The Soldier Screamed. It's been three years, and I still see it.

The Soldier Screamed

It's been three years, and I still see it.

Written by: Troy Alan Cox

Today, standing in the international terminal waiting for my flight to Ireland, I unexpectedly found myself back in Costa Rica.

Three years ago I co-led a yoga teacher training retreat to Costa Rica. It was my first retreat since 2011, when we went to Bali with my studio.

I've traveled the world and was excited to see my first South American country. Growing up in Japan, I have an affinity for rainforests and being able to travel to the mountains and the coast in the same day.

After having to sleep several hours in the airport on arrival while waiting for our transport, the adventure began.

I kept hearing my co-host telling me in the car before leaving the U.S. that there was a last-minute guest coming. A soldier with extreme PTSD. I kept shoving it to the back of my mind, having had this come up in yoga teacher training before. However, never in a foreign country. It was already decided, and I had no say in the matter. I just knew the experiences I had previously had had not gone well, both for the soldiers and the students. I tried to shove it to the back of my mind.

We took a bus all the way down the southern coast and boarded a ferry across the water. It was amazing seeing all the lush growth and animal life. The vibe was very friendly at the stops we made and generally felt safe.

After suffering the terror of traveling with the trots combined with my IBS, I never experiment with food when abroad. However, my travel mates all ventured to a food stand, and I couldn't resist the plantains.

The ferry ride was spacious, and the water was majestic. It felt safe, and everyone was smiling. Once back on land, our bus took off into the jungle. We passed steep roads, deep ravines, and plant life that felt like a ride through Jurassic Park.

We pitched forward and back, side to side, laughing and joking in wonder at the mystical surroundings. Familiar to the feel of Florida, yet taken to the extreme.

As we approached the national park, our retreat center sat astride it. The overhead canopy grew dense, and the sun began to disappear.

At the entrance to where we would spend the next ten days, there was an open-air restaurant, and I rubbed my blurry eyes, not certain that I was reading the word Sushi correctly.

No air conditioning? In the summer? I survived Bali without it, but it was apparent the dense jungle was a different climate. Even though the ocean was down the path a few minutes away, none of the air could travel through the jungle to where our lodge was.

The next days were a blur of adjusting. Screeching monkeys, otherwise known as howler monkeys, peeing on the thatched roofs at 2:00 a.m., the indoor heat, the smell of marijuana mixed with mud, outdoor open-air showers with spiders and the occasional snake, and trying to miss the afternoon heat in swimming pools.

It seemed to be building up to something, but it was manageable. The intensity of the cacao ceremony seemed to bring everything to a peak.

I was asked to request that the soldier stop pacing and patrolling behind the group during lessons. I had grown to really like the soldier, like a brother. They were so respectful and had really bonded with a few of us. At the same time, as the group leader, I had to consider the well-being of the entire group.

The veteran didn't take the request well, and before we began our afternoon session, they asked to speak to the group. We all assembled, and as we settled, the soldier began to speak. Their volume began to grow as their intensity increased.

As a highly sensitive individual, I was already days past my overstimulation limit. My father was not doing well alone at home with early dementia. I was told the trash was piling up at the back door, the dishwasher had backed up in the kitchen, and there were dirty dishes everywhere. I knew it was a risk leaving him alone.

As the soldier continued the dialogue at full volume, I flashed from Costa Rica to my dad all alone and scared, to me as a little child being screamed at and hit every day by the bullies at school and my overcorrective mom at home.

What snapped me back was the soldier declaring at full volume how they had killed civilians in battle, and instantly I was on the front line. One part of being an HSP is that I see movie scenes and feel every minute of them. I could see the bullets ripping through women and children. I could feel the horror the soldier felt as they realized what was happening. It was completely three-dimensional for me, hearing the proclamation and the deep anguish it caused within the soldier.

I had to get up and leave the group, embarrassed that I was grief crying. Crying for the soldier, crying for the civilian women and children, crying for my father, who had to scoop dead bodies out of the sea in Vietnam, and for myself, who had not grieved the passing of my own mother two years prior.

As I hid in my hundred-degree loft under the thatched roof, I kept seeing the vision of women and children being blown apart by machine-gun fire. I kept flashing to the soldier trying to kill themselves out of a deep dread I had never felt before. I kept emotionally going between my father all alone, confused as to why I had left him in a town where he knew no one, and my mother dying before I got to say goodbye in person because of the pandemic.

It took me hours until the visions stopped, and I booked my flight home early.

It's been three years since I've been in an international terminal, and yet it all just came back.

I'll never understand why I was born so highly sensitive, but I will always understand that things have to process on their own, in their own time. Just like grief, everyone experiences life differently.

As I sit here in Terminal C, there is an alarm event. All the lights are flashing, and the announcements are repeating over and over again in English and Spanish. I have my earplugs in and am sitting in an empty part of the terminal, trying to breathe and use my tools to stay calm while reprocessing Costa Rica.

It's so interesting what the body clings to.