GOESER: Gun Control Hurts People Like Me

The night of my husband’s death, I had been informed that the Metro Nashville Police Department offers a Victim Intervention Program for victims of violent crime. This is a free counseling service offered to those Nashville residents affected by violent crime, and it is available for as long as you need it.

Even though I knew it was available, I kept talking myself out of it, because I have a degree in psychology and I thought I should be able to handle it on my own. I tried for a few months to deal with it. I did pretty well at acting like everything was okay, until one day I ended up crying non-stop in the middle of work and scaring the heck out of my already concerned co-workers at the college. I was dealing with anger, guilt, sadness, fear, depression, and loneliness.

So I reluctantly made the decision to go get some counseling. I went for my first session at a large brick office building in downtown Nashville. This building housed the counseling service office and many different offices as well. I began to tell the counselor (I will call her Irma) everything that happened to my husband and myself. It took me about 45 minutes to tell her everything after she started asking me questions.

I left that session feeling okay but not really feeling like this was going to make a significant difference. I had not discussed anything with her that I would not discuss with my best friends or family, and I still did not see the real point in it. But I tried to keep an open mind. I just wanted the pain to go away, and I thought “what the heck” because it was free. I figured that I could use all the help that I could get. I ended up going back for another session within the next week or two. Irma brought me back to her office, and before long, I was telling her how I had to leave my permitted gun locked in my vehicle on the night Ben was killed.