Sam’s Journal of Survival

Once a Month With Dr. Cole

011226 This journal is fiction. The voice you’re reading is a character, not the author.

Once a Month With Dr. Cole

It’s Monday.

Mondays are busy. Department meetings stack on top of each other, and the day fills before I realize it has started. I skipped lunch without meaning to. I was prepping for a meeting later in the afternoon and didn’t notice the time until my stomach reminded me.

I left work at 4:30.

That part is deliberate. I don’t stay late anymore.

I drove to the medical arts building for my appointment. I’ve been seeing my psychiatrist once a month for four years now. The routine is familiar. Same building. Same office. Same chair. And Doctor Cole.

Today we talked about my job.

I told him I’ve been thinking about changing positions. Maybe transferring. Possibly to another part of the country. I talked around it at first. Career growth. New challenges. A different pace.

Eventually, I admitted the real reason.

I keep looking for somewhere I might feel safe.

Saying it out loud felt heavier than I expected. As if naming it made it more permanent. I sat there and wondered if I was chasing something that doesn’t exist anymore. If maybe this is just how it is now.

Maybe I’m never going to feel safe.

Maybe I’m going to live the rest of my life managing risk instead of trusting the world around me.

That’s a hard thing to admit. Harder than I realized.

I don’t feel unsafe all the time in a dramatic way. It’s quieter than that. Constant. A low-level awareness that never fully shuts off. I move through my days functioning, working, appearing composed, while carrying the knowledge that safety feels conditional.

Trauma does that.

It doesn’t erase itself. It doesn’t respond to logic or time or success. It settles in and becomes part of how you move, how you plan, how you imagine the future.

I wish there were a way to undo it. A moment where someone could say, this part is over now.

But there isn’t.

There’s just learning how to live with it.

I drove home afterward and made myself eat something simple. I locked the door. I checked it once more than necessary.

I’m tired tonight. Not just physically. Tired of thinking about safety. Tired of planning around fear.

I don’t have answers yet. I don’t know if changing jobs or changing places would change anything at all.

For now, I’m just sitting with the truth that I don’t feel safe most of the time — and that admitting it might be the first honest step I’ve taken in a while.