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Military An Honest Assessment & An Actual Title

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Well, here goes nothing.

I actually managed to decide on a title I like this time, and figured I'd drop this bit here.

I'm different now than I was. My first deployment, I don't think it caught up with me as much. Like, I realized I had changed and that there was something about me that made me different from those that weren't there, but it was only after my second go around that it really came to light for me.
I don't like going places with lots of people. Saying it fills me with anxiety is an understatement. I'm afraid. My organs shake inside my body. I can't watch everyone or everything for danger, footsteps, voices, sounds, everything just plows me under this tidal wave of sensory overload.
Sometimes I get mad, because I realize it's happening. And I try to fight it, which only makes it worse.
But most times it just turns into a predictable pattern.
Simple things like going to the store for groceries, I'll make up some stupid excuse in my head to push it off. I hate it.
I hate standing in line and knowing someone is behind me, that the cashier is watching my hands shake, and that I know there's people around me who I can't keep my eyes on.
I start sweating, and normally I do my best to hide it, and get out as fast as possible.
None of that is normal.
My combat reflexes are still present.
Last time I was home on leave, I was with some old friends, just walking through town. Bullshitting and talking.
I didn't even realize we had walked next to a construction site, and I don't know if it was a drill or whatever. But in my mind it was a machine gun.
Not a thought, just that primal fear.
I dove into the nearest ditch.
And looked up to my friends asking me if I was okay.
Or when my youngest cousin ran up to me and tried to hug me, and I had a miniature panic attack, because the last time I was that close to a kid his age had been looking down at the hole I had put in his head.
I don't talk about that. I've never told a soul.
In fact, it makes me nervous and uncomfortable just saying it, even though he had a hand grenade and wouldn't stop coming at our check point, no matter what we did.
I avoid people, I avoid situations, places I'm unfamiliar with, everything.
I do it subconsciously and then make up excuses for myself as to why I'm doing it.
It's become a constant interference on my every day life, and I think that's how I ended up here.
I don't know how bad it is for everyone else, but on my worst days, it's pretty terrible.
 
Hello, and welcome, Disgruntledgrunt1577!

I"m sorry for your pain. Your depth of being able to honestly speak of difficulties has opened my heart to understand some of your suffering. I want you you to know that you are a very good person, who has served your country well.

Your courage to see what is going on with you, and your ability to open to this forum for support, is a big step. Congratulations!

All of our journeys have their uniqueness, and we all experience PTSD symptoms. As I have had a different cause of my symptoms, than you, I believe you can manage your condition and increase your enjoyment in life. (If I can do it, anyone ca.) it takes patience and perseverence.
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I send my support to you! Keep posting, keep connected;.you have landed in a good place.I hope you find other Vets on this site.. Thank you!
 
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That took a lot of courage to post!! Thanks for your honestly. I wish government leaders, and regular people, who send people off to war would read the affects.

You know I'm not a veteran, but bad ptsd days are terrible. I stay in apartment to avoid people, and feel safe. In control.
 
<chuckling> You'll find the first one very apt, then.

That's the simplified version. The longer version, which includes combatPTSD stress-cup (Oh a whole 'nother level? Of course there is ;) When has shit ever been easy?), is on the homepage. Mil training and experience is just another baseline of stress added. Exact same concept. Just a lil less wiggle room.

The second one is a f*ck load of info. All useful, just a helluva lot to process.
 
I probably won't look into it tonight honestly. I'm disgruntled and frustrated. But I will make a point to look into it tomorrow, I really appreciate you taking the time to share them with me. But I feel like if I was to start looking into all that now, it would only make me think about things I don't wanna think about at the moment.
 
You have too, or else it'll take you under.
I'm a highly unsociable person.
I've always been quiet unless I need to be loud.
Especially since I got home, and realized how different I was from everyone who wasn't there.
At home, I don't fit in.
I'm a tattooed thing with these very visible scars in the eyes of my family, that besides my father, can't understand.
I was never a conformist, but when your mom looks at you like a monster because you have the reaper tattooed on your arm, with a banner around him that says "the devil takes care of his own", it's a weird feeling.
And she can't understand any of it.
I will never speak to her or anyone I love about any of it.
Partly because I'm afraid.
I push women away that fall for me, I'm too afraid that if they saw the side of me I try to hide, that they'll never look at me the same. I don't think they'd be able to lay in bed with me if they knew that I'm a highly trained and very cold killing machine, that learned to kill to survive. Women, men, children. Whatever got in my way, I carved a path of hate and destruction through with my rifle.
Every time a friend fell the hate grew more.
And that fire still resides in me.
I don't know how I'll ever marry a woman.
Or hold my unborn child in the future.
I can't see myself being a normal person anymore.
And all of this is a very honest confession, I guess it's just kinda pouring out. So excuse the rant, but I hope you can appreciate the opening of old wounds here and bearing sins for everyone to see.
 
Not a vet here...but since I had a gun pulled on me when I was 4, I've had agoraphobia off and on.

Speaking very specifically of checkout lanes, my former therapist told me to get in front of the buggy.
I had a panic attack in which I was looking for improvised weapons in the Mall-Wart checkout lane shelves...after I'd finally gone for groceries at 0100.
I got boxed in.

You say you are a highly trained killing machine. That's one aspect, one part of you. It isn't all of you by a long shot.

...that feeling of separation from everyone, that's part of PTSD...I call it the life-size hamster ball?

I have the feeling that what I have been through is so outside the realm of what most people experience that I'm separated from most people. I can't connect properly with a lot of people.
But I am way better at connecting than I used to be. It can be worked on.

My fiancée was once a killing machine...I love him immensely.
 
Some damn motherf*cker around here keeps telling me better out than in. He's a vet who seriously knows his shit, and he's right much as I hate to admit it. ;) Not talking about shit worked for years, not thinking, just box it up and put it away... As long as you include going seriously off rez "working". <snicker> Oh yeah that worked f*cking outstanding. Still working on the talking thing. I can talk about just about anything that doesn't really matter. But it's talking about the shit that does matter that helps. Leaves me feeling exposed as all hell, but helps.
 
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