The Sad Dutchman

[Darksoul]

Dear all,

I was deployed in the former yugoslavia as part of the Dutch signal batallion. I guess things already got screwed up then, I felt like a complete stranger when I came back. This was back in 1992.

So I went back to Yugoslavia, leaving everything behind. I stayed there untill the end of the war and went through some troublesome times, Sarajevo especially. I was so screwed up that I sat in a hotelroom for a night with the barrel of a 9mm in my mouth.

Sitting there thinking about everything I realised that pulling the trigger would end my misery but it would cause others to suffer, my grantparents in the first place.

What followed was a long, long period of burrying myself in work only staying on my feet with alcohol, pot and pills (the illegal ones). I felt I couldnt ask for help, it would probably destroy my carreer leaving me in ever bigger problems.

I managed somehow, building, falling, moving and building again. So I thought. Looking back it was sheer luck and had nothing to do with me cooping.

Life went on, I met a girl and we got 2 kids.

In this period I started to realise how bad things were. My routine wasnt a possibility anymore, No where to run with 2 kids that I love dearly. Ofcourse my wife noticed me degrading and so did some of my best friends.

I decided to take action about 4 years ago as I knew I couldnt sort this myself. Now 4 years later I think I made a mistake. Prescription drugs just made me ill or instable. They put me on benzos and one f*cked up day, my mind clouded with the shit they gave me, I swallowed down a whole box with a bottle of whiskey. Well, the snipers couldnt kill me, the mortars couldnt kill me and the drugs couldnt kill me neither. Am I unlucky or what?

Therapy, it just doesnt help me. I got it from the ministry of defence, I went to civilian healthcare and I even went to a specialised war trauma center. In every way the medicine is worst then the disease. It just screws me up, I have a family, I cant afford to be screwed up. Especially for my kids, they dont understand and ask me "why are you crying dady?" Questions like that, in all their innosence, kick away the last ground Im holding.

How do I Go on? I am so confused........

 

[vikingr24]

First good thing, you came to the right place, at least one of them.

Accept that you have PTSD and the battle is about 1/10 over but a serious 1/10. Because you know who your enemy is now. He becomes a friend (almost at times) later if you win. And you will. The lion can be at your feet.

Now, quit the worrying about your career and your life with the family. The more you worry, the worse that part of your life gets. Let it go, is one of my favorite expressions. I try to say it often and I need to often. Let things go their natural course. Kids are resilient, and wives are natural lovers. Give them the chance to love you and you will be rewarded a thousand times. You need them for support. It is OK that you show your human side, just don't abuse them. No yelling. No hitting. Try to find an outlet for your anger, like a good game of rugby or football (soccer). Or really any game that involves exercise to run off some steam. It helps you sleep too.

I say this just once. Drinking is not a medicine. It's easy to get. Easy to abuse. It will f*** up your recovery. It makes you angry quickly. If you can't stop at least cut down.

We who have PTSD live in the past because of what we have seen and felt. And our mind works itself over and over, like a circle, to try and resolve it. Sleeping is when our brain tries to do that solving but of course, sleeping for us is a contradiction. Try to move out of the past to the future. Work on seeing new and different things, not doing things like going back to Serbia or Croatia or Boznia. It only recreates the dilemma for you.

Learn to breath properly. Believe me, at times it is better than drugs and studies show that it is. Breath evenly and slowly through your belly not your chest. Make your belly button come out. If you raise your shoulders, you are putting more carbon dioxide into your brain, and less oxygen, which you need for a clear mind without depression. A mind without anxiety too. Avoid the warrior posture. Raised shoulders, eyes glaring, teeth showing, blood going to the extremities. Monkeys and chimps (and we) do it when we are preparing for war. The war is over. Finished.

When you feel a trigger or panic attack coming, do the breathing and immediately think of other thoughts. Everyone has a happy place ( a cliche these days), a place that is beautiful that they remember as a child where they felt happy and safe, that was scenic and restful.

My happy place is a road along a snow melt lake in Switzerland, High above the lake you could see clear to the bottom, 30 or so feet. A tree and a small island were in the center. An apple tree stood by the road and yes, I ate the apples. The air was clean and cool.

Something like that is what you need to conjure if necessary.Anything to keep from thinking about a past that brings you a lot of unneeded stress and worry, and for me, terror at times.

Give yourself a break. We are hard on ourselves for what we participated in. We feel guilt, anxiety, and sadness for what we saw or even what we thought we saw or felt.

Check in when you need to. Coffee is good.

Tell yourself, Welcome Home, every day.

 

[BaMuoiBa]

Welcome Darksoul,

Your in the right place brother, so put down your rucksack and take a knee.

Vikingr24 covered a whole lot of issues - all I can say is ...ditto.

I have a family, I cant afford to be screwed up. Especially for my kids

I realised that pulling the trigger would end my misery but it would cause others to suffer

If there ever was a reason to the grab the Beast (PTSD) by the balls and slam it to the floor - I don't know any better. You're a warrior, you've seen and done stuff that these script writers and gamer's only imagine. This battle is for keeps! Keeping your kids, keeping your family, keeping your job, keeping your friends and most importantly keeping your mental state healthy to achieve all the others.

Your not the first and will not be the last to feel there is no end and it is hopeless. Trust me, it's not, that's up to you!

What followed was a long, long period of burrying myself in work only staying on my feet with alcohol, pot and pills (the illegal ones). I felt I couldnt ask for help, it would probably destroy my carreer leaving me in ever bigger problems.

I did the same thing only it was 1966 and for the next 40+ years lived a mere existence. Got help with the booze 27 years ago and that allowed me to see clearly and move forward. Don't give up on the therapy and work with a medical Dr. about the meds. Listen, there a folks on this site who have dealt with the meds and alike. There is plenty to read here and don't be afraid to ask questions.

Ba

 

[Darksoul]

I did cut down on alcohol 4 years ago. Little to late as that night I got arrested for dui. Not only that but all the cops and chaos caused me to panic so I tried to fight my way out. I also got charged for knocking down a cop. I got taken in Yugoslavia when walking down the road one night. Some militia took me to a basement somewhere where they made me stand spread against the wall. It seemed for hours with people comming into the room and one of them loading his pistol behind me. I expected to end up with a round in my head that night. They let me go the day after with nothing said. Since that day cops make me nervous.

I havent been working since and am on healthcare benefits. My carreer is over for now but I dont really care. I need to fix this first.

Ill start reading here. Not sure if I should take any medicine again, I have been on 8 different kinds so far and they just made things worse. I do use pot, so far its the only thing that helps. It blocks my nightmares almost completely and it takes away daily anxiety. I try not to over do it. It makes simple but important things possible that i normally can not do like picking the kids up from school or taking them swimming. When without large crowds and lots of noise jack me up. I get extremely nervous when I have no oversight.

Over the last 10 years I tried all kinds of stuff, hoping it would benefit me. I did Go back to Yugoslavia several times, I visited old comrades, some of them also with ptsd. Just to talk with them about the years there and how they coopertest just to find that they werent. One of them decided to live like a hermit in a place pretty far from civilisation. Another one had been in therapy for 11 years which helped him a little. A little after 11 years, is he even sure if it was the therapy or just time fading away things?

I feel I reached a final stage hence my visit here. I still find it hard to talk about things, especially to civilians. How can they possibly understand how it feels. Not only things like mortars raining down but just war itself. That grey, faded and colourless feeling even when the sun shines.

They tell me Im back now and I should feel safe. I dont and disagree. I dont know why but it seems veterans attract bad people. Once back, my moral in the gutter, the same happend to me. I know I am not safe. The kindest of people can turn into monsters, they will when pushed enough. The baddest, well they are just evil and arround every corner. I wonder if thats just me, my doc didnt seem to understand.

 

[BaMuoiBa]

I feel I reached a final stage hence my visit here. I still find it hard to talk about things, especially to civilians. How can they possibly understand how it feels. Not only things like mortars raining down but just war itself. That grey, faded and colourless feeling even when the sun shines.

That's alright! We all have those days, the whole trick is NOT to have too many in a row. Listen, a wise man once told me something about the Beast that made a lot of sense. We didn't get this way overnight, the military conditioned us over a long period of time - boot camp, training and the rigors of deployment. So, strap yourself in, it was eight miles into these woods and it'll be eight miles out to the clearing.

When things are grey, find happiness in the smile of your kids, find the things that made you serine before war. Booze and over working ourselves worked for a while but the emptiness still returns. We need good things and people to fill the void - hobbies, church, family and friends. It's a fine mixture of all these things that keep the Beast a bay each day. You can do this, trust me!

Ba

 

[vikingr24]

I dont know why but it seems veterans attract bad people.

You attract people by the way you act. Bad people will hang around a "bad" person. They will walk away from a "good" person. Be a "good" person and you will attract good people.

And try not to generalize about anything. One bee does not a hive make. Know the difference between those generalizations and your intuition about things, which you should always trust. It probably kept you alive. It did me. Avoid going from the One to the ALL.

Look for the good in life. You will find it everywhere. The weather. The sky. Simple elements that when bad can make it ugly, but it changes doesn't it?

I used to be the dark kind. They made jokes about me like, What if Erik smiled? Enough so that I felt they did not understand me -- again part of the martian syndrome, that I really am an alien from another planet, put here by people who used me and almost got me killed. That feeling almost never goes away but you have to work with it, not against it, or especially accept it. You are being given an opportunity to pave your way, to make yourself an individual, to be who you are, more than the sheeple who never saw reality. Walk your own path.

 

[Darksoul]

Thanks guys, spilling my thoughts here helps me already. Not only that but knowing Im not alone even more. Same as I went to visit my old friends from war. A fine line, good on one side, hard on the other.... anyway it takes me from this emotional rollercoaster to a state of contemplation. Its time to let go. Its time to listen. I need you guys for that, those that know and understand. Im missing that in my life, I have some arround me that I love a lot but I lack the ones that know.

Honestly Viking, I tried to be good. I saw what happens if you really turn your back to humanity. Being as I was and maybe still am a little, not affraid, thats what they all think, I had some real bandidos trying to recrute me. Several times. This whole MC thing started arround veterans. Bad guys dig that. I did wrong, just because I was confused. Adapting to war wasnt all that hard, adapting to home is a monster. I just didnt know difference anymore and if I did, nobody seemed to care.

BA I surely hope so. I have never been a religious man and going to church in my country might prove more difficult then you think. Just a year ago something started pulling, maybe even longer. Maybe I should put in the effort and go there. Maybe I should take a walk to Santiago de Compostela. I asked myself this question before. Is it the emptiness of not having a God?

But you Vietnam warriors, I was born when the war down there ended. 1973. I was drafted at 18, still a kid, like you guys back then.

What are you doing on this forum today? Was or is there no solution untill today? That scares me.....

 

[Darksoul]

Maybe its time to tell my story, I have been swallowing it down for a long time. Is that ok at all? Do you guys want to know or will I be just stirring up shit that needs a rest? Did you tell?

 

[SALTY]

WE ARE WITING FOR IT

 

[BaMuoiBa]

Darksoul, let it rip!

Your story I can handle, it's my bag of shit that weighs me down!

Ba

 

[Darksoul]

Alright, it will be a long story and I probably wont be able to write it down all at once. Maybe you guys recognise some of it maybe not. Im not sure what set me off, I guess its everything togheter.

I wasnt a lucky kid, my parents where to busy and I grew up with my grandparents. They where the best, to much even, discipline was not something in their vocabulair and especially my granddad always tried to cover up my mistakes. They all passed away by now.

Problems where on the horizon. I screwed up school and was in problems more often then not. When I was 14 I left the house and moved in with a girl, she was 18 back then.

Things went better, I picked up school again and got a degree in computer sciences. I got an intership with an accountancy firm and the owner of the company was a great guy. If I stayed after graduating he would pay for my university degree. Untill I got that crappy letter. I was going to be drafted. My boss tried to get me an exception but it didnt work out. I would be a soldier soon. I was screwed, I was finaly picking up pace and worked out a future. It all went to ratshit.

I ended up being a signal. The war in Yugoslavia started months earlier and on my first day, my first exhausting day they asked if we where willing to go there. Not only that, I had to do 3 months less and would make a crapload of money. So I and many others volunteerd.

3 months later we landed in Zagreb, where issued our guns and got transported to the sectors. It was a weird feeling, sitting there in the back of a truck watching the war basically unfold. Complete villages where leveled and still smoking. I think this is where I first noticed, and felt, they greyness of war.

We had incidents, Im not sure if these shocked me, but for sure I felt the tension. As time passed I got more reckless. I started taking risks. Maybe the war got hold of me more then I realised. Things like walking into a minefield just to know if I was able to spot them. Leaving base at night to hang out with some locals I met. The area and the crowd was dangerous at the time. I was just a silly kid, barely 19. I met a Brit down there, he worked as a contractor and was in the same field, comms.

Well I came out alive. I married my girlfriend and expected things to be normal again. I was wrong, I felt like a stranger and everyone noticed the change. I got in contact with my british friend, send down my resume and few months later I was back on the plane to Yugoslavia. My wife didnt get it, she filed for divorce little after I left.

I felt broken, all I had left now was the war. I planned on not comming back. In general people keep their head down during sniperfire, I put on an orange jacket and walked the streets. The serbs where lousy shooters.

During them 4 years many things happend, to many to remember. My last trip to Sarajevo was the cherry on the pie.

I had to go there for maintenance just for a week or so. We already knew the situation was tense but I didnt stock up, all I took with me was for a week to come. Couple of hundred dollars and some clothes. After a breathtaking landing, they flew in hard and fast, my life was bound to change forever.

After a few days the serbs launched their final attack on Sarajevo. The city was under siege for months and months, nothing comming in nothing going out. Things went so bad that the French cut rations. For their own. I was a Dutch contractor. They only way I would get food was by paying for the rations. Well, I was out of soap, toothpaste and money. I lost 20 kilo's. When I got back to Zagreb people asked me if I had aids. I was in bad shape. Eating crackers, some chocolate and some rice for months in a row is a great diet.

Sarajevo was something else. Worse. I had a small room in the PTT building, I was on ground level and had a window. Outside there was a small alley and then the sandbags started. In the beginning we took of to the basement everytime they started shelling us. After a couple of weeks I couldnt be f*cked anymore, I just went on sleeping hoping it would get me good.

In the basement you had the JMC and the communication centre where I worked. Many times there where victims on stretchers in the hallway, screaming and bleeding. I still see these images. The blood on the floor, the faces, the French nurse pounding on someones chest.

I was loosing it. Whenever I could I drank heavily. All of us did except for an ex gurkha, I called him budha, he didnt only look like budha but was like one. Serene. Maybe he felt sorry for me and tried to comfort me, he must of been twice my age. He was also the one that shared rice with me.

One of the French soldiers told me that there was a rotation leaving the airport. Bad news was that the serbs didnt approve and warned the French that they would take out the convoy. On thing I have to give the French army, they dont take shit. Anyway, I moved heaven and earth to get on the convoy out of this misserable place. It wasnt easy, the French where warned and not keen of taking a contractor on board. Plus I had to get to the airport from where I was. The Brit I mentioned before was there also, he had access to a pick-up truck and he was crazy enough to drive me there. That was the start of one hell of a ride. One that still haunts me.

We got on the truck and I dont think his foot left the gas untill we reached the airport. There was shelling and gun fire all over the city, roads where full of bombcraters that he was trying to avoid doing 100 Miles an hour. It was insane. I need a break now, Im shaking its hard to type........ ill continue later.

 

[Darksoul]

It was a sunny day, I sat outside on some sandbags when a loud roar started. I looked to the mountains and saw this huge waterboiler taking off. It spinned through the air and landed in town somewhere with a massive blast leaving a huge pilar of smoke. It looked unreal against the blue sky. I hoped my friend was ok and felt very very tired. The French decided to roll out at dusk, I dont know why, maybe to use the dark as cover. To bad their apcs where white.

So we moved out, all the soldiers in full gear. There werent many smiles. I decided not to wear my flackjacket thinking the chance of a mine up my ass was bigger then some round passing through the armor. So I sat down on it. I dont know for how long we where driving. I hardly spoke French so I just waited and watched their faces. After a while we stopped and streched our legs for a little. I noticed them closing the hatches in front of the windows. It got cold and foggy. It was dark in the back of the apc, I could hardly see the faces. That was quickly to change. The serbs opened fire and we could hear the impacts, it was both ak's and .50 cals going off. I had my flackjacket on in seconds. Then suddenly the convoy came to a halt. I was confused, the firing was still going on and from the sound of it one of the French apcs returned fire with the .50

Why the hell arent we moving! We where sitting ducks. Thats exactly what the serbs thought and then the mortars came. The second blast made my ears ring and I could see the faces of the guys everytime a mortar landed. The armor doesnt seal the window, there is a little room alowing the light of the blasts to pass. These faces haunt me, i still see them light up with every blast. At that stage i went from panic to completely quiet. I thought about home, about my life and was sure this was it. They finaly got me. Some serb is adjusting his mortar at this very moment and the next round will come through the roof.

Either the driver or the frontseat passenger started screaming, "avant, avant, avant" I just thought thats about f*cking time bro, I hope the convoy leader will get a boot up his ass for stopping in the first place. Then everything came into motion, I think they all panicked as he overreved and we where going fast. To fast. Again there was some screaming and I felt the apc started sliding. I was still in this quiet mode. Was I really, after everything, going to be killed by a French dude driving us off the clifs? Really?

We finaly reached mount igman, most apcs where damaged and needed repairs. It took a day, maybe even longer before they where ready to move on. I didnt sleep. Once in kiseljak we where transfered to trucks and driven to split. Ofcourse I missed the last plane and had to stay at the airport overnight. I didnt sleep that night either.

When I got to Zagreb, sleepless for days, underfed and the faces still flashing in my brain I took a tram to my appartement there. I felt people where looking at me, discusted, maybe it was my smell, I dont know. Then this guy started grinning at me. I flipped, was he really taking a piss with me after all this? I pulled out my knife and pushed it against his throath. He realised his situation, stopped grinning and I remember the fear in his eyes. At that moment I would of killed him.

Back home I took a shower and slept for 2 full days. When I reported back for duty I got bollocked for being late a day.

Few months later the mission was over. Most of us didnt get a new contract and there I was, back in the Netherlands. My war was just to begin.