Here goes nothing...
I have always been rock solid strong. Ever since I was a little kid, my own resiliency and ability to carry on has surprised me and those around me. Now I think I have massive hemorrhaging and theres no patch or playing through the pain. I write this because I have a lot of things to get off my chest and to hopefully get some advice.
First, let me forewarn all who read this that my post is likely to be long. If you can hang on and read it in its entirety, I would appreciate it. As I will explain later, there is nobody around to listen. I don't mean nobody as in "I'm just complaining" I f*cking mean f*cking nobody. If nothing else, I hope that writing this down on the internet will serve as an effective substitute for telling an actual person. Thank you in advance.
------------------------------
If you want to know a little about my background, I served in Iraq in 2008 and Afghan in 2009 during the surge. The Iraq deployment itself wasn't bad, but Fallujah always seemed to have its surprises. Afghan was bad. I won't bore you with details, but I was in a place called NowZad in the Helmand Province. The city was completely abandoned and the ground was made of bombs. NowZad is worth researching if for no other reason than that its a good story.
WARNING - if you're PTSD is such that you cannot handle a gruesome story, DO NOT READ THE UNDERLINED PORTIONS
Anyhow, two particular incidents in Iraq and most of Afghan are the sources of my PTSD. In Iraq, an unarmored humvee carrying fuel jugs down MSR Mobile in the interior was hit by an explosive force penetrator (EFP) IED. I was the turret gunner of the lead vic on a patrol down MSR Mobile when we came up on the scene. It had just happened. Our patrol stopped just short of the burning truck and I was forced to watch as the Marines who were unlucky enough to survive the initial blast were burning alive as they tried to crawl out of the turret. I could do nothing. My responsibility was staying on the gun. Strangely, the combination of the cordite, smoke, burning JP8 and the other horrific things mixed together an smelled very much like coconut. I had to live with the smell in my MTV for weeks.
Only a month or two later, a local national came to the ECP at our FOB with her dead child. The boy had fallen into one of the fast-flowing irrigation canals and was pinned against one of the grates by the rushing water. He was missing for days and was only found when the water level subsided. Anyhow, she brings us his dead and bloated corpse, asking us to help. Of course, there was nothing we could do, but what mother would give up hope? She cried and wailed until finally we had to send out a patrol to get the local sheik to take her away. They had placed the body on one of our green fold-up cots before they later took the body away also. When the body was removed, the cot had to be disposed of for health and sanitation purposes. Strips of bluish-green flesh were left behind. Staff sergeant asked me and one other guy to take it to the burn pit, which we did. The smell defied description. I will never forget the look of the body and the sound of the wailing pain of the mother.
It was REALLY f*cking bad when I rotated back to the world, but I have improved by leaps and bounds since then, or so I thought. Lately I have been thinking that I am just as bad, but I have traded one set of symptoms for others. I think that I used to lash out, abuse alcohol, use women, and abuse myself and engage in deliberately dangerous behavior to seek that "high" that made me feel normal again... but in recent years I think I have been internalizing a lot of it for the sake of my marriage.
Anyway, FINALLY down to brass tax. Last night, I left my wife. I left my wife and now I realize that I threw away the best thing that I had going for me and the thing that I deserved the least. Heres what happened:
Bear with me. I have begun to drink
Ever since I was a small boy, I have always been a warrior. For somebody who is not also a natural-born warrior and doesn't know what it is like to live in that skin, the following may seem quite nebulous and strange. Every warrior needs a mission. I was raised true patriot. I love this country more than anything. Apparently, even more than my wife. Anyways, like a lot of people, I watched the Twin Towers fall on September 11th. Not to get all cliche, but my mission became abundantly clear as soon as the second plane hit. I didn't know it at the time, but that mission would turn into a lifestyle, and finally a way of life. Because this realization grabbed me by the sack prior to my combat-related PTSD, I know that the way of life that I seek is not a by-product of PTSD. In fact, the PTSD is in large part a by-product of the way of life, mostly because nobody has my way of life, even amongst warriors.
Fast forward to the end of my enlistment, and I knew that I was ready for the next level. I would need to go to college and be a warrior as well as a scholar to really take the fight to my enemy.
I met my wife when my PTSD was just calm enough to find a normal place in society most of the time. I had been out for less than a year, but she really seemed to take the edge off of what was left when I was around her. She was my angel and my North Star when I was lost.
She has never taken my way of life seriously. She thinks that it is a product of PTSD and that I have always been "so lost" even before I met her. I know that she can't possibly understand the gravity of the events that came before her, or the severity of the PTSD that I managed to clear up before I met her. There is also never any possible way that she can understand my way of life. I have tried sooooooo many times to try and explain it. Again, even amongst warriors, it is not understood. Who takes punishment like I did and asks for seconds? My way of life transcends any possible pain and suffering. I will never quit, and I will never stop fighting.
She always knew that I was a warrior and that I would eventually have to get back in the fight, even if she didn't understand why or take me seriously. Over the years, I have tried to compromise by substituting jobs which can be comparable (at her request)... only to find that there can be no substitute. Eventually, we both knew, my job of choice would take me overseas. This was a constant source of fighting between us and it always went unresolved. We both took an unspoken vow to table it over and over again. I think it was because we both knew that there was no solution.
So this leads to our current problem. Last week, it came to a head. She marginalized my hopes and dreams and made abundantly clear to me that she doesn't want to live overseas nor does she want a husband who does. She is 300 miles away in law school, and kicking ass at it too. You might say she has a mission of her own. So what is a man to do? Who gets to decide who's dreams are worth more than the other?
I spent the last week in tears trying to figure out the ultimate compromise. Clearly, neither one of us was willing - or so I thought. There is not room for both sets of ambitions when both require 100% dedication. So I decided that I was left with no choice but to rip off the Band-Aid. I could not allow her to give up her hopes and dreams for mine, not after she previously made it clear that she would be unhappy. One or both of us would end up resenting each other, and that is probably the most poisonous thing in a marriage.
It hurt me very deeply, but I felt forced. I called her last night and told her that I was unwilling to compromise and that I would not allow to her to do so either given her previous expression. To do so would not only be hypocritical, but hugely selfish.
We have gone back and forth the last 24 hours. At first, she begged me to let her compromise, and Jesus I should have let her! She told me that she was always willing to support me no matter what, but I felt that was not the case.
Her family has also shown me a huge amount of support over the years. They feel betrayed by me, and for that I am terribly, terribly sorry. Her father, who I respect immensely, sent me a text earlier today telling me that he can no longer contact me. He has written me off. I know that the support of her family is absolutely important, and that I have lost it. I know there is no going back; the page has turned.
I love her so much. The pain is so deep and the absence of her is so cruel that now I would do anything to have her back again. Somebody has shut off the lights and my North Star is gone for good, and my demons are closing in. f*ck the mission. Why did I do that?
All of my friends are deployed. My family has long since fractured and they all live in other states. There is nobody around. All that I can hear is the ticking of my clock in my apartment for two.
My mother and her both say this is from PTSD. Now everything is coming back to me. Everything.
I am no longer strong. The pain is coming from so many different sources at once I am not even sure what is what. All of the issues seem to blend together. I have never felt pain this deep, and it keeps getting worse. I am scared. There is nobody around to help me!
I know that it is wrong and counter productive to self-medicate but right now I need it. I am scared that once the half bottle of Jack is done and I wake up in the morning that there will be nothing left to catch me. I am out of money and out of options. If the pain is getting worse, I can't imagine how bad it will be when the sun comes up.
I have always been rock solid strong. Ever since I was a little kid, my own resiliency and ability to carry on has surprised me and those around me. Now I think I have massive hemorrhaging and theres no patch or playing through the pain. I write this because I have a lot of things to get off my chest and to hopefully get some advice.
First, let me forewarn all who read this that my post is likely to be long. If you can hang on and read it in its entirety, I would appreciate it. As I will explain later, there is nobody around to listen. I don't mean nobody as in "I'm just complaining" I f*cking mean f*cking nobody. If nothing else, I hope that writing this down on the internet will serve as an effective substitute for telling an actual person. Thank you in advance.
------------------------------
If you want to know a little about my background, I served in Iraq in 2008 and Afghan in 2009 during the surge. The Iraq deployment itself wasn't bad, but Fallujah always seemed to have its surprises. Afghan was bad. I won't bore you with details, but I was in a place called NowZad in the Helmand Province. The city was completely abandoned and the ground was made of bombs. NowZad is worth researching if for no other reason than that its a good story.
WARNING - if you're PTSD is such that you cannot handle a gruesome story, DO NOT READ THE UNDERLINED PORTIONS
Anyhow, two particular incidents in Iraq and most of Afghan are the sources of my PTSD. In Iraq, an unarmored humvee carrying fuel jugs down MSR Mobile in the interior was hit by an explosive force penetrator (EFP) IED. I was the turret gunner of the lead vic on a patrol down MSR Mobile when we came up on the scene. It had just happened. Our patrol stopped just short of the burning truck and I was forced to watch as the Marines who were unlucky enough to survive the initial blast were burning alive as they tried to crawl out of the turret. I could do nothing. My responsibility was staying on the gun. Strangely, the combination of the cordite, smoke, burning JP8 and the other horrific things mixed together an smelled very much like coconut. I had to live with the smell in my MTV for weeks.
Only a month or two later, a local national came to the ECP at our FOB with her dead child. The boy had fallen into one of the fast-flowing irrigation canals and was pinned against one of the grates by the rushing water. He was missing for days and was only found when the water level subsided. Anyhow, she brings us his dead and bloated corpse, asking us to help. Of course, there was nothing we could do, but what mother would give up hope? She cried and wailed until finally we had to send out a patrol to get the local sheik to take her away. They had placed the body on one of our green fold-up cots before they later took the body away also. When the body was removed, the cot had to be disposed of for health and sanitation purposes. Strips of bluish-green flesh were left behind. Staff sergeant asked me and one other guy to take it to the burn pit, which we did. The smell defied description. I will never forget the look of the body and the sound of the wailing pain of the mother.
It was REALLY f*cking bad when I rotated back to the world, but I have improved by leaps and bounds since then, or so I thought. Lately I have been thinking that I am just as bad, but I have traded one set of symptoms for others. I think that I used to lash out, abuse alcohol, use women, and abuse myself and engage in deliberately dangerous behavior to seek that "high" that made me feel normal again... but in recent years I think I have been internalizing a lot of it for the sake of my marriage.
Anyway, FINALLY down to brass tax. Last night, I left my wife. I left my wife and now I realize that I threw away the best thing that I had going for me and the thing that I deserved the least. Heres what happened:
Bear with me. I have begun to drink
Ever since I was a small boy, I have always been a warrior. For somebody who is not also a natural-born warrior and doesn't know what it is like to live in that skin, the following may seem quite nebulous and strange. Every warrior needs a mission. I was raised true patriot. I love this country more than anything. Apparently, even more than my wife. Anyways, like a lot of people, I watched the Twin Towers fall on September 11th. Not to get all cliche, but my mission became abundantly clear as soon as the second plane hit. I didn't know it at the time, but that mission would turn into a lifestyle, and finally a way of life. Because this realization grabbed me by the sack prior to my combat-related PTSD, I know that the way of life that I seek is not a by-product of PTSD. In fact, the PTSD is in large part a by-product of the way of life, mostly because nobody has my way of life, even amongst warriors.
Fast forward to the end of my enlistment, and I knew that I was ready for the next level. I would need to go to college and be a warrior as well as a scholar to really take the fight to my enemy.
I met my wife when my PTSD was just calm enough to find a normal place in society most of the time. I had been out for less than a year, but she really seemed to take the edge off of what was left when I was around her. She was my angel and my North Star when I was lost.
She has never taken my way of life seriously. She thinks that it is a product of PTSD and that I have always been "so lost" even before I met her. I know that she can't possibly understand the gravity of the events that came before her, or the severity of the PTSD that I managed to clear up before I met her. There is also never any possible way that she can understand my way of life. I have tried sooooooo many times to try and explain it. Again, even amongst warriors, it is not understood. Who takes punishment like I did and asks for seconds? My way of life transcends any possible pain and suffering. I will never quit, and I will never stop fighting.
She always knew that I was a warrior and that I would eventually have to get back in the fight, even if she didn't understand why or take me seriously. Over the years, I have tried to compromise by substituting jobs which can be comparable (at her request)... only to find that there can be no substitute. Eventually, we both knew, my job of choice would take me overseas. This was a constant source of fighting between us and it always went unresolved. We both took an unspoken vow to table it over and over again. I think it was because we both knew that there was no solution.
So this leads to our current problem. Last week, it came to a head. She marginalized my hopes and dreams and made abundantly clear to me that she doesn't want to live overseas nor does she want a husband who does. She is 300 miles away in law school, and kicking ass at it too. You might say she has a mission of her own. So what is a man to do? Who gets to decide who's dreams are worth more than the other?
I spent the last week in tears trying to figure out the ultimate compromise. Clearly, neither one of us was willing - or so I thought. There is not room for both sets of ambitions when both require 100% dedication. So I decided that I was left with no choice but to rip off the Band-Aid. I could not allow her to give up her hopes and dreams for mine, not after she previously made it clear that she would be unhappy. One or both of us would end up resenting each other, and that is probably the most poisonous thing in a marriage.
It hurt me very deeply, but I felt forced. I called her last night and told her that I was unwilling to compromise and that I would not allow to her to do so either given her previous expression. To do so would not only be hypocritical, but hugely selfish.
We have gone back and forth the last 24 hours. At first, she begged me to let her compromise, and Jesus I should have let her! She told me that she was always willing to support me no matter what, but I felt that was not the case.
Her family has also shown me a huge amount of support over the years. They feel betrayed by me, and for that I am terribly, terribly sorry. Her father, who I respect immensely, sent me a text earlier today telling me that he can no longer contact me. He has written me off. I know that the support of her family is absolutely important, and that I have lost it. I know there is no going back; the page has turned.
I love her so much. The pain is so deep and the absence of her is so cruel that now I would do anything to have her back again. Somebody has shut off the lights and my North Star is gone for good, and my demons are closing in. f*ck the mission. Why did I do that?
All of my friends are deployed. My family has long since fractured and they all live in other states. There is nobody around. All that I can hear is the ticking of my clock in my apartment for two.
My mother and her both say this is from PTSD. Now everything is coming back to me. Everything.
I am no longer strong. The pain is coming from so many different sources at once I am not even sure what is what. All of the issues seem to blend together. I have never felt pain this deep, and it keeps getting worse. I am scared. There is nobody around to help me!
I know that it is wrong and counter productive to self-medicate but right now I need it. I am scared that once the half bottle of Jack is done and I wake up in the morning that there will be nothing left to catch me. I am out of money and out of options. If the pain is getting worse, I can't imagine how bad it will be when the sun comes up.
