Medium Day 2025: A Gun in My Mouth

Raw and Unfiltered

Since I am developing a style of writing through traumatic events for Medium Day 2025, I wanted to provide a raw and unfiltered example of how it works. Not for the faint-hearted.

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August 17, 2025

Solochyn

I need to write through this pain. Now I know what it feels like to send a loved one into war. A heartache so deep that it manifests as a physical lump in the center of your chest. People who start wars have never really felt this because if they had, they would never start a war. Or that’s what one would think. There is this universal thing about this pain because you know that every human who ever loved someone deeply and sent them into war has felt this at some level. Mothers in the Peloponnesian war; wives in World War II; fathers in the Kish-Elam War; husbands in the Afghanistan Wars; daughters, sons, friends, lovers in every war ever fought. The thing is, I can only slightly describe it, and I certainly wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

First, you scream at God. Then you beg Him not to take them from you. Next you try to strike a deal and ask that He take you instead. Finally, you realize it’s out of your hands. Reality punches you. Will I be able to go on if they are killed? Will I want to go on? Scenarios build. If they die, I will stick a gun in my mouth in…