Pain changes you and six months into my captivity it dawned on me that I was a changed man.
There were no more defiant outbursts or railing against my captivity or despising my isolation. I had come to terms with solitude.
And it happened one day while shaving that I peered into the cracked mirror in my cell and realized I liked the person I had become.
I was allowed to have limited freedoms—to walk on the beach—to listen to music or to choose whether or not to meet nightly with my torturer.
At first, of course, I chose not to see him, but after a week I realized I missed our nighty chats. The man was cultured and well read and we had many lively discussions about art and life and the ideas contained in the books I read.
I began to suspect I was suffering from Stockholm syndrome, paradoxically feeling affection and trust toward my captor.
I actually confronted him with my suspicions.
“After all this time you still question my motives, Cole?”
He said it with a touch of sadness that made me feel ashamed.
I can’t describe how conflicted I felt. On the one hand I felt self-righteously angered at how I had been abducted and tortured, but on the other hand, I felt grateful.
I hated the man I used to be, and loved who I was now. I didn’t even care if I was never released. I found what few men seldom discover. I was at peace with who I was and content for the first time in my life.
But that same night, I was handcuffed, had a hood placed over my head, and was driven to the outskirts of the city and left—several hundred yards from a service center. I was given my wallet, my cell phone and my freedom.
I should have been overjoyed, but I wasn’t.
I sat down on the side of the road and wept—not because I was free, but because I had been abandoned by someone who cared for me and whom I would never see again.
I now knew what it felt like to be homeless and bereft.
It took me three days to get up the nerve to call my producer, Tom Barossa, and when I did, I couldn’t tell him the truth or where I had been.
I was too ashamed.
My nightly news show had been cancelled, my career left in ruins, and all he wanted was to do an exclusive interview with me.
“It’ll be huge like the Patty Hearst kidnapping back in the seventies,” he yelped.
“We can say you were kidnapped by unknown abductors and held all this time. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s incredible what people will believe. And hey, it’s better than saying you went strange and were off the grid for nine months.”
I hung up on him and went to the bathroom and puked.
I needed to put my life back together, but not that way.
I was determined not to go back to the man I had been.