“Do you know what I really want?” Ido says in one of our therapy sessions. “I want to be able to go to the beach again.”
Until Oct. 7, this young man went to the beach almost every morning. I can imagine him there: bronzed, smiling, dribbling a soccer ball on the sand. On cooler days, he would run a few kilometers before going in for a swim.
In hindsight, he says, that was what saved him: He could keep running when the others had stopped. On Oct. 7, it meant the difference between life and death.
Ido (a pseudonym to protect patient privacy) arrived at the Nova festival on the evening of Oct. 6. He’d been to several outdoor music festivals and came well-equipped: tent, picnic blanket, camping stove for making coffee. The night sky was full of stars, and he and his friends danced the way you dance in open air — with your whole body, with your whole heart.
When the explosions began early in the morning, no one really knew what was happening. Finally someone turned off the music and announced that the party was shutting down. Ido packed up his gear, and on the way to his car saw someone leaning over a young woman with gunshot wounds, yelling, “They shot my girlfriend!” Then he remembers seeing a line of Hamas terrorists, their weapons aimed at hundreds of defenseless young people.
Ido knew he had to get away, but he also knew that his friends were in their car, slowly making their way to the exit without knowing what was happening. The traffic jam was, essentially, a deathtrap: The Hamas terrorists killed people in the cars, one by one. Ido ran ahead to warn his friends. On the way to reach his friends, he came across more bodies of young women. He remembers what they wore, what they looked like. He can see their faces.
His friends had heard gunfire but assumed it was coming from far away. Ido screamed at them to get out of the car, opening the doors and pulling them out, telling them to run. Others around them also started running.
Within minutes, the fields were filled with hundreds of young people escaping. Behind them, on quad bikes and chasing on foot, were the Hamas militants. Ido ran like crazy, until he and his friends paused at a thicket of bushes. They thought it was a safe place, but shots were soon fired in their direction. Not far away, two young women lay on the ground among the weeds. Ido yelled at them to get up — the weeds could not hide them, and the terrorists were getting closer. But they were too scared and paralyzed to move. After another burst of gunfire, Ido and his friends ran. He does not know what happened to the women.
Ido’s group split up, each person running and hiding in a different location. Alone for hours, Ido finally spotted an Israeli car and raced over to get a ride out. Back home late that night, he learned that a good friend had been killed and another kidnapped to Gaza.
When he felt his body shaking, he thought it was his muscles exhausted from running. But the shaking did not stop. Over the next few days, it got worse. There were other symptoms: clammy hands, outbursts of anger, nightmares. Ido was turning inward. He did not want to see friends who hadn’t been at the festival. He felt they could not understand what he’d been through. He even struggled with his friends from the festival. “Their hands aren’t shaking the way mine are,” he told me. “They’ve gone back to work, back to life. Every meeting with them just shows me how messed up I am.”
Shortly after getting back from Nova, Ido tried to go to the beach. But he found himself constantly looking around, trying to see where the terrorists would come from. He jumped at the slightest noise. He was tense, on alert. He went home.
Shame continued to take a heavy toll. Ido remained isolated, fearing someone would see him shaking, sweating, losing control.
There were weeks when coming to the mental health clinic was the only time Ido left his apartment. Entering my office, he’d peer out into the hallway and ask to lock the door. He was grieving the man he used to be — the man who might never return.
And he was angry. Really angry. At the government, which was busy with its own political survival instead of doing everything it could to reach a hostage deal. At his girlfriend, who didn’t want to know what he’d been through or hear the horror stories. At his family, who couldn’t see how wounded he was and how badly he needed help. And he was angry at me, for not being able to help him.
“I need you to tell me it will get better, Ayelet. I need you to tell me that people get through these things.”
He wanted to tell me his story, and this is what we did: Ido talked, I wrote, and then I read back what I’d written, a minute-by-minute chronicle of his experiences. We read the account over and over, trying to piece together the truncated, unraveled parts into a coherent narrative.
Gradually, the story took on meaning and sense. Ido came to see his own bravery. Despite the danger, he’d insisted on staying to warn his friends. He began to understand that, despite the terrible helplessness he’d felt, he had in fact managed to save lives. Ido also had to face his guilt about the people he hadn’t been able to save.
Shame continued to take a heavy toll. Ido remained isolated, fearing someone would see him shaking, sweating, losing control. We talked about how turning his rage toward himself only made his physical symptoms worse. “After what you went through, it’s OK to tremble. It’s OK to sweat. Stop being angry at yourself.”
One day he announced on the phone: “I’m going to a party in the desert.” He sounded proud and determined. The next day, defeated, he told me he’d driven as far as Beersheva, then turned around and gone home. The sight of the desert landscape triggered flashbacks. He was shaking so hard that he was afraid he’d crash the car. He couldn’t go on. Since Oct. 7, he’d had dreams of that reddish sand, he said, and the way the sand flew into the air when the terrorists’ bullets hit the ground. He told me how desperately he’d wanted to go to the desert party, how he’d pictured himself dancing for the first time since October. And how he’d failed.
More weeks passed. And then one day, with no prior notice, Ido walked in and told me he had finally gone to the beach. It wasn’t the same as it used to be. He was tense. On alert. But for a short time, he’d managed to really be there, to listen to the waves, without hearing the echoes of sirens.
“That’s a lot,” I told him. Ido nodded. “It’s a beginning.”