Family and friends eagerly await, as they crowd around the entrance. Everyone’s eyes focus on the door as they hear the unlatching of locks and the knob begins to turn. As the door slowly creaks opens, a well-built, solid man takes the first step into his dark, empty home in years, only to be greeted by a surprise! The lights flash on, illuminating the man’s pristine uniform, family and friends leap out from their camouflaged hiding spots and welcome the soldier home. Military homecomings are moments for celebration and excitement, however returning soldiers face a whole host of problems once they return to civilian life. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is one of the problems crippling many soldiers today, one form of PTSD that afflicts trauma survivors is Survivors Guilt. By studying the symptoms, behaviors, and mentality associated with grief and survivors guilt in Simon Van Boye’s As Much Below as Up Above, one can identify the narrator as an individual suffering from PTSD and as a result, better understand his memories and thought processes; We see that the narrator is a depressed man recalling his past, whose memories, thoughts, and psyche are lined with psychological scars left behind by survivor’s guilt.  

Defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “a feeling of having committed wrong or failed in an obligation,” guilt, is a common reaction to loss (Oxford). Guilt is an emotion that weighs heavily on the conscious and an excessive amount can lead to depression, apathy, or generalized anxiety. Survivor’s guilt differentiates itself from normal feelings of guilt; because survivor’s guilt is inherently irrational. One feels guilty in spite of knowing one did nothing wrong. Despite being irrational, many are still afflicted by survivor’s guilt, Professor Nancy Sherman states this is because “survivors guilt piles on the unconscious thought that luck is part of a zero-sum game. To have good luck is to deprive another of it” (PsychToday). This thought process is flawed and starts “an endless loop of counterfactuals-thoughts that you could have or should have done otherwise,” though, in most cases, the person did nothing incorrectly (PsychToday). 

When analyzing the narrator’s character, specific behaviors and symptoms signal that he suffers from PTSD. Symptoms of PTSD include: nightmares, difficulty sleeping, and withdrawal from others. Awareness of PTSD symptoms is crucial because throughout the text, the narrator continuously exhibits symptoms and behavior that strongly suggest he suffers from PTSD and survivors guilt. As he comfortably sits alongside the beachfront, the narrator confesses “I haven’t had a solid night of sleep since the accident, I dream they are all still alive down there, and my brain begins to conjure fantastic ways of rescuing them” (15). By confessing that he has not been able to sleep well since an event occurred, the reader learned, on a base level, the outcome of an accident still haunts the narrator. By noting this admission to restless nights, we can see the symptoms of PTSD beginning to protrude from his character. 

 Grief is the natural emotional response to the loss of someone or something whom we loved. Knowledge about the different stages of grief can be applied to the text in order, to gain insight on the emotional stability of the narrator. After studying the different levels of grief and analyzing the narrators character, we see the narrator is currently stuck in the fourth stage of grieving: Reflection, depression and loneliness. In this stage, victims: realize the true magnitude of loss, reflect on memories, and may have a sense of despair or emptiness. Throughout the text the narrator struggles to relinquish the memories of his fallen friends. In an attempt to keep them alive, the narrator torments himself with the thoughts and memories of the accident. “I remember the morning of the accident very clearly, so clearly, in fact it seems strange that I can’t intervene and try to stop what happened” (21). However, all these thoughts and memories serve to do is damage his already weakened psyche.    

An irrational guilt weighs heavily on the narrator’s conscious throughout the text. “I shall never forget the terrible shame I felt sitting on the tug as my closest friends sank at a terrifying speed.” Even though the narrator did nothing wrong, he still struggles with an overwhelming amount of guilt and shame because of “unresolved feelings of helplessness” (Michaelson). In his friends’ moment of need, the narrator was unable to help and as Professor Sherman states “we often take responsibility in a way that goes beyond what we can be held responsible for and we feel the guilt that comes with that sense of responsibility.” Because the narrator deemed himself responsible for the well-being of his men, he felt the guilt that accompanied by that sense of responsibility.  

The narrator, along with others, suffering from survivor’s guilt constantly searches for answers and signs to the question “why me?” The narrator “prayed for Dimitri to give me a sign that he is okay” because he sought forgiveness, from those deceased, like many others afflicted by survivor’s guilt. Many survivors find it difficult to accept that they were the ones “chosen” to live. Survivors tend to seek connections with those they lost and many secretly wish to join them; the narrator is no exception, “despite all the fights and heroic acts I performed as a soldier in the Russian Navy, I cannot bring myself to take this cheap foam bodyboard and step into the ocean.” He repeatedly brings up the idea of suicide because he romanticizes about the idea of being with them. He longs to be with his men “in that metal case on the seabed.”       

The entire text has a dejected tone, hinting at the depressed and empty mentality of the narrator. The tone of a man picking up the pieces of his scrambled life. Traumatic events can break individuals and their identity. Once that sense of self is broken “the stricken individual has no idea how to restore or reclaim that former self” (Michaelson). Without a sense of self. the narrator struggles to plan for the future; instead he clings to memories and reminders of the past, “Sometimes, when I am driving alone in my car at night, I’ll pull off the road into an empty parking lot and tune my car radio to static” (23). To successfully overcome his self-defeating mindset the narrator must strive to create a new sense of identity. And eventually the tone of the text changes in the very end. The narrator begins to think ahead, a life with Mina and all of the adventures it holds. The narrator starts to sense a purpose to his life, answering his haunting question, Why me?   

An understanding of PTSD, grief and survivors guilt better helps the reader analyze the text. By looking at symptoms and behaviors associated with grief and guilt, we see the narrator as a depressed individual, in the process of overcoming a traumatic event that shattered his sense of self.  By making cultural connections, the audience is able to delve deeper into the work and as a result their overall understanding of the text is improved.  
