My wife is a surgeon, I'm an artist, and we have a very strange way of coping with medical trauma

My wife is a surgeon, and I’m a painter. That’s important, because when you understand those two facts, you’ll realize that we’ve both seen some shit.<br><br>She looks into open wounds all day, messes around with living viscera, and has saved countless lives. It’s almost like she works in a slaughterhouse or I forget, what’s the phrase? An abattoir? Yeah. The big leagues. My wife is hardcore, I’m very proud of her, and she does not fuck around. <br><br>As for me, I’ve worked with countless mediums, painting and drawing salvation in every color. Ok, so it’s not medicine. I’ve had my share of struggles, though. You don’t know what it's like until you’ve had an art show fail because someone spilled a glass of red wine onto your canvas. <br><br>I’m not a very responsible person. I’m not good with coping. But, we’ve learned to be supportive of each other. We seem to work well enough together. We’ve never had any problems like her coming home from work and finding me drunk, or me coming home from an art show and finding her high out of her mind. <br><br>That’s never happened before.<br><br>Until it happened, of course. <br><br>She came home from work one day, and she was just different. Like, I don’t know what they call it, but there was a light in her eyes that I’d never seen before. And, I was a little scared, but she told me she was doing fine, and she told me she’d met someone who could help us cope. <br><br>I thought she meant a couples therapist. But, she told me no, this was something different. I agreed to give it a shot, and she took me to an abandoned building in the middle of the city. We had to walk through the sewers to get there, and by that time, I was starting to think she was a little crazy. I don’t know what she was doing, but I didn’t like it. <br><br>But, when I saw her face, I knew that I’d do anything to make her happy. I’d do anything she asked me to do. <br><br>I hope you understand. Do you ever get that feeling? Like, what if your partner had this small thing about them that you couldn’t stand? What if it was only one thing that you couldn’t get over? Like, maybe they had a really bad habit, or they just didn’t fit into your expectations of a romantic partner, but you still loved them to death, and you wanted to be with them for the rest of your life. <br><br>Yeah. That’s how I felt. <br><br>So I followed her down into the sewers, and into the abandoned building, and down into the depths of hell. <br><br>I’m not being hyperbolic. It was hell. We walked into this room, and there was every possible combination of pain that you could imagine. I don’t know who these people were or why they were there, but I recognized a few from my wife’s stories. <br><br>There was a young woman with a discolored face, a few people with casts on their arms, and an elderly man with a cane. I’m not sure what happened to them, but they all seem to be connected by the same thread. <br><br>It was the thread of pain. <br><br>I watch this happen. It was the same ritual, every time. <br><br>A woman with long black hair, pale skin, and a white dress walked in and sat on a chair. Then, she smiled, and then she pulled out needles and thread. There was a young woman there, and she went first. <br><br>She had scarring all over her arms and chest. The woman with black hair was very gentle with her. She sat her down next to her, and she told her to calm down, and then she sewed up every scar on her body. <br><br>Then she moved on to the next person, and the next, and the next. Until she got to my wife. <br><br>I watched, I don’t know what else to say. I watched, and I had this feeling in my gut, and it was almost like I was having some sort of panic attack, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t leave. <br><br>I don’t know what it is. Something about this whole thing has me shook. I feel like I’m in a dream. <br><br>I’m not sure where my wife got the injuries from, but my guess is that it was from a car crash. Her arms were covered in scars, and her torso was bandaged. The woman with black hair smiled, and then she sewed her up. <br><br>I saw her wince in pain, but then she smiled. Her eyes were still bright, and her lips were twitching, and then she got up and she moved on to me. <br><br>I tried to struggle, but I couldn’t. The woman with black hair was gentle, and she smiled, and then she sewed my arms and torso closed. <br><br>I don’t know how I got these injuries, I don’t remember receiving them, but they are very real. <br><br>All of the injuries are very real. <br><br>And I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that my wife and I are in some kind of cult. That the injuries we sustained were part of some twisted game where we were put through immense pain, and then we were healed by some magical ritual. <br><br>That’s not what happened. <br><br>The injuries we sustained were very real. The ritual didn’t give us a magical cure for pain. We’re still scarred, and hurt, and we still have PTSD. <br><br>But, somehow, the ritual made us better. Somehow, it made us whole. <br><br>I don’t know if I ever want to go back to that ritual, but I might have to. I might have to go back, for us, for my wife, and for myself.<br><br>Because the ritual gave us something that we’d never felt before. It made us whole. It made us better.<br><br>&#x200B;<br><br>Edit: Well, this blew up fast. Thanks for the support and for making this my first post to get any sort of traction, it really means a lot. I'm gonna try to update it once in a while and let you all know about the ritual and the lady with black hair.