The architect, Jim and PTSD …

Darryl (1977)

Growing up in Princeton, I remember a fellow that would often stand in front of the old Ben Franklin Dime Store on Main Street. He was always well dressed with a suit and tie and had a little notebook in his hand. He would stare across the street at different buildings and now and then would make a notation in his note pad.

I was about 8-years old when one day coming out of the store (at that time I believe it was run by the Camerons) I asked my Mom what he was doing. In a soft voice she whispered, “They say he was in World War Two and everyone says this is what he has done every day since he came back home. I think he was an architect.”

I never asked the fellow what he was doing because by the time I was old enough to engage him in conversation he had passed.

This may have been the first case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that I witnessed. Sadly, I have seen way too many cases since; in those days they referred to this disorder as “shell shock.”

Years later, 1972 to be exact on a cold and miserable rainy night at Western State Hospital in Hopkinsville, I was sitting in the day room with a resident. He was, according to all diagnoses at least semi-catatonic, this is a state where a person appears to be in a daze or stupor and unresponsive to external stimuli. It was said that he had not said a word since he returned from being “in country” a year before.

I was serving an internship and taking a break. With a cup of coffee, my pipe and a textbook I sat down beside “Jim” and realized I didn’t have a match to light my pipe. Without thinking, what I was doing I asked Jim if he had a match. Without any hesitation, he reached in his pocket and pulled out a lighter and handed it to me.

I said thank you and he responded “No, problem. You’re welcome.”

I was shocked. He smiled a gentle smile. I said, “Jim, you spoke to me.” He remained silent with a far off stare.

“Jim, I am sure you just spoke to me. Why did you speak to me?” I was anxious and perplexed to say the least.

After what seemed like an hour yet could have only been a few minutes, he glanced at me and said, “Someone finally asked me a question I wanted to answer.”

Jim and I remained day room buddies throughout my internship. Now and then he would look right at me and smile but most of the time he was in his own world. He never said more than a dozen words in all those months to me. And when he did speak, usually, it had to do with what I was reading or to comment on the smell of the pipe smoke, or ask for a light. However, eventually he began to speak to other residents, staff and a doctor or two.

In the 1980s, I went back to Western State Hospital for a visit. The fence that surrounded the institution was removed. Few locked wards remained. No one remained that remembered “Jim”.