This article originally appeared on VICE Canada

It was my last night in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, where I had been living for a month as part of a three month working holiday. I had left a friend’s party, very drunk at around three in the morning. I got out of a cab at Rustaveli Avenue, the main drag in the downtown core, and stumbled to the studio apartment I was renting and passed out in bed.

An hour or so later, I was awoken by banging on my door. I looked out the window and saw a young woman, alone, in the courtyard of the centuries-old apartment building in which I was staying. She was shouting something in Georgian, I couldn’t understand, but she sounded distressed. I opened the door and asked what was wrong. She tried to force her way inside, wedging herself in the doorframe as I tried to close it. Two men ran from around the corner, into my apartment, and threw me to the ground. “Give us your money!” they yelled in English.

“Take anything you want,” I pleaded. I only had twenty Georgian Lari in my wallet, the equivalent of about ten dollars Canadian, a day’s wage for many Georgians, but certainly not enough for anyone to justify a home invasion. They became increasingly aggressive. One of the men grabbed a large kitchen knife from the counter and pushed my head against the ground, repeatedly stabbing the floor inches from my face and demanded more money as the other two ransacked my apartment.

He pulled my head back and pressed the knife firmly against my throat. The girl handed me pen and paper and they told me to write down the PIN for my bank cards and handed me my phone and instructed me to enter my password. They reset my phone to factory defaults (I’m assuming so they couldn’t be tracked with security apps), led me to the bathroom, shut the door, and turned off the lights.

When I emerged, they were gone and my apartment was trashed. Everything of value was stolen—my passport, computer, phone, and seemingly valueless things like my belt and a pair of cheap sneakers.

I walked to a high-end hotel next door in a state of shock and asked the receptionist called to call the police who showed up promptly and escorted me to the police station, where I spent about 15 hours, giving statements and filling out paperwork, all of which had to be painstaking translated between Georgian to English.

Georgia has a weak economy by European standards and tourism is one of its most lucrative industries. Crimes against tourists, especially Westerners, aren’t taken lightly. The police seemingly used all of their available resources to work on the investigation and apprehended the suspects the next day. I had everything returned to me except a few miscellaneous items including my sneakers, which I believe one of the assailants was wearing in the police line up.

The legal process seemed to be expedited on my behalf and I was able to leave the country two days after the robbery. I was told the thieves had confessed and agreed to four-year prison sentences, plus probation. I was wired some cash by friends and family and bought a flight to Istanbul.

Since I had already paid for my transport and accommodations, I continued to travel for two months, but I am not sure why. I found little to no interest in attractions or sightseeing. I wandered around Rome aimless and broke, I didn’t take a tour or step inside a museum. I opted to drink alone in a bar in Krakow instead of visiting Auschwitz—the reason I had gone to Poland in the first place. I spent three weeks in Budapest and barely left the apartment I was renting.

I still can’t quite articulate what effect the attack had on me upon returning to Toronto. I sought therapy on the advice those close to me. A diagnosis proved difficult for the therapists I consulted with, who said I didn’t have PTSD. I was not having trouble sleeping or nightmares. I wasn’t triggered into anxiety attacks or flashbacks. They offered no explanation for how I was feeling—the best label I was offered for my mental state was “lingering trauma-related symptoms.”

I felt socially isolated, as if no one understood what I had been through, which led me to feel a lack of empathy towards others. I believed anyone who hadn’t experienced a traumatic event like what I had been through was naive or a coward. This made me angry. Anger became my default emotion in times of stress.

Sometimes I would think everything was fine and I was my typical, cheerful self, before slipping into episodes of deep depression. I partied in an effort to self-medicate. I drank every night, doing coke and MDMA more and more frequently. My behaviour was becoming increasingly erratic and self destructive. Friends commented on how confident and outgoing I had become since returning from my trip, but they were confusing confidence with a loss of inhibition. When I would go social events, people would ask me to tell them my harrowing story, prefacing their request by asking if I felt comfortable sharing. I would say it was fine and indulge them. This attention made me feel that what I had endured had been worth it. This attention made me feel special and interesting and brave, as I continued to tell myself the attack had no effect on me, suppressing the emotions I was experiencing. Once I had shared my experience with most of my acquaintances, this attention began to diminish and I felt even more alone.

An image taken while Nick Martinello was vacationing in Rome.

I continued to get fucked up. I would go to parties or the bar jovial and in high spirits, only to end up crying alone afterwards, sometimes at home, sometimes in public. It was pathetic.

One night I was by myself in a parking lot, drunk and attempting to unlock my bicycle when the key got stuck. I struggled with the key but the lock would not give. I snapped and started punching and kicking a wall as hard as I could while shouting incoherently. I fell to the ground, writhing and screaming and sobbing uncontrollably. I hyperventilated until I was out of breath. I was soon surrounded by police officers. They asked me if I was on drugs, wanted to kill myself, or go to a hospital. I said no. I told them what I had gone and was going through. One of the officers told me that these sort of breakdowns happened to cops all the time. They drove me home in the back of a cruiser. I felt so ashamed. Thrashing around on the asphalt was more terrifying than being threatened with murder. Nothing can quite describe how horrific it is to lose grip of your sanity. Afterwards, I became very paranoid it would happen again. I decided to turn my life around.

When people perceive you as a traumatized victim, they tell you that there is no way to heal on your own. You need therapy. Maybe I am cheap or naive or stupid, but I didn’t feel like shelling out thousands of dollars on therapy, when I hadn’t yet attempted to take control of my life under my own volition.