Sean Langan

He's crawled up.

So if I felt so connected to my loved ones and to all living things during captivity, it was the opposite.

When you come out, I disconnected completely.

And unfortunately, you become an expert now at cauterizing emotions to survive.

So you can also, it's very difficult to not cauterize them when you've come out.

So you feel cold, disconnected.

I also, everything I'd been suppressing in the darkness of that room, now my brain instinctively knew I was in a safe place, started processing.

So for three months, every night, I'd be lying in bed, not dreaming, just seeing people being shot and beheaded.

uh violence extreme violence playing out in my mind like a like a roll of film that's spooling out and it was the point where it had been a relief to shoot myself because it was exhausting three months of just seeing death again and again like a film so there's a price to pay and people pick up the pieces uh but it's not linear you can feel okay you know there were great moments when i left

For the next few years, I took my children on the real holidays I'd imagined taking them on.

They were equally as real and wonderful and dreamlike.

You know, I'd be in Florida or Venice with my kids.

I took them to the Arctic Circle dog sledding.

And that was the reality was more dreamlike than how I'd imagined it might be.

It was wonderful.

But you're broken.

It was like my fixer had his breakdown in captivity because he'd gone through this once before.

I then was aware you have a breakdown when you come out because you're severe.

You've been smashed to smithereens by this experience and you've got to piece yourself together.

And here's the thing, I really don't regret it because it really was to me a precious lesson in life of what's important.