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to tell. The link is in the show notes, and here's the episode.
Just kidding. It's a disclaimer first. Hey, everyone. Just want
to pop in and say that my guest for today's episode, Paul has a
book that we reference throughout the interview. It's
called friendly fire, a fractured memoir. I will link to
it in the show notes. Also, the names of Paul's two college
roommates, Mark and Keith, have been changed. Also, Paul doesn't
mention the name of his college in his book, so I'm going to
respect that in this episode, I was sort of part of this crew,
this trifecta of US college kids. We were probably like most
college kids. We liked to play video games. We liked each
other's company. We liked humor, stand up comedy, you know, I was
a happy go lucky musician trying to, you know, become a writer in
undergrad. So once we moved out of like, the freshman dorms,
Mark had some credits from high school, so he was eligible to
have basically an on campus apartment, and so we lived there
for the remaining three years of university. And it was, you
know, a very spacious, four bedroom apartment we owed a kind
of a rotating fourth member by 2017
they were all in their junior year at a small private college
in Minnesota. You had obviously known Mark for four years, and
what did you know about his relationship with guns? Yeah, I
mean, to me, it was never really something we talked about. It
was sort of on the periphery. He
Paul: didn't hunt or anything. I think maybe his family did, but
I knew that he liked to go to ranges. It has never really came
up too seriously. And me and Keith, you know, the other
roommate, him and I were both very, you know, postmodern
hippie. You know, him and I are very, we don't have any interest
in that. In senior year, I kind of knew he owned some and we had
friends who had houses off campus, and I just kind of
assumed they were stored in those types of places. Friday,
April 7, 2017
Caitlin Van Mol: Paul and Mark were in their apartment wrapping
up their weeks.
Paul: It was Friday.
It was in the evening, well after school, maybe like 530
ish, I'm sort of wrapping up some homework. And so the plan
was we were gonna go out to, like a local Gastro Pub and, you
know, drink a few paps blue ribbons, and get a burger. And
so Mark goes to his room to sort of prepare for that, basically,
take a nap or something. And I'm just gonna, you know,
diddle on this paper a little more. And
I realized that I needed a book to sort of cite something. So I
got up, and then I stopped, and I think I noticed, like a guitar
pick or a battery on the ground. And so I'm like, oh, you know
Mark having the darn apartment dirty again. So I stopped and
turned and picked it up. And in that moment, I was blasted back
and forced into, like, this cluster of wooden dining room
chairs we had in the living room. I'm like, Oh, shoot. You
know, there's like a hurricane, or like a earthquake in
Minnesota, you know, like, my first thought was just like
natural disaster, or, like, you know, bombing, you know, there a
new nuclear bomb went off. Mark comes out of his room, and he's
got a gun, his hands over his mouth a cast.
Caitlin Van Mol: This is live to tell the podcast where I talk to
some of the bravest people who have been through the most
horrifying things and lived to tell the tale. I'm Caitlin van
mol
Paul had no idea what just happened. Then he comes running
over to me and and I
Paul: don't think I totally like put it together yet, but I'm
very much already in that state where, like, my psyche has been
completely fractured,
like only a bits and pieces of me were in that moment, and
like, parts of me were essentially like, hovering above
it. You know, it was very bizarre. I think shock is like a
complete understatement. By that point, I'm basically like, okay,
something is like, obviously wrong, and I feel like liquid on
my head. I.
And so I'm like, Oh, I'm sweating or something, who
knows. But I'm completely like, you know, it's like, someone
hit, like, the reset button, and I'm like, booting up, you know?
And none of my limbs are really working. I'm kind of dragging
myself to the bathroom mirror because I'm like, Okay, I just
need to see what happened, you know?
And he's giving me orders and things like that, but I'm not
really listening to him at this point. So I look in the mirror,
and sure enough, like, There's blood on my forehead. And I
basically had really long hair at the time, so I, like, parted
my bangs to the side, expecting to see a hole, you know. Because
at this point, I'm like, okay, he's he's holding a gun. He shot
me, you know. And there's no hole, you know, in my forehead.
So I'm like, okay, that's, you know, step one. I'm not gonna
just like, die in the next 30 seconds. So I lean over a little
bit. I kind of tilting my head here and there I see this, like,
I don't know, two inch depth hole in the top of my head. And
so what happened was, I was, I was leaning over, and the bullet
that he fired went through his wall, my my roommate, Keith's
wall, and then hit me in the top of the head. And so in theory,
that should have went straight through, you know, out my chin,
essentially, you know, and killed me. And so what happened
was it basically fractured my skull inward. And so shards of
bone went into my brain, and then the bullet itself
ricocheted out and then, like, was on the carpet, which then he
later
Unknown: threw in the garbage, marked him upon finding it. What
kind of gun was it? It was a Smith and Wesson nine
millimeter. So at this point he's basically like, oh, you
know, lay down. He pulls out like a first aid kit for when he
was, like, solo hiking in California, you know, always
prepared his any he's just kind of pats me with some, you know,
some gauze and what have you. And he's like, You should
probably shower. And I later found out that that's like, the
last thing I should have done, but I sure enough, I did at the
time, Paul was so out of it, he just did what he was told. And
then during that shower, he's hiding these excess amounts of
guns that we later found out about through the police and
reports of police photography. You know, a hunting 22 rifle,
another handgun, I think, a Glock, an AR 15, which I
famously taught mark how to play guitar when I had known him
through those four years. And so he put the AR 15 in the guitar
case, and then, of course, all the, all the paraphernalia, the
bits and bobs that come with it, that I don't know what they are,
but, you know, all the ammo and things like that. So he's doing
this, and I'm kind of showering, then I go lay back in bed, and
then stuff really starts to hurt, you know, like these
really strange bone pangs and, like, heat pangs and things like
that. And, you know, I can, I can see bits of my skull and all
this crazy stuff.
And, you know, and the police photography is very gruesome at
this point, because there's like, bloody hand prints leading
to the bathroom mirror and in my bedroom and on the sheets,
there's just, you know, kind of a creepy amount of blood,
knowing where it was coming from, you know, yeah. So then I
kind of drift into a
some sort of state where I'm not again. I'm not even necessarily
super conscious at this point.
Caitlin Van Mol: Then there was a knock at the apartment door.
Unknown: It was a public safety officer, because the bull that
tripped the fire alarm,
Paul: he shot through the wall that had the fire the fire alarm
attached to it. But I'm in my room. He's back. He hid all his
guns. He shut my door in public safety stands in our doorway to
the whole apartment. It's like kind of half kitchen, half
living room area. So it's this woman says, you know, oh, your
fire alarms going off, you know, why? And Mark kind of just goes,
Oh, I was smoking an e cig, you know, he's sort of trying to lie
his way out of this. And she goes, I smell something burnt,
you know, that's assumingly, that's like the gunpowder, or,
you know, something like that. And he goes, Yeah, burnt a
pizza. And she goes, Oh, there's blood everywhere. Oh, my
roommate had a bloody nose.
I've had bloody noses before. It isn't like cool. How much blood
was there visible to her? There was a pretty odd shaped like
wisp of blood on the linoleum that she that was what she
pointed out. To my knowledge, you didn't see this stuff on the
walls, I don't think, because I don't think she just looked
around very much like she obviously missed the hole, the
hole in the wall
in our living room. But yeah, so the wisp that was there very
much could have been a nose, absolutely okay. And then the
one that kind of baffles me is that she actually saw the
holster of his Smith and musson on the love seat. And she goes,
Well, what's the deal with that? You know? And he goes, Oh yeah,
the gun's off campus, like it's in my car, and like my car is at
a buddy's place. And she just kind of says, Okay. And
basically.
Leaves the room at that point. But like, you know, there the
accumulation of things I think probably should have had her
explore more. I don't know if it was like as because there's
obviously like, there are student public safety officers
and then there are like, outside public safety officers. I never
got confirmation if she was maybe just like a student one.
And if that was the case, then I obviously my empathy would would
kick in there and be like, maybe she just didn't know how to
handle the situation if she was sort of starting to piece things
together. Yeah, I think it's hard to police your peers at
that age, especially 100% it's so strange. So the public safety
officer left, and at this point, Mark does make a phone call for
help, but not 911.
Mark called My roommate, Keith, and
him and his girlfriend then were summoned to the apartment under
the pretense that he said, You know, I just shot Paul. So they
get in, and I hear them enter the room, and they're basically,
you know, questioning him, kind of freaking out, flustered, and
I make my way to their voices, sort of one step at a time, and
they're like, stunned to see me, like walking around. Obviously,
I probably look, you know, like a psychopath.
And this is basically where there was all this time devoted
to convincing mark to call and sort of own this. And his first
instinct was to say, let's go to the hardware store and, like,
patch the holes, you know, and paint over them, and then, like,
in between, sort of saying, let's do that, he was sort of
saying, like, Oh, I'm gonna be scrubbing toilets for the rest
of my life. Like he kind of had this inclination that he was,
like, going to get in like, deep, deep trouble. I'm assuming
that meant he thought he was, like, going to jail. And then
meanwhile, I'm like, Oh, I have a haircut tomorrow, and like,
maybe she can just, like, cut around the hole I, you know, I'm
not there mentally at all, though I'm beginning to like
realize these big truths, like this is the last time we're all
gonna see each other again. Like things like that were starting
to sort of come into focus. So that was a very uncanny moment,
very surreal moment, while Paul realized their relationships
would all be changed forever. It was just starting to sink in how
injured he actually was. I was like, it was very weird, because
I thought I was going to die,
obviously. And I was like, Well, I'd rather that happen than me
be half of like myself, you know? I mean, like, it's a weird
thing I have where I'm like, Well, if something gets, like,
mildly scuffed, I'll just get a new one that was running. Like,
that was a thought, for sure. Yeah, I'm you can't really do
that with your life, yeah, I know. And that and so, like,
that was just where I was at. My Psyche was, like, totally
not a human person thinking it was very much someone who just
had, like, severe trauma, not even like emotional trauma, like
brain trauma. It was like someone hit restart, but then,
like, also put it in a blender, you know, and shook everything
up. Yeah. Did you ever think to call 911
that like didn't even really cross my mind. I was again so
the like
I felt like such a bystander, watching them interact with each
other and such like part of me was like, ethereally above
myself,
and that bystander mode, like, prevented me from basically
thinking I could interact with them in any significant way,
like I legitimately felt like I wasn't there. And then Keith's
girlfriend, she she goes into Keith's room and notices the
bullet holes, and, you know, really starts to sob. You can
hear her, you know, with the her that she shuts the door and kind
of takes a minute to sort of take all that in, and then Keith
kind of goes on to
persuade mark to finally do it. And I think after arguing for a
while, he realized that he was outnumbered and that it was the
situation was being stretched a little too thin. I think he kind
of gave in. Mark finally called for help two hours after he shot
Paul. Yeah. I mean, he essentially was being selfish.
You know, he was like, I'm going to be
scrubbing toilets. Was something he said a lot. Basically, he was
trying to find ways for me to agree to help him get out of it.
You know, who's to say if he really knew the severity of it?
But I legitimately think he was concerned more about his own
life than than mine. At the time, I think that was his only
hold up. And when Mark did call for help.
Caitlin Van Mol: He didn't just dial 911
Paul: he called public safety. Do you remember if he had to
look up that number? He probably did, because I don't know it.
Yeah, yeah, 911 I know that one. We know that one's pretty,
pretty, yeah. So then they kind of, you know, but, and then once
this happens, it's sort of the wheel is spinning. You know, the
corrections are happening. Though, he is asked by one of
the cops, like, Why'd it take two hours? And he, you know, he
by now, though he's in like, totally accountability mode.
He's like, Yeah, I just, I was afraid, you know, he just, he
answers very truthfully. While all this is happening, Paul's
phone rang. So my girlfriend called me while the cops were
there at my in my apartment, and I basically, she's like, well,
what are we doing tonight, you know? And I was like, oh, you
know, Mark just shot me, you know, I was like, the first one
to break that news to her, which is very crazy feeling to be to
say the words, first of all, like, yeah, it's a weird thing
to say, and to actually, like, mean, it, Paul was loaded into
an ambulance and taken to the hospital. So, you know, they
basically cut my clothes off because we don't know if there
was, you know, how many shots there were, that was still a
question. We didn't know if the bullet was still, like in my
head, because I had this large, like hematoma behind me from
falling into those chairs. And so I'm basically, like, in
trauma mode. You know, they gave me CAT scans and things like
that, and that's when I definitively find out that the
bullet bounced off my head. And then all the doctors were first,
they were surprised I was talking, and then they were they
were telling me, like, by the way, like bullets bounce off of
you. You know, they're like, we've just never seen this
before.
Caitlin Van Mol: Hilarious. Can you, like, fix it?
Paul: And one woman thought I tried to kill myself. She's
like, she was like, very angry with me. Oh, well, that's not. I
was like, now's not really a good time. I was like, I swear I
didn't do this. Once doctors assessed Paul's situation, they
told him, to no one's surprise, he would have to have surgery.
When I heard that, like surgery was the only option, you know, I
was like, I was a little scared by that. For sure, surgery is,
like, definitely a big fear of mine. I was just like, Okay,
well, this happened. Now these other secession of events need,
need to happen like this to get fixed. You know, yeah, and fixed
is obviously a loose word, because nothing was necessarily
fixed. That was a craniotomy. So they removed parts of my skull,
fixed what they had to fix, and then put my skull back together.
Paul's girlfriend, Anna, had called his family, and they all
gathered at the hospital, including his dad. From the
book, I know you didn't have a great relationship with your
dad, yeah, absolutely. So what was it like having him there,
yeah, like, like you said it, there was obviously a lot of,
like, friction in our in my childhood, between me and him,
and more, mostly with my mom and my sisters, like, with me, it
was more he was just sort of absent. And kind of could be
cruel sometimes, but, you know, not to a point where, like, it
raised any alarms, but, you know, just normal, like, kind of
absent, bad dad stuff. I mean, they got divorced when I was 16,
him being there, I knew made, made it so that this was, like
an event, you know, and I was at the center of that.
Were they? I mean, how did everyone get along? They, they,
they tried to get along. He doesn't have a good sense of,
like, personhood. So, like, obviously, I just got out of
brain surgery, and like, it wasn't on his mind to, like,
mute his phone or anything. So like, his phone kept going off,
like, and he's probably got hard of hearing a little bit as all
like, older men get, it was just blaring when it would go off.
And like my sister, being a nurse would be like dad. And
what are you doing? You know, shut that off. The now is like
the worst time as far as stimulus is concerned for Paul.
So there was that, there was the lack of like awareness, you
know, whereas he would post like pictures of me, you know, with
my head all bandaged up to his Facebook friends, like with my
kids today, which because, like, to him, it's, he's not usually
with his kids, you know. And so, like, he meant it to get
attention, obviously, but that was his way of sort of showing
affection, as if, like an alien, you know, it's the old, the old
joke where it's like aliens would observe something and then
they try to recreate it, yeah, that's kind of how he was with
parenting, you know. And he's like, how many staples Do you
think you have? I'm like, I don't know, man. And I'm like,
nine. And he's like, Oh, you have 19. And guess what? Like,
that was my jersey number when I played baseball. And this is,
like, everything always, like, has to go back, you know, cool
dad, yeah. So it was just, you know, it was just stuff like
that, yeah.
And again, like we're on much, much better terms now, like,
especially lately, he actually it talks to all of us now, like
he actually goes to events now, like he's invited to stuff. Like
we're we're all relatively cordial. Do you think you would
be in this place with your dad if you hadn't got shot? Um, I
think where we are now is is totally based off of him and my
mom's relationship. Well, like, I don't think what happened he
still doesn't get what happened to me. He thinks it was not as
traumatic as it really was. He does not understand how severe
it was. He doesn't know how severe the injury was. He
doesn't know the sort of emotional stuff. I still, to
this day, go through that sort of thing. After eight days in
the hospital, Paul was released to go home. My mom had just
bought a new house with her partner, who is not she. He
broke up with her now because of me, basically, he was like, I
just can't deal with your life. So now she's with someone she
has known for a very long time, and he's very awesome. But at
the time, it was this other guy, yeah, so they bought a house
together, and so I had, like, barely been there, barely seen
it, and now I have to, like, live there for X amount of
months. She just completely took care of me, and I was
essentially a child. I say coming home from the hospital is
basically, like the hour after you get a cavity filled, but
it's like times 10 and it's all the time. I basically had all
the staple stuff for a severe TBI. A TBI is a traumatic brain
injury, so, like, cognitively, that was what we were saying.
You know, it's it's the memory, it's the problems thinking
clearly, focusing for long periods of time, like I can do
little bursts, especially early on, it was very little bursts,
sensory, sensory perception over simulation. As far as like
physical attributes, my balance and coordination were really
poor, and still are I got like the TBI plus PTSD thing is all
like the rage personality changes, you know, anger Paul
had been shot just six weeks shy of graduation, and all of the
end of college events Were starting up. The school was
like, wrapping up its stuff. And I'm like, I can see it from
afar, but I can't be there. You know? That was really, really
tough, especially being an English major. There was like,
the award ceremony night, the celebration for all English
majors, combined with the FOMO of missing out on the end of the
memories of the end of school with, like the people you've
known for four years who now didn't even know what happened
to you. Like that was troubling, too in its own right. Like I was
just gone, I just dropped off the face of the earth to them,
but you didn't even tell your professors. So, yeah, allegedly,
one of my professors found out through the Star Tribune, like
the newspaper, you know, two weeks after they flubbed a lot
of the handling of it, they talked down the severity of it a
lot, and they just said, like, a student was injured from a
firearm, like, going off it. Basically it was, like, a
Facebook post and, like, that was it. But, like, okay, so I
understand they want to protect themselves publicly, yeah, but
to not even be like, dear professors of this kid that
would fell, that fell to my girlfriend and my mom, they had
to reach out to them all. They didn't understand, like they
still didn't get the severity, like it was so hard to convince
people that it was bad brain surgery. I don't know what else
I need to tell you. I know they got to that point they're like,
No, I don't think you understand. He cannot come back
to class. He cannot write your paper. He's not going to do with
the homework assigned like there's this is not happening.
So how did you graduate? My mom and girlfriend, Anna, convinced
that all to basically take incomplete stuff, slash,
wave it, you know. And because I had A's in all the classes
anyway, prior to that, they're like, Okay, yeah, you can
graduate. And so I did end up walking may 20. So I got shot
April 7, and walked for graduation on May 20.
Caitlin Van Mol: Meanwhile, Mark did not walk with this class.
The university's current weapons policy says people who have a
valid permit to carry a firearm and to comply with all legal
requirements associated with such permit may keep the firearm
in a trunk or glove compartment of their locked motor vehicle.
It also states violation of this policy may result in discipline
or other sanctions up to and including immediate termination
of employment, expulsion from the university, trespass from
campus.
Paul: They expelled Marx that he did.
Not walk with us on graduation. Like, that's a good start, you
know. And then that summer, they then, by some means, reversed
that decision, whether that was Mark coming to them with a
lawyer. His family was very wealthy, so they have some sort
of leeway, right? And I don't know, like, I'm assuming they
just sent him a diploma, right? Because he didn't like walk, but
that was quite a slap in the face from from both entities,
both from Mark, because that's not the behavior of somebody
who, like, cares about my feelings or accept repercussions
for his actions. Yeah, that's someone who's trying to, like,
get on with their life, however, whatever means they can do it
right, like defending themselves. And then from the
school's perspective, I thought, okay, so you're morally okay
with a student shooting another student. That just that's what
that means, you know. So that was, like I said, that was a
slap in the face. I mean, as far as accountability goes,
literally nothing changed for them,
Mark, I can't know his interior life, nothing, nothing in his
exterior life changed, but I couldn't speak to any regret he
might have or guilt he might feel. Paul did sue mark, which
then got kicked to his parents, homeowners insurance. Yeah, we
sued mark, but technically, we sued like the second largest
insurance company in the world, like it's like a billion dollar
insurance company and and so Mark's parents were also
divorced, which is something we kind of bonded over when we were
getting to know each other. But so what that meant for us,
though, in this situation, they both had a policy from the same
company, so the pool of damages was like double, basically, well
potential damages. That was just a good thing for my lawyer to
sort of have in mind. It didn't necessarily work out that way,
because, as Paul learned, suing a huge company isn't a walk in
the park, it's hell, because they'll send their goons after
you. They'll just have private investigators watch you when.
You never know when really so you're incentivized not to get
better. Basically, you're incentivized to hide, to
disappear. Yeah, you have to try it, to try in secret, basically,
you know, getting a job was scary because I had to, like,
put myself out there and be interviewed and brag about
myself, but knowing in the back of my mind that there's this
other entity who could get these transcripts and use that against
me, which they did. Would they use just even the fact that you
had a job against you absolutely anything, even if it's like they
would spin anything and everything to their benefit, you
could do no right? So you're better off just trying to
disappear, which is what I tried to do. Effectively, the
insurance company also sent Paul to a battery of cognitive tests
and assessments by doctors that worked for the company I had to
do, I had to treat it like a full time job to like, be tested
and humiliated. And it was, you know, nine hours of them doing
various mental cognitive tests and vocational tests and and
you'd speak to their counselor. I'm doing air quotes,
rehabilitation specialists you know, who would Gage you, and
they're all hired by insurance companies trying to disprove
that anything is wrong with you. And then in these actual tests,
I didn't hide anything. I was very honest. I never, obviously
never told why. During the actual tests, I tried my
hardest. I just did them poorly. I was, I was cognitively
disabled. I have an invisible disability, you know, like,
everything you say to any medical professional is
scrutinized. First, they make you sign a waiver saying that
they you realize they're not there to treat you. So they're
off to a good start there.
They're like, you know, you realize I'm here just to
basically say you're wrong, and you have to sign acknowledge,
yeah, I realize you're not here to give me advice. And so, you
know, we have our people. I do that with legitimate companies
who do that. And so I got actual data, yeah. And so then if it
ever went to a jury, then they would have these two data sets,
you know, and one would say he had a severe TBI, he's got PTSD
and this and that, and this and that, and one would say he had a
mild TBI, and he's had PTSD his whole life, because his parents
got divorced. During this process, Paul had to give a
deposition, being in Paul's position where his life was
involuntarily changed completely might make anyone angry, but
feeling increased anger and personality changes are also
very common effects of a traumatic brain injury, and I
threw up during my deposition without.
That was partly stress. I think the anxiety of it all, you know,
my voice did the thing where I was in a different register in
the deposition, is it kind of like testifying, where, like,
one lawyer goes and then the other lawyer is, like, you're
lying, or whatever. Mine could step in if he had to, but it was
mostly the other guy. He mine. Mine said he wanted to do
something unique, where he wanted me to get angry, and he
didn't tell me that ahead of time. He didn't prepare me for
that, and I did. I chewed the other one out. I basically
yelled at him multiple times, and he's like, See, my client
has a TBI. He's got PTSD. One symptom is rage, and he's
yelling at you right now, like he did that as a superpower for
me, typically, they don't want you to get angry. But mine was
like, See, he's affected.
Unknown: We're gonna be right back.
Paul: Paul's family was extremely supportive, but the
changes in his mood and the fact that they didn't seem to be
improving, worried them it's human nature to want to help
somebody in recovery. But then there comes a point where they
think that you should be fine by that point, and then maybe
you're actually not fine. It was really tough when, like, I
looked somewhat normal, but then all the case was going on. I was
really deep into, like, my PTSD and my personality was really
altering. In my mind. I had a lot of these spirals based off
of, like, I'd be overstimulated, that I'd be thinking about the
case. And then, you know, my my fuse was short, all these, like,
these big swirling things were spiraling inside me, but I
looked fine on the outside, right. And so when, then, then,
when my parents would be like, well, how come you haven't made
that breakthrough yet? This. That was what really
struck me. And I was like, Man, this really stinks. That's when
I realized how isolating a TBI is. You just feel marooned on
like brain injury Island. The best thing to do in that
situation would be like to communicate it right at the same
time it's inhibiting your communication skills. So like
and TBI is are tricky, because in theory, like, I could be
struggling, oh, I will be struggling with this forever,
and it could get way worse at any time. And that's kind of the
scary thing about this,
is like, we just never know when it will break one way or the
other, you know. And thankfully, in the aggregate, till now, it's
been breaking, you know, positively, but you know, at a
20 year mark, it could just all fall apart. And you know, you
can do as much as you can to mitigate that, but it's just the
fact of the matter,
how what is it like having an invisible disability, and how do
you feel about that word? Yeah, I didn't even own it for a long
time because I was really struggled with it. I was, like,
patting myself down. Like, do I deserve to say this and like,
obviously, I, I came to the conclusion that I do because,
like, it curbs the extent of my work and play. It curbs my, you
know, interior life. It limits and it alters the way i i can
move through the world. And so like, Yes, I, I am disabled, and
the invisible disability is especially strange because the
awareness for it's just not quite there. And so like in when
I did work, my strange behaviors, you know, the kind
imp, the kind co workers would call me quiet, and the unkind
ones would kind of say, like, oh man, you must have been drunk
crazy last night, and like, because I, you know, didn't
really know how to say it. I didn't want to say it as well,
because I was, it was very much just a recent event. I just kind
of went along with it, you know. And so this one guy just thought
I was always high and drinking, and it's a party animal, when,
in reality, I just had the TBI, and I was just a strange person
because of my TBI,
yeah. And so like, I've since then, I've been trying to raise
some awareness for it. Just because they're unseen. It's
like, yeah, yeah. I think if people, like, were aware of it,
and that's why I when I say I'm a writer, I always say I'm a
disabled writer, I just feel like I kind of have to be that
spokesperson for it, yeah, because it's, I mean, just
talking with you, like, in in two hours, but short
conversation, like, I don't know you, obviously. And like,
obviously, you seem fine. Yeah, yeah. And my word retrieval has
been on point right now. Like, when I talk to my wife on walks
or something, there'll come times where I'll be like, Gosh
darn it, what is that darn word? And it'll take me till like,
three hours later, and I'll finally come up with it. So,
like, that's something I've noticed lately. And then, of
course, like there's not a whole lot of stimulus happening right
now. There's nothing going on there. Of course, if I was in
public right now, like a coffee shop, I would probably be over.
I might have to wear, like, some some glasses and headphones, but
I'm okay in my basement. When he was ready, Paul started therapy
to process what.
Happened. He tried talk therapy at first, but then he became a
guy who was interested in sexual purity. And so, like, I'm like,
Okay, we're gonna cross him off and go someplace else. So my mom
works in mental health as well, and so she's like, I know
somebody who can do EMDR if you're interested. And like I
said before I minored in psychology, so I knew what EMDR
was. We've talked a lot on the show about EMDR. EMDR stands for
eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. Early forms of
this therapy had you follow a light with your eyes going left
to right while going through each aspect of the trauma. And
by this time, we've realized that it's any bilateral
simulation. So you can do it tapping on your thighs. You can
do it mine. I did holding like nunchuck controllers, you know,
and it would vibrate in each hand. And so we transitioned to
that. And I think that starting with one and transitioning to
the other, I think was really helpful for me, because, like, I
got the best of both, really, and, yeah, I would recommend
EMDR, if you're up for it. The warning I got was, if talk
therapy is taking a truck from Minnesota to Florida working out
your trauma,
EMDR is taking a private jet. You know, you're really, are
sort of total recalling it, if it works. You're legitimately
visualizing it and being coached through it as if it were
happening. And your brain will just do what it wants to do,
like a little Plinko board. It'll land where it wants to
land. Your brain wants to solve problems, and Embr is formulated
to solve problems, but in the same way that it's more direct,
yeah. I mean, you have to be ready for that. It, yeah, isn't
it more intense? It's, it's very intense. You're out, you're out
of commission for the rest of the day. I I drank a pot of
coffee after one of them, and like, fell asleep watching stand
up comedy. It just drains you. But, I mean, for me, though, it
really did soften the blow of the antagonistic memories. It
codes them neutrally. You know, instead of being like, I'm
trauma, it rewrites their code so that you're just living
alongside them. In the same way,
me being a writer, I became the dominant voice in writing the
story, and so like now my voice, I got to kind of do the same
thing sandbox my way through it. Writing about the self really
opens up these, like valves, and you and like, your brain wants
to solve problems. And if you just let it solve problems,
you'll, you know, you'll find that it wants to give you those,
like eureka moments. And mine did both, in both things, like,
I'd be in therapy and we'd have, like, a little mini writing
workshop, and I'd go home and quick write what I learned about
myself. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think of talking about
it and writing about it, I think it was just like a feelings
exorcism, absolutely, and that's, that's, it's totally
worth it. Like, I do my some of my best thinking on paper. I've
gotten better at speaking it ever since my injury, of course,
but like, I still probably do my best thinking on the page to
this day, a huge part of Paul's support system through this was
his girlfriend, Anna. I mean, you were already together, but
this is, like, such a huge thing to go through at such a young
age as a couple. I mean, like, even your mom's boyfriend
couldn't, right, right? They broke up from it. I think it was
a lot of hers being That's just her personality and her
character. She was willing to take the roles on for whatever
reason, you know, more power to her. She delayed her own
successes coming out of school, she took the first job that
offered her money so that she would have a flexible schedule
to be able to be there in the summer with me, and then, you
know, from then on, she's worked her way up, and now she's very
established career at, like, a worldwide company, and we're
very proud of her. But like, she did not do that. She she put
herself in on hiatus to, like, make sure I was okay. And I just
think whatever it is that is, it's in her blood to do that. We
became this really uniquely designed machine that always
lands, you know, facing up, or something like that, like no
matter how it falls. The old cliche is we were forced to grow
up, you know, and more like it was, where we became aware of
how cruel the world was very quickly, in a very uniquely
cruel way. There were obviously moments where, like, the rage
got the better of me, and then those in those moments were the
ones where I would maybe explicitly blame mark me being
mad is just another way of him being in our relationship, and
we have to just both move on from that. And so like that,
that kind of flipped the switch for me to sort of start to
building that. Start building the buffer. Of like, Okay, you
something's happening. Take it easy. You know, maybe
communicate it, if you can. She was her. She was very strong
character, basically, obviously, in the in the book, she's my
girlfriend, and now we're married, yeah. How long have you
been married? We got married in October. So, oh, wow. There.
Crap. Thank you so much. It was very good. Everything was
perfect. Like, I didn't think that would happen, but it was
like the event was to a tee. Though Paul was doing well in
EMDR, and had a great support system. There was still the huge
weight of the lawsuit on his shoulders. Neither party wanted
to take it all the way to trial, but the insurance company just
wasn't budgeting. It was, I mean, it was very traumatizing.
And I often say this, and I stand by it, the four years post
shooting were worse than the shooting, absolutely 100% part
of the case was that he admitted he was guilty. So, like, we were
beyond that, and so we actually couldn't use any of the evidence
of him lying or anything like that. It wasn't admissible,
stuff. The jury would have been too skewed in my favor. So we
weren't allowed to use like he hid the guns, he took two hours,
et cetera, et cetera, because he admitted that part. But isn't
that the story? Yeah, I know what they could so they one
thing was permissible in that whole spiel. I think it was the
fact that it did take too long, but we weren't allowed to say
why. Because the judge ruled that if he had gotten me help
sooner, I might not have as severe headaches. Yeah, because,
like, obviously, I learned this later. Your brain's obviously
not supposed to be exposed to oxygen. But, yeah, it was crazy.
They even did like a $50,000 mock trial to see, like, how
much money they would allot me. So they spent so much money on
trying to give me as little money as possible, which is very
funny.
Do you think I mean, this is speculation? Did they spend just
as much money fighting you as they gave you. If I could just
do a quick math, the insurance company contracted the lawyer.
He's had to have been fairly expensive, and then they paid
for all, like the examinations, and then they paid for the mock
trial. But that lawyer had to be expensive, so yeah, they
probably paid him. What I mean, couple 100 grand, right? So it's
probably like, I don't know, 250 $300,000
total for them.
Yeah, it's a lot of, it's a lot of dough to just, they could
have just, you know, settled it a year in when it was kind of
like when we sent the demand letter. They
could have just been like, well, we can't do all that, but we can
do this and then this, they could have just saved time and
money, but I was a claim number, and they fought that claim. You
know, I'm sure there's an element of, like, maybe they'll
just go away. But with something as dramatic and traumatic as
this, they're not gonna go away. We tried to mediate it three
times, three or four times, and like, they're given like, a
number that they can go to that day. And so like, we knew, like,
the first three times, like that their number was not going to be
high enough, but I still had to sit there for like, three hours.
And like, the mediator, the mediator would say, like, well,
this is what they're thinking. You might have already been
depressed, is what they're thinking, you know. And then,
like, we'd go back and be like, well, he shot me in the head.
And he'd go over there for an hour and be like, well, you
know, Mark shot him in the head. What do you think about that?
And then they'd have to, and he's, like, he was, he came back
and said, These guys suck. He's like, these guys are crappy
people. I hate working with them. And he tried his best, you
know, he but yeah, we ended up not mediating. Of course. We
just, like, a month before the trial, they just kind of gave
in. And how did you cover the costs? In the meantime, I had to
pay them for the most part, like therapy and stuff, and like my
little visits to, like, neuroscience centers and things
like that. And I have no money, of course, but you know, my
mom's helping me here, and there was the whole like hospital
thing, was like 80 grand, something like that.
And we got them to maybe waive some of that too. My mom called
them and she was like,
He's, like, has no money. He's a college student. Like, I don't
know what you want him to do. And basically, like, they're
like, they understood that there would be a settlement, and
they're like, we'll wait for that. And of course, I knew at
some point the trial, it could have, they could have said,
you're gonna get
Unknown: 100 grand, and I'm like, oh shit, I'm screwed.
Like, I would have been screwed if that happened. Luckily, the
suit didn't go to trial, and the company settled with Paul. The
money, of course, was a huge relief, but so was having this
off his back. I think the case solving itself played a huge
part in me being able to sort of compartmentalize easier
Paul: because a lot of closure happened that day. Absolutely
like having that lingering paranoia solved a lot of issues.
It didn't solve every issue, of course, but I mean, a lot of my
stress went away that day. And I think it was visible to my
family too, like they kind of could see it. But I really felt
like, by that point, nothing could, like intimidate me
anymore. That was a huge thing I thought of. I really felt like I
am now, like the sole proprietor of like my future. You know what
I mean to put it like in that met.
Stupid metaphor. I this was a full time job for me. I had to
earn this by very strange means, but I did earn it. And in fact,
it is
measly. If I itemize everything, anybody, any sane person, would
run the other way. If I had to say, like, Okay, you have to go
through all this and then this is the check you get written.
You could rip it and run. I know that heartbeat, but you know, of
course, it still is money. It still helped a lot, and it was
like a huge relief, absolutely.
Caitlin Van Mol: But winning the lawsuit wouldn't undo the fact
that Paul is permanently changed by what happened. So Mark didn't
really face any repercussions in the end, right? And you didn't
want to press charges, right? What would justice look like for
him? Specifically, that's interesting.
Paul: It's, that's kind of, it's, it's hard to answer. So my
take on it was, I didn't want to be responsible, as you
mentioned, for any punishment, right? So I expected the big
wheel of the law would turn and sort of carry out its business
and wherever it landed with Mark, you know, so be it. I
didn't want any part of that. And so, because nothing
happened, I am okay with that. I'm okay that the one, of
course, the expulsion, I wish would have stayed. He could have
taken those credits and gone elsewhere, but he didn't, you
know, yeah, that's, that's where I'm at with that. And then, of
course, I wish the school, then also sort of had some sort of
accountability, whether that be some sort of financial thing,
offset, offsetting thing, or, or even, like,
you know, I didn't even get a formal apology. I shook the
President's hand on graduation, and I don't think they knew who
I was. Yeah, that's the main thing, that justice is strange.
I think a lot of personal injury victims think Justice is the
check. And I think I can agree with that. Like it kind of is,
and then my book is also kind of justice, because then again, I
got to be the dominant voice over everything, and, like, I
got to recode it, but also come out and and be like, you know,
this is what happened. I, you know, lived not to, not to,
like, name drop here, but I live to tell it, you know.
Thank you for the plug. I love that stuff in movies. Do you
have any idea what Mark is doing these days back then, in like
2018 I did look and it turned out we were actually living
within like 10 minutes of each other, and he was, at the time,
think, doing like, working for like a startup, like a
Midwestern startup, and that's kind of in line with what he was
going to school for. So basically, he was busy trying to
entrepreneur and
but since then, I haven't looked and then, obviously, with with
the accumulation of therapy and in time and writing,
he just no longer kind of has that real estate in my head. And
we were talking about justice earlier. And I think sometimes
that absence of thought is can be a form of justice for for me,
for him, you know, a collective moving on for the betterment of
all of our lives that are always be, like, tangentially related
to this thread, but like now they're sort of off shooting.
I'm trying, you know, I can't speak to if he's trying to do
better now, but I refuse to sort of care, I guess, about what
he's doing, and I think that is like a forgiveness and a justice
at the same time.
Caitlin Van Mol: This is live to tell,
I'm Caitlin van mol, you can follow the show on Instagram and
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to tell I'll see you in two weeks. You.