What Tim did was incredibly disgusting and gratuitously malicious and I can see why you feel better being out of the room with him.
The knowledge from your studies will come back to you. You have simply mislaid the labels. Try playing with the ideas that you have been working with ... you may find yourself connecting to other parts of the memories and thus reconstructing the links. That sometimes works for me.
I have never been in a literal fight for my life against an intelligent enemy, so I can't say that I've ever gone through anything as scary as what you did in Los Angeles -- but I have nearly lost my life a couple of times by accident and a couple of other times saved the lives of others, so I do know what that sort of thing must feel like. What I usually find in these crises is utter rational calculation: external events slow to a crawl because I am thinking very rapidly, and I can do anything within my physical limits without consideration of effort or pain ... then, when the crisis is over and my adrenaline levels return to normal, or when the berserkergangen fades (in fights I literally go berserk sometimes), my body feels cold and I get the sweats and shakes -- sometimes I have to sit down -- and I think about what could have happened and am utterly terrified.
It's like this: when the danger is present I don't have the time for fear; I know that anything that makes me hesitate could be fatal. When the danger is gone, then I emotionally react to the occurrence. Crying, stuttering, and shivering are all strong possibilities then, when it's over.
Feeling frightened after the danger is past is not cowardice. It is sanity.
Cowardice is when you let your fear get in the way of effectively meeting the threat.
The knowledge from your studies will come back to you. You have simply mislaid the labels. Try playing with the ideas that you have been working with ... you may find yourself connecting to other parts of the memories and thus reconstructing the links. That sometimes works for me.
I have never been in a literal fight for my life against an intelligent enemy, so I can't say that I've ever gone through anything as scary as what you did in Los Angeles -- but I have nearly lost my life a couple of times by accident and a couple of other times saved the lives of others, so I do know what that sort of thing must feel like. What I usually find in these crises is utter rational calculation: external events slow to a crawl because I am thinking very rapidly, and I can do anything within my physical limits without consideration of effort or pain ... then, when the crisis is over and my adrenaline levels return to normal, or when the berserkergangen fades (in fights I literally go berserk sometimes), my body feels cold and I get the sweats and shakes -- sometimes I have to sit down -- and I think about what could have happened and am utterly terrified.
It's like this: when the danger is present I don't have the time for fear; I know that anything that makes me hesitate could be fatal. When the danger is gone, then I emotionally react to the occurrence. Crying, stuttering, and shivering are all strong possibilities then, when it's over.
Feeling frightened after the danger is past is not cowardice. It is sanity.
Cowardice is when you let your fear get in the way of effectively meeting the threat.
What happens afterward is simply winding down.
You are not a coward.
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