Off Beat

A rhythm-impaired veteran walks into a church basement and tries to heal. The drum does not consent.

When I tell people I see a therapist, they usually nod like it’s a smart life choice. Then I keep talking, and you can watch it happen in real-time—the slow dawning: oh. That’s why.

I’m not in therapy for maintenance. I’m in therapy because I tried to use my brain like a Swiss Army knife and ended up stabbing myself in the soul. I am, structurally, a Roomba with PTSD—bumping into the same wall for years, announcing with confidence, “Obstacle detected,” and doing it again anyway.

Charlotte—my therapist, spiritual bail bondsman, reluctant co-pilot through my psychic demolition derby—has been quietly trying to save my life for a while now. She has the kind of face that makes you want to confess things you haven't done yet. Unflappable, wise, and so gentle it makes you suspicious.

I sit on her couch like I’m waiting to be sentenced. Sometimes I talk. Sometimes I freeze. Sometimes I ask if we can pretend I’m someone else and she agrees, which is both therapeutic and deeply unsettling.

So when Charlotte looked at me with her “I’m about to ruin your day in the name of growth” face and said, “I wonder if you’d consider joining the veterans' drum circle,” I knew I was in trouble.

She said it like it was a normal thing. Like I wouldn’t immediately imagine a bunch of middle-aged men in cargo shorts pounding congas in a church basement while someone cried in the corner and someone else had a flashback to Kandahar.

“Led by another vet,” she offered, as if shared experience might smooth the edges. And in fairness—it kind of did.

That part wasn’t the problem.

I nodded. I said yes. I left her office feeling like I’d just agreed to try on sandals in public.

Fast forward to Thursday night.

The drum circle meets in a room that smells like incense, damp carpet, and repressed feelings. A small group of veterans, all at different stages of trying not to implode, sat in a loose ring with various drums cradled between their knees like emotional support bongos.

I didn’t feel out of place. Not in the way I usually do. Not in the “I’m the wrong species for this gathering” way. These were my people—at least in the abstract. We had walked through different fires but carried the same kind of smoke in our clothes.

No, the alienation came later. Not from being a vet. From being a rhythmless goon in a sea of wounded percussion.

The facilitator—Joanna—was the kind of warm and grounded that instantly makes me want to flee. She looked like someone who owns multiple shawls and believes “holding space” is an activity. She handed me a small hourglass-shaped drum, the goat-skin top slightly sticky to the touch, and smiled at me like she was about to midwife my inner child.

She said things like, “There’s no judgment here.” Which is always the prelude to judgment. Like “I don’t mean to offend you…” or “You’re brave for wearing that.”

“This isn’t a test,” Joanna said. “Drumming is instinctive. Everyone has rhythm.”

Which I heard as: If you don’t, you’re broken in a way even the hippies can’t fix.

She tapped out a warm-up:

ting-ting-ting-bong-ting-ting-bong-ting-bong.

It was like a heartbeat, or a nursery rhyme, or an invocation I hadn’t been initiated into. Around me, the others picked up the beat. Some with confidence. Some like they’d done this before. One guy closed his eyes and drummed like he was exorcising demons.

I hovered above my drum like a man preparing to bless a pie. My palms were already clammy. My armpits had gone thermonuclear. My thighs stuck to the vinyl chair like half-dried glue. I could feel every whisper of breath in the room, the way the rhythm buzzed under my skin but refused to enter. My body decided it was better to drown in sweat than face the music.

“Just do what you feel,” Joanna encouraged.

What I felt was shame, then panic, then an overwhelming desire to fake a seizure. Instead, I offered a single, tentative tap that sounded like a mosquito auditioning for Swan Lake. The drum gave back a sad plok, like it had tasted my energy and found it lacking.

“Try just the bass notes,” she said gently.

I tried. I really did. I gave the drum a few low thuds. My palms stung, the taut skin on the drumhead a whisper of resistance that mocked rather than welcomed. The sound was muted, like tapping a bruise. The drum absorbed my effort like a therapist absorbs your story—without judgment, but also without applause.

Here’s the thing: I’m good at certain types of knowing. I can pass a polygraph just by making eye contact. I can smell when someone’s about to ask for help moving. I once scored in the 99th percentile on a standardized test just by recognizing patterns in how the questions were written.

But in that circle—surrounded by veterans pounding the rhythm of their grief, rage, and recovery—I had nothing. No cleverness. No camouflage. No beat.

Just a hollow drum between my knees and a slow, rising certainty in my chest:

I’m still broken in ways I don’t yet understand.

“Like you mean it!” shouted Jennifer, a Marine vet with forearms like rebar. “Show that drum who’s boss!”

So I tried again. I struck harder. I summoned my inner Viking. I imagined I was sending smoke signals to my ancestors. My fingers tingled from the jolt. A puff of dust lifted from the drumhead like it was sighing in disappointment.

Nothing.

The drum remained unmoved. Unimpressed. Unchanged.

I am not the boss.

The drum is.

And maybe—maybe—that’s the whole point.

Maybe healing doesn’t come from dominance. Maybe it’s not about proving you’re better, braver, more recovered than anyone else in the circle. Maybe healing is just showing up with your broken rhythm and your slippery hands and your terror of looking stupid—and tapping anyway.

Even if your beat is off.
Even if your face is red.
Even if you’re the only one there who feels like a rhythm-less fraud in combat boots.

After an hour of offbeat flailing and rhythmic disassociation, we closed the circle with a grounding exercise, which mostly involved deep breathing and trying not to make eye contact with my own shame.

My palms tingled like they’d held something radioactive. My knees ached. My ego was curled up like a dying spider.

I thanked Joanna like she’d just performed a mildly traumatic surgery. I nodded at the others. I did not speak. I did not make plans to return.

But here’s the strange thing: I walked out feeling a little less defended. A little more human. Like maybe being the worst drummer in the circle didn’t disqualify me from the group.

Maybe it earned me the right to stay.

I don’t know if I’ll go back.

But for one hour last week, I sat with a bunch of other broken souls and tried to bang my way back to something true. And even though my drum sounded like a squirrel thudding against a screen door, I kept trying.

And maybe—just maybe—that’s what healing is.

Not finding the beat.
But refusing to stop listening for it.
Even when it never comes.
Even when you’re pretty sure the drum hates you.
Even when the voice in your head sounds an awful lot like Charlotte whispering, “Keep going.”

Which, for now, is enough percussion for one lifetime.