HereticCurt
Bronze Member
Since introductions are in order, I'll begin with the formalities. My name is Curt Russell. I am 28 years old. I feel so fortunate to have found this community. Unfortunately, I feel that I don't have much to offer with regard to positive insight or stories of success during the fight against PTSD and all that comes with it.
I do have a story though, Before you read it, I ask that you consider your current emotional and mental health. I know that people are here to pull together, and I'd hate to leave anyone feeling worse-off than they felt before reading this. Also, normal people have read this and never talked to me again or acted like I was a stranger to them. That is the essence of my name: Heretic.
The beginning - Life in a Black Hole
During a conversation with my therapist, I was asked to recount the traumatic event that I experienced during my deployment. I squeezed out every word of every sentence, clinging to stay in control of my emotions. Afterwards, I felt nauseous and shaky, but I didn’t panic. I realize that during retellings of my deployment experience, I reach for a familiar emptiness. It is that emptiness that allows me to stay in control of my emotions. I realize now that the feeling is familiar because it is the protection standard that I have subconsciously chosen for myself.
The first time I felt empty was during my deployment, after the incident. I held on to that emptiness and wallowed in it for the remainder of my time in Iraq. I remember my squadron Chief asking if I was on sedatives every day. No one really asked if there was anything wrong because nothing seemed wrong. I wasn’t sad or angry. I didn’t act in any way that would seem inappropriate. I was well-mannered and did my job.
Towards the end of my tour I decided that this was the best way to feel. After all, life had been going well for me and people respected me. I was seldom bothered by anyone. I didn’t have to deal with anyone that I didn’t want to.
After returning home, I felt comfortable in my new self. I thought daily about the traumatic events, but felt separated from them enough to continue living life the empty way. It wasn’t long before I was looking for ways to incorporate more of this emptiness in my life. I never wanted to let it go. I donated all of my old brand-named, colorful clothing to a local thrift store and bought unlabeled plain clothing to replace it. I spent all of my free time locked in my room playing video games, and writing poetry. I yearned to belong to a world like those in my writing or in games. Through poetry I was able to create literary worlds of my own, ones that drew from that emptiness. I grew close to nature, and found part of my empty world there. This was especially apparent in the winter time. Winter felt so perfect to me. The cold wrapped around my body and the frost bit my lips. Winter was like me, it had gone through the process of shedding the unnecessary and purposeless aspects of life. It was this realization that caused me to take a step further into the dark. I personified winter, in both senses of the word. Through belief, I gave winter a human form, a gender, and a personality. She became my best friend, someone that I could walk through life with in emptiness. She held my hand as the chilly wind bit my fingertips. It was almost as if we stood together on the tallest of mountains, high above the world, watching it turn and slow as winter encroached.
I would like to say that the story of my life doesn’t involve others or that they weren’t swept in and touched in some way by my voided self. I largely neglected my family, dismissing phone calls because I didn’t want them to be a part of the world that I had created. I had one friend, and she grew accustomed to and eventually adopted emptiness as her lifestyle. She has severe psychological problems now because of that. The other people I simply saw as passersby, walking into my world for the moments that they were near me. When I conversed with them, I simply inquired about their lives. I frequently asked them their purpose for doing certain things or asked them questions regarding the purpose of their existence.
The first time that I used such dialog was to stop a fight from happening. The individuals involved shrank at my questions and seemed put-off by my character. In the end, one of them left while the other decided to stay and converse with me. He asked why I was the way that I was. I told him that I was my preference. He then began to discuss religion with me. I asked him a few more questions and he looked down and didn’t speak for a long time. When he did speak, he only said three words: “That’s it then.” He left after that. It was after that experience that I began to call my world something other than empty for other people. To them, it was despair. It is the part of us that is passed anger, and passed sadness. It is not as much of a defeat as it is choosing to let go. I decided that from that point on I would take such opportunities and expand my world. Like in autumn, I watched as people shed their foliage. I looked on as winter drew them in and they met their despair. In my mind, I was doing this to assist them in starting over. They were then able to create spring as they chose, not based on the beliefs and fears that they acquired throughout their lives.
It was a wonderful time, the winter of my life. It scared a lot of people, but that didn’t matter to me. I was going to live out the rest of my military career in despair. I was going to relish in the empty world until my life’s hour-glass had dropped its last grain of sand.
Then the most unexpected thing happened. The thing I held so dear to me turned its back on me. Despair let go of my hand and let me fall into insanity. I found myself in a constant panic and was convinced that I was dying. I thought that I was having a heart attack or that I was losing my mind. My heart pounded so hard during the day that I was making daily trips to the doctor to find out if something was wrong. It pounded so hard at night that it left me sleep-deprived. This intensified over the next few weeks, to the point where I could not work. I went to the back room of my office to lay down every day. It eventually got to the point where I couldn’t keep down food and could barely keep down water.
Fortunately I had my mother and sister to nurse me back to reasonable health before it was too late. But that is another chapter in this life story.
Question Time??????
I would like to see how other people here relate to this. Have any of you ever felt similar to what I describe in the above story?
I do have a story though, Before you read it, I ask that you consider your current emotional and mental health. I know that people are here to pull together, and I'd hate to leave anyone feeling worse-off than they felt before reading this. Also, normal people have read this and never talked to me again or acted like I was a stranger to them. That is the essence of my name: Heretic.
The beginning - Life in a Black Hole
During a conversation with my therapist, I was asked to recount the traumatic event that I experienced during my deployment. I squeezed out every word of every sentence, clinging to stay in control of my emotions. Afterwards, I felt nauseous and shaky, but I didn’t panic. I realize that during retellings of my deployment experience, I reach for a familiar emptiness. It is that emptiness that allows me to stay in control of my emotions. I realize now that the feeling is familiar because it is the protection standard that I have subconsciously chosen for myself.
The first time I felt empty was during my deployment, after the incident. I held on to that emptiness and wallowed in it for the remainder of my time in Iraq. I remember my squadron Chief asking if I was on sedatives every day. No one really asked if there was anything wrong because nothing seemed wrong. I wasn’t sad or angry. I didn’t act in any way that would seem inappropriate. I was well-mannered and did my job.
Towards the end of my tour I decided that this was the best way to feel. After all, life had been going well for me and people respected me. I was seldom bothered by anyone. I didn’t have to deal with anyone that I didn’t want to.
After returning home, I felt comfortable in my new self. I thought daily about the traumatic events, but felt separated from them enough to continue living life the empty way. It wasn’t long before I was looking for ways to incorporate more of this emptiness in my life. I never wanted to let it go. I donated all of my old brand-named, colorful clothing to a local thrift store and bought unlabeled plain clothing to replace it. I spent all of my free time locked in my room playing video games, and writing poetry. I yearned to belong to a world like those in my writing or in games. Through poetry I was able to create literary worlds of my own, ones that drew from that emptiness. I grew close to nature, and found part of my empty world there. This was especially apparent in the winter time. Winter felt so perfect to me. The cold wrapped around my body and the frost bit my lips. Winter was like me, it had gone through the process of shedding the unnecessary and purposeless aspects of life. It was this realization that caused me to take a step further into the dark. I personified winter, in both senses of the word. Through belief, I gave winter a human form, a gender, and a personality. She became my best friend, someone that I could walk through life with in emptiness. She held my hand as the chilly wind bit my fingertips. It was almost as if we stood together on the tallest of mountains, high above the world, watching it turn and slow as winter encroached.
I would like to say that the story of my life doesn’t involve others or that they weren’t swept in and touched in some way by my voided self. I largely neglected my family, dismissing phone calls because I didn’t want them to be a part of the world that I had created. I had one friend, and she grew accustomed to and eventually adopted emptiness as her lifestyle. She has severe psychological problems now because of that. The other people I simply saw as passersby, walking into my world for the moments that they were near me. When I conversed with them, I simply inquired about their lives. I frequently asked them their purpose for doing certain things or asked them questions regarding the purpose of their existence.
The first time that I used such dialog was to stop a fight from happening. The individuals involved shrank at my questions and seemed put-off by my character. In the end, one of them left while the other decided to stay and converse with me. He asked why I was the way that I was. I told him that I was my preference. He then began to discuss religion with me. I asked him a few more questions and he looked down and didn’t speak for a long time. When he did speak, he only said three words: “That’s it then.” He left after that. It was after that experience that I began to call my world something other than empty for other people. To them, it was despair. It is the part of us that is passed anger, and passed sadness. It is not as much of a defeat as it is choosing to let go. I decided that from that point on I would take such opportunities and expand my world. Like in autumn, I watched as people shed their foliage. I looked on as winter drew them in and they met their despair. In my mind, I was doing this to assist them in starting over. They were then able to create spring as they chose, not based on the beliefs and fears that they acquired throughout their lives.
It was a wonderful time, the winter of my life. It scared a lot of people, but that didn’t matter to me. I was going to live out the rest of my military career in despair. I was going to relish in the empty world until my life’s hour-glass had dropped its last grain of sand.
Then the most unexpected thing happened. The thing I held so dear to me turned its back on me. Despair let go of my hand and let me fall into insanity. I found myself in a constant panic and was convinced that I was dying. I thought that I was having a heart attack or that I was losing my mind. My heart pounded so hard during the day that I was making daily trips to the doctor to find out if something was wrong. It pounded so hard at night that it left me sleep-deprived. This intensified over the next few weeks, to the point where I could not work. I went to the back room of my office to lay down every day. It eventually got to the point where I couldn’t keep down food and could barely keep down water.
Fortunately I had my mother and sister to nurse me back to reasonable health before it was too late. But that is another chapter in this life story.
Question Time??????
I would like to see how other people here relate to this. Have any of you ever felt similar to what I describe in the above story?
