a scene

you improvise a tourniquet or something, to save people.

I saw a bus blown into pieces,

people torn apart,

people groaning, calling for help,

I couldn't go in to get them out.

People calling out their last cries,

people groaning to death

and you can't help them.

You're helpless.

People were cut up into pieces,

there was a river of blood.

Some things are inexplainable.

I can't explain what warm blood smells like.

Before that, was a normal human being.

When I got home, I couldn't fall asleep,

I started having nightmares, I was a mess.

I didn't know what I was up against.

After I was exposed to it

I realized..

how close I was to death.

I stopped working, I quit my job with the ambulance.

It's inappropriate

for an ambulance driver to be mentally ill.

Over the course of time I left my home, my wife,

Over the course of time I left my home, my wife,

my son.

And...

I started living on the street.

I no longer saw myself as a regular person.

I saw myself as an animal trying to survive.

I didn't like myself when I got back.

It wasn't me, I didn't like it.
I felt there were two people inside me.

I felt like I was going crazy.

The kidnappers put a black demon inside of me.

The kidnappers put a black demon inside of me.

It's like voices in your head that just...

It's like voices in your head that just...

It doesn't go away, it's like pressure,

as if someone's crushing me like this...

I felt like the only thing that could help is, boom.

I just wanted to stop the pain.

I was a good solider up until that event.

I was very sociable, too, I felt good in my unit.

A week afterwards we had an exercise.

I remember throwing a grenade

without pulling the pin.

So my commander stops the exercise.

What's going on?

Who is that?
I don't recognize myself anymore.

A few weeks later
I left'the recon unit.

I told my commander...

I didn't tell him why,
Just that I .wanted to leave.

It's a voluntary unit,

you can up and leave - at any time.

I told him
1 wanted to leave

My friends were in shock

In the settlement
where I grew up,

I know it sounds insane,

but I would walk on the side roads

so that no one would see me.

On the Sabbath I didn't go to synagogue,

I'd pray at the yeshiva library

just to be alone.

So no one would see me.

I wanted to disappear.

I wanted to cease to exist.

For years
I was a shadow of my former self.

®n the outside I was great, I laughed, I smiled

but on the inside... I was dying.

I used to wish that I'd be driving

and a truck would come towards me...

Then I wouldn't have to suffer anymore.

I just have to tell you about when I feel...

like that I have no air, don’t I?

It'll pass if you don t focus on it.

You'll go right through it.
-Shut up and listen to the music. -Right.

Be relaxed and stop thinking.

I don't know who am I,

am 1
afraid?

The main source of therapy with psychedelic drugs for mental disorders

and primarily drug-assisted psychotherapy was done in the '60s and 70s

at prestigious universities in the U.S.

There were many post-trauma patients

who couldn't be helped with conventional therapy.

And drug-assisted therapy, including Ecstacy or MDMA

created a very exciting infrastructure for both patient and therapist.

That is what attracted me, for the past 20 years,

to all kinds of psychedelic substances

that many of my friends frowned upon,

seriously, they said, "How could a serious, dorky guy like you

"go into this field?"

They said, "If we bring drugs into the hospital,

"how will we watch ever them?
What if patients are exposed to them?

"It just doesn't go together."

But I said that it's a controlled substance;

it's kept in a safe,

and the researchers working with it are very serious.

And unlike all the people they turned to in Israel, I said yes.



Hello.

I'll turn off my...
-Yes, all the devices.

That's it, now I'm here.

I'm Ido.

In the course of time
I'll tell you a little more about myself,

I'm open to questions at any time.

I'm sorry, but what is that machine?

It's a blood pressure machine.

It's not recording us?

No, but...
-There are two mics up there.

Are you currently on medication?
-Yes.

I tried Viepax and such,

but none of the psychiatric meds did any good.

I have very high expectations.

I'm trying to lower them,

I expect to take a pill...

jiuoog

I'll start working

and getting things done.

This is definitely not a pill that you take and it changes your life.

It's part of a therapeutic process.

I'm here because I'm desperate.

I wouldn't be here if I wasn't desperate.

It's a last resort, because it's scary.

It scares me,

the doctor said it wouldn't happen, but it scares me.

That's all there is to it.

What's scary? -That I'll stay here.

That I'll go crazy and stay here.

It scares me that I'll lose control, because...

I've been very much in control since the event

and this will be a serious loss of control.

That I'll try to rape someone or go crazy, and they'll keep me here.

This substance will help you lose control

but in a good way.

but in a good way.

Are you comfortable?

You look a little...
-I'm always like this.

Yeah...

It takes a little time.
-Want us to tell you a bit?

About us and the research...
-Okay.

We have about 90 minutes to get to know each other.

Yes. -To set out on a journey, the three of us.

Right.

The aim of this meeting and two more before the session

in which we'll use the MDMA

is, first of all,

to feel good together, so you'll feel safe with us.

Okay.

Will I leave here, after that night,

the next morning, feeling better or...

What...?

It really depends on how the session goQS for you.

We can't say,

that's part of .the experiment, we can't promise anything.

What's wrong?

The way I see it...

Nachum is in bad shape.

He sleeps all day and is up all night.

He doesn't want to get up for work.

He's very impulsive.

Everything's on my shoulders.

All the responsibility falls on me.

Our livelihood, too.

He'd reach a certain point and then freeze.

He couldn't function.
He'd leave, disappear.

No one to talk to.
That's it.

Lights out.

Nothing's worthwhile.

There's no love, no nothing.

He doesn't even remember there were good times.

I'd try to convince him, "Look at all the good,

look how much fun we had here, there."

Until I realized it wasn't working.

It didn't help one bit.

Everything's dark.

Even though my dad is now an old man,

I've always been scared to death that there's a murderer inside him

and that he'll murder me.

Isn't a psychiatric hospital a good place to say stuff like that?

It scares me to this day.

It never happened

but where did
I come up with that?

It's already gone through metamorphosis,

now I'm afraid that it's inside me,

that it'll come out of me one day, I've lived with this fear for years.

Or scared that I'll do something like that to my daughter.

That, too.
-Yes.

Now, who am I afraid of?

I'm only afraid of myself.

I'm afraid... -Yes.
-I create...

When I look at your father,

he held out for 19 years without doing anything to you.

Then suddenly...

It came out.
-Yes... -That's scary,

maybe I'm just holding out, but...

it could come out, too.

People don't understand, it's not just that person that went through

the trauma, the whole family goes through it, too.

It hurts everyone.

She didn't come back the same happy daughter that she once was.

She...
She cried all the time...

When you spoke to her, you could tell she just wanted to roll up into a ball and...

go away.

There was lots of yelling,

throwing things.

Locking herself up in her room

without talking to anyone.

Saying things that parents don't want to hear, "Too bad they didn't kill me,

"then I wouldn't suffer like this."

It hurts a mother's heart to hear those things.

I slept outside her closed door.

There were days when she refused to open the door.

So I'd sit there all night and knock on the door

just to hear her say, "Go away!" or...

Anything, it didn't matter what.

When you say you're fed up,

what do you mean?

Do you think about death, that you're fed up with life or...? -Yes.

I took Cipralex and then I drank a bucket of alcohol.

I don't remember anything aside from finding myself...

in bed, in a clinic.

They said that I fainted and started convulsing,

foaming at the mouth, vomiting, so they took me there.

I can't handle it anymore.

I can't, because...

you reach the end of the tunnel

and then there's something else.

You don't reach the end, you see the light...

you want to reach it, but you can't.

So I'm tired of it.

I feel you're a bit reserved today.
-Yes.

Yes, because...

this is the last meeting before...

before the meeting...

With the substance itself.

We're here, you're not alone.

I suffer from self-hatred.

I've lived with it for years,

self-criticism
that turned into self-hatred.

It'll be very hard for me...

to encounter that.

I've never experienced love,

not even with my wife or in previous relationships.

Intimacy, those are things I find intriguing,

I'd like to experience them.

I'd like to see beyond the Mountains of Darkness.

The post-trauma is the unpredictable encounter

with your helplessness.

It's a horrible feeling,

because it dismisses your earlier conceptions that you have control over your life.

The drug creates a temporary cognitive and emotional state

that enables the patient, who normally wouldn't let you touch the pain,

but when you give him MDMA, he feels comfortable.

Like a sea of relaxation and a desire to set out on an inner journey.

We have water, right here.

You just take it.

Good luck. -Good luck.
-Cheers. -Cheers.

Shall I put on some music?
-Yes.

This is amazing.

There's something amazing here.

When I was looking at that picture before,

I saw a lion and it scared me.

I saw lions [arayot]

which made me think of the word "arayot"

which also means "incest."

Now I see a horse with a girl, a woman inside it.

That's nice.
-Very nice.

That difference in the images is interesting,

because horses may symbolize freedom.

Horses symbolize freedom very much to me, and high school.

It makes me think of a photo

that I have in a photo album.

I went to a yeshiva high school in the Golan Heights

and I worked a lot with horses,

with cattle.

I rode horses a lot

and you really do feel freedom. I dream of riding horses again.

After many feminine years, I have to go back to...

Your masculinity.

Yes, to masculine domains.
-Yes.

To see the beauty of masculinity.

The power of masculinity.

The positive sides of the lion.
-Yes.

That turns into a horse.
A noble horse.

It feels as if two people are wrestling inside me.

Feel them wrestling there.

Something spiritual and weak against something animal-like and strong.

Just let them be.

Like an ape, a gorilla, something very animal-like and violent.

be with the gorilLet's not be afraid of it.

Let that gorilla live in your body.

What kind of sound does it make?

What does it do with its hands?

Let's do it together.

Now I hear a voice saying, "Careful!

"You'll end up doing that to your daughter

and you'll scare her." She's scared of me.

That's the wrestling.

It's actually very much alive.
-What?

What you just expressed.
-Yes.

It won't break out at your daughter. -Right.

Now you have control of it.

Right.
It's amazing.

Are you in any pain?
-Yes.

How will you feel if I hold you little?

I feel as if my faucet has been opened,

pure water is coming through.

There's movement.

There's change.

As if the hose was turned off for years.

And it opened up here.

It feels good.

It's flowing.

I feel it all over my body.

I'm tired of it.

This trauma messed

When I leave here today, I'll go home and I'll be all alone and I'll cry.

I'm tired of it.

Are you afraid to go home?

I just don't want to be alene.

Move ahead!

Tell me!
Where did you put the money?

Where is the money?

Tell me!

Where did you put the money?

Where is the money?

Where did you put the money?

Where is the money?

Tell me!

Where is the money?

Please, stop! Stop!

I don't know what came out of yesterday.

I think you remember more.
-Yes.

No, I remember, I was just...

No/l remember, I was just...

expecting something else.
-I see. -Yes.

I thought it would...

bring it out differently.
-I see.

You didn't run away.

You told us,
you started off by telling

and you remembered more details of the story.

There were plaees you didn't want to go, and that made you suffer.

you said, "I don't like being here,"

and that's when there was a struggle.

I thought about it after, in the morning, that...

during...

the kidnapping my brain was working so hard and my body was frozen,

so now my body needs to let it all out

because I was holding it in so hard.
-Exactly.

because I was holding it in so hard.
-Exactly.

It's as if your body froze in that place

and as far as it's concerned, the trauma isn't over,

you're still there.

And yesterday, your body started letting go,

as far as your body is concerned, the kidnapping happened yesterday.

I'd never taken Ecstasy, MDMA or any other drug.

And..

I was very apprehensive.

Terribly frightened.

Are you nervous?

I'm going into the unknown.

There are casualties in the back of the bus

You avoid going there you avoid remembering.

Where did you take it to?

To extreme self-punishment and giving up on life.

You were among the first to arrive,

you should be proud of what you did, of the people you saved.

I never saved anyone, I've never been at a scene of an attack.

May you never be there.

You should be proud of what you did,

but you're not proud of it.

During the treatment

there were things that..

I saw, I encountered.

I saw myself

back in time.

I turned back into the young man who was a medic and an ambulance driver who ran ahead.

There was something...

something strange

It was the first time
I ever felt as if I were floating.

I was right above the area itself.

It's as if I'm there, but I'm not. Like a ghost.

I felt...

extremely self-confident.

I experienced something

that I can't even explain.

My brain had been numb,

covered in dust

and the MDMA waxed it and polished it.

What happened isn't my fault.

I couldn't have prevented

what happened,
I couldn't have'taken better action,

That's what I'm working on in my head.

My father wasn't at home much.

He was mostly at the yeshiva,

studying Torah, praying,

even when he came home, he'd read

and study.

I remember him praying.

As a boy, I'd watch him pray,

he was so excited, jumping up and down.

And it scared me to death.

Everyone used to say, "What a righteous man,"

but I felt as if...

I didn't want it.

I didn't feel good or righteous.

I didn't know where that volcano came from.

I couldn't understand how within that quietness,

that introverted nature

such a volcano of anger could erupt.

such a volcano of anger could erupt.

PTSD patients live their entire lives

trying to. protect themselves from any reminders.

They're in flight their whole life.

They're saying, "Never again."

We use a drug that brings you closer to yourself,

you get the opportunity to reprocess the trauma.

We give people a second chance.

Another chance to fight and to win.

I'm having a hard time with who I see.

A very hard time.

I'm having a hard time with who I see.

Who do you see?

I see a man who's lazy, frightened.

Someone who has failed.

A lazy, frightened failure.

Cruel to his family and to himself.

I hate that Nachum whose father hurt him.

He doesn't deserve anything.

He doesn't deserve love if that's how he was treated.

He must be...

like an object.

I struggle for that boy, I struggle for my life.

I can't struggle anymore.

Enough.

Enough.

Enough.

Enough.

Enough.

Enough with all this struggling.

I struggle with the whole world.

I struggle with my wife.

I struggle with my children.

I struggle with myself.

I feel like letting my neck tear off...

Want me to hold your head?
-No.

Would you like a pillow back there?
-No, I want it to be torn off.

Okay. Let it be like that.

Let that feeling be.

What if the depression deesn't come out today?

Whatever needs to happen will happen, we're here.

I have so many things inside my head, I feel mentally ill.

You can move...
-This is not fun.

What is coming out of me?

It doesn't feel good.
-No.

It doesn't feel good.

It doesn't feel good.
-Move with that.

Why does it have to come out like this?
-There is no answer.

But how did it get in there?

I was kidnapped, how did it get in there?

Why don't my body and mind work together? Why are they separate?

Let all those questions echo inside you.

More questions and things

will come up, just let all that be.

I want to shoot myself in the head.

I want to shoot it.
I want it to be quiet.

Why can't it be quiet?

You want to quiet your brain, you want to disengage from your body.

I don't want to feel my body, I want to disengage from my head

but it won't leave me alone.

Why won't it leave me alone?

Try to figure what its role is.

My head is stupid, I just want to die.

I want to shoot it, I don't want to die.

I want my body to live and my brain to die.

I don't want it.
-To tear your head off, yes.

I don't want it!

Let your legs work,

let your body do whatever it wants.

Let yourself feel your body the way you want to be in contact with it.

I feel like my body is floating 3 meters above myself.

3 meters.

Can you see what happens if you lower yourself 30 cms?

I'm in the room where my father hurt me.

Okay.

Be there and see.

What do you see?

Everything's blurry.

It really scares me.

Right now I'm scared to death of my father.

You're scared to death of your father.

Take it nice and slow.

We're here with you and there's the fear of your father.

How do you feel in the room with your father there?

I want to tell him clearly that he shouldn't do that.

He shouldn't do that.

No.

No, no, don't do that.

No, I don't agree.

No, I don't agree.

I do not consent.

I do not consent. I do not agree.

No, no, don't do that.

And now the wind's hand extends without a sound

Suddenly a window opens in the night

Why are your laughter and your fear so strongly bound?

And tell me, why is it you freeze so happily?

You say you'll always be a stranger in this land

And fire and water spy on you from every side...

That's it.

That's it.

Now I understand.

It's allowing myself to love. To just love.

Instead of trying to be loved and flattered.

My whole life I was preoccupied with being loved.

But the solution is in loving.

It's there, I know it, it's in loving.

I can't believe I did it, what an idiot...

They gave me my bag back

and I opened the zipper

without seeing anything, without seeing who was watching

and I took out my credit card and hid it in my bra.

Then I closed the zipper and put my bag down,

what an idiot! I can't see who's watching, I can't see anything.

Fortunately, they didn't get it.

And this is with your head covered?

Yes, my body was functioning.

Yes, it had...

A minute later they took my bag

and I was sure they saw that, but they didn't.

Where's the money?

And then she says to me, "Ortal, they're really stressed out."

I said, "Tell them
I'm sick with salmonella

"and we're on our way to the hospital in Lima

"and that I lost my credit card so my mom's waiting for us.

"My mom is waiting for us in Lima at the hospital

"so they should let us go."

She told them, maybe that's why they let us go.

Try to imagine the kidnappers,

let's say they were little and were right here,

you can get mad at them now.

What do yeiti say to them?

I want to keep away from them.

I don't want to talk to them.

Get rid of them.

I'll get rid of them.

I don't want to look at them.

You don't want any contact.
-Goodbye, leave me alone.

Okay.
-Okay.

Can I give you a hug, too?
-That would be great.

Want to look at yourself in the mirror, Nachum?

Let's try.

I haven't looked at myself in years.

I don't dare look at myself and see that it's me.

That I deserve a lot of love and compassion.

My God

The soul You have given me

It is pure

My God

The soul You have given me

It is pure

You created it, You formed it and You breathed it into me

And You guard it while it is within me

And one day
You will take it from me

Amd restore it to me in the time to come

As long as the soul is within me

I will thank You

As long as the soul is within me

I will thank You

My God and God of my ancestors...

I allow myself to see a smile.

I allow myself to see a smile.

Its real.

Lord of all souls

Master of all works

Lord of all souls

I really want to be with my wife now.

For her to be with me.

To sit together and look each other in the eyes.

it feels good.

They see everything I've endured and they're pr@ud ©f me.

PTSD is a brain disease

and MDMA works in the brain.

Everything happens in the brain.

In the brain we feel, we love, we get disappointed,

we yearn.

It's hard to comprehend the wonders of the human brain.

This experiment is also proof that if you can activate the brain properly

you can create situations that will help the body heal.

And help the brain heal.

How long have you not lived at home?

How long have you not lived at heme?

A decade.
-It's been 10 years?

So when you broke up, the boy was a year old? -Reughly.

Oh, okay.

But were you in touch with him?

I was in touch with him,

I'd do anything to keep in touch with him.

Did he see you with the beard?

How did he react?

Did he see you unbathed, in dirty clothes?

I wasn't proud of that.

Did you tell him what was going on with you?

Or about the bombings you'd seen?

Does he know about that?

I didn't share anything with him.

You never told him?
-Never.

Why didn't you ever open up to him?

I don't want him to get hurt.

He's hurt enough.

Daddy*..

You asked earlier

what I benefited from the MDMA.

What...

What's the biggest help I got out of if?

my son were here

he'd say that...

he got his father back, a father who wasn't there before.

Today, two years later,

I got custody of my son from the welfare serviees.

I'm raising my son.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.
-Welcome to Israel.

I felt like I went through 15 years of psychological therapy in one night.

I remember driving up

towards Neve Daniel, then down here, I felt

I was coming home.

I really felt
I was finally coming home.

Human being

Keep climbing up

Keep climbing up, human being

Keep climbing up

For you have tremendous strength

You have wings of spirit

You have wings of spirit, wings of noble eagles

Do not deny them

Or they will deny you

Seek them...

This is a poem I wrote a few weeks after the session.

It's called "Sunrise."

It describes the process of what the...

healing does, the medicine.

The MDMA.

"Sunrise.

"Look beyond the beauty.

"Glimpse beyond the face.

"Gaze deep inside.

"There, here, black gold wraps, drips.

"There, here, precious resources are quarried from the deep darkness.

"And among the acacias of horror, anxiety, fury

"Plowed soil, determined to be fertile, opens up.

"Remarkable furrows spread across the wide open space

"And above them on the third watch

"stands the man and reads."

Thank you.

What did you feel?
-I felt it was for me.

Hope.
-Yes.

A new path.

I see the poem moved you.

It moves me that you're moved.

What?

It also makes the pain in this package...

surface.

When there's hope, it also makes you...

remember the hopelessness.

About despair and hard times.

You can't just put all the...

hard times behind and say, that's it, they're behind us.

They're with

And they're ahead of us.

But it's okay.

We're ready.

Maybe.

Keep going,

you're going crazy...

I have a very hard time with the word "kidnapping."

It's that split-second that changes your entire life.

The only think I remember from the blackout is...

the bloodcurdling scream that the girl I was with let out...

Just today I was talking about my first MDMA session,

the first time the MDMA affected me, the first thing I did was scream.

I really like this poem

because it's all about freedom.

It's called "I am a Jew That's Been Converted," it'll be in my next book.

Page 9.

"I am a Jew that's been converted to freedom

"Converted to refreshed thinking

"I am a Jew that's been converted to a question mark

"That's been converted with an exclamation mark

'Tm converted to loneliness

"Lone but not alone

"Converted to something else.

That is what I am submitting to you."

I write as an Israeli poet and as a former victim of sexual abuse.

I chose to stand here and read my poems, to say loud and clear

that the discourse on sexual abuse in Israel is changing.

So are we.

The victims, the abused, must make a change, but a different change.

First and foremost we must stop being victims.

As someone who felt like a victim and learned to let it go,

I know it's possible.

And most important - we must learn to forgive, both ourselves

and whoever abused us.

To forgive without forgetting what happened,

to forgive in order to heal ourselves from the grudge and guilt

inside of us.

Thank you.

What you said is so true.

What?
-That you were abused

but you don't keep it to yourself, you tell the world about it.

That you acknowledge it and don't hide it.

That's how you feel?
-Yes.

It's great to hear that.

But you were always sweet.
-It's great to hear.

You look different.

Yes.

Oh.

I'm feeling very emotional, too.

It's an emotional moment.

I can't.
-Okay, take your time.

It looks like a lot of fog has cleared.

Or dust.
i You look more rational.

Yes.
-Sharper.

All right.
-Okay.

I am, yes.

Someone asked, "Are you off the meds?" I said, yes.

I didn't hear you.
-If I'm off the meds.

I said, yes, I'm off the meds.

I sleep well, no nightmares.

I suddenly feel like hugging people.

I really feel...

If I'm talking to a friend or someone

I suddenly feel like hugging them.

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't,

but I really feel like something's opened up...

I feel like going like this.
-Yes.

The trauma is no longer...

It's no longer a part of my life.

\Ne love you very much, we're very proud of you.

We're happy for you.

Yes.

It was an honor.

Can I get a hug?

You're really something.