Civilian Life Sucks -- I Miss My Soldiers.

[FRAGO]

I’m sitting in the restaurant with my wife watching her eat. She knows that I hate going out, yet she is still clearly happy and is smiling as she eats her meal piece by little piece. I swear, not only is she taking her sweet time eating, but she seems to be enjoying the fact that she finally forced me out of the house. I want nothing more than to just get up, walk out, and go home; but I can’t; so I wait… I wait for her to slowly finish her plate, get a soda refill, finish her “hilarious” story about her best friend, use the restroom, and now she’s ordering desert. I have no friends here. I do not want to communicate with anyone here. Nothing about this place makes me feel comfortable and I’m pretty sure they can sense my anxiety. I don’t know what to look at, so I look at everything. I fake a smile here and there, and carefully track her eating progress. I wait for her to finish talking about meaningless things and I can no longer contain my frustration. “Can you please hurry up” I snapped. I caught her off guard. She didn’t realize that I was so uncomfortable and the excitement of the moment has left her—she knows that I’m upset, and I just want to go home. She’s sad now, and quickly shoveling down what food is left on her plate. The look of confusion and sadness on her face has shook me to the core and I tell myself, never again. I’ll never treat her like that again and I am so sorry. She deserves a good day out and I ruined it.

The truth is, she was not happy about forcing me to leave the house – as if she got her way-- She was just happy that we are enjoying a day out together, and she is getting to eat at a restaurant, and out of the house for once. She isn’t eating slowly, I just ate way too fast; I always eat way too fast. Her stories are not meaningless, I just can’t get myself to let go of the anxiety to truly appreciate her humor, happiness, and beauty. My wife is my world, she has always been there for me, and she has made it very clear that she will always be there for me in the future. She deserves better than this. When I’m there in that moment, that place of pure frustration, anxiety, and exhaustion, I cannot focus on anything but the desire to fight, flight, or freeze. I know that I am most likely safe in this small town. I know that I am very capable of defending myself and my wife if the situation occurred, but for some reason I can’t relax. I can even see how ridiculous my behavior and feelings are, but that insight does nothing to eliminate them. I moved my wife and I to a small town in the middle of nowhere, and in the middle of the woods -- and still I cannot relax; I cannot relate! I feel like I’ll never again fit into society and I don’t know why.

My wife deserves better than this, and I am going to make sure she gets her happiness. I cannot talk to the civilians in my life, I have tried, and it always backfires and they treat me differently afterwards. I do not trust the VA -- they have never been a solution and never will be. All I have is my fellow warriors. I believe that you all chose this life because you had something that most did not; you are as unique as you are honorable. Those values and beliefs are why I trust you, and why I am reaching out to you. I’m looking for solutions, tips, techniques, medications (that may have helped you), etc. Anything that can get me out of the house more, and able to relax in public with my wife. Everything the VA has given me has either not worked, or made my anxiety worse. I also suffer from chronic migraines from an injury in Iraq (shrapnel removed from my eye). I’ve learned to live with a lot of the pain, but the anxiety is at times overwhelming. In public (especially around people I don’t know) my thoughts speed up and repeat a lot. I feel like that moment when you kick the door down and clear a house--- not knowing what’s going to happen. When I finally get home, I am exhausted. Has anyone else overcome this?

 

[Deleted member 43454]

Realest post I've read in a while.
I think it's a great thing you are mature enough to recognize these things while you have a wife and family.
I pushed ex's away, because I could not properly express what was going on internally or even rationalize why I felt that way.
It adds more frustration when those you're with cannot understand the internal battle.
Trying to force me out of the house, and then under the influence of marijuana would just be an absolute panic attack where I felt like a coward.
I couldn't understand how I went from riding down bomb ridden roads to afraid to socialize in public.
Or explain that the VA was a shit show and the medications were unproven and unacceptable to me.

It's caused a lot of failed relationships and a lot of introspection and I have no cure. I work on breathing techniques and baby steps.
I think the only way to overcome the anxiety is by putting yourself in situations and confronting it for short periods of time. But once you're at
the point where okay I'm anxious as hell its time to go. Then it's time to go. Try again another day.
That anxiety got me to the point where I hardly left the house for a long time. I'd go buy cigarettes and come home to the computer.
I'm still not a social butterfly I do not believe I will ever be one.

It will take time to work our way through it. Some of the bandaids we put on it, medication etc... only amplify when we come off of them.
We have to deal with it again and again I am at the point where I am trying to give it a go stone cold sober.
Marijuana helped me get off cigarettes and kept me outa the bars but eventually it led to severe panic attacks and
I felt it became more detrimental than helpful. Edibles could be another story. I wish anxiety was non-existent.
But it'll be there and it's been there since I was a kid. Combat only amplified it when I returned.

Well giving in to that anxiety and avoiding situations I believe led to it amplifying because after confronting death so many times
when we got back I said f*ck it all. I'd go anywhere etc, but I was also a raging drunk always in the bars.
One step at a time man. I'm just rambling now with no solid pointers to give as I am attempting to work through it as well.
Good luck and good to have you on the forum.

Ah! I almost forgot. When I pray each morning and night and give thanks while I am outside daily for all I have I feel anxiety relief.
I went from looking into Guru's to Buddhism etc, but God was always in my heart even though I gave into hatred for a brief period of time.
And only the lord eases my worries.
But to each their own.

 

[Friday]

Has anyone else overcome this?

Yep. Did it once. Built a life. Enjoyed the f*ck out of it for a decade. Then shit went sideways again, and I'm starting over again, from scratch. Not gonna blow sunshine up your ass, It f*cking sucks, but it's also doable.

One trick about the day out? Predictable is Preventable.

It's possible to exposure therapy your ass to the point of being totally chill in the worst kind of no f*cking way dinner you can think of (a three hour dinner, in a cafe off Times Square, during an anti-war rally surrounded by f*cktards who won't shut up, and think jump scares are hilarious, stone cold sober, makes my list for example. And I not only didn't bite anyone, I ordered the cheesecake. It was damn good cheesecake.). If I even tried to do something like that right now? I would lose my ever loving mind. Exposure therapy? Works. But it takes time.

So if I know ahead of time? I work with what I've got.

Someone wants to take me out to eat? Best plan? Take out. PicNics are badass. :D Failing that? They're not so keen stars in the back of a truck bed, but want waitresses & shit? A venue I'm familiar with, sitting in a back corner, near an exit with full view of everyone's comings & goings, of which there are few because it's during off-hours, and I'm going to be periodically getting up to use the restroom, have a smoke, & doing all the little things that keep me tranquilo, instead of fighting against them getting more and more worked up and the minutes grind by.

Same thing... Movies? Drive-in. Wrapped in steel, armed, and parked off to the side.

And both of those things after I have just had a few hours -or a day or three- of alone time, PT'd my ass for a few hours (burning off both stress and getting all the chems in my blood down to near normal levels), after a good nights sleep, had a shower, and eaten. My days out? Require planning. Because normal people shit stresses me the f*ck out. And when I get stressed out I am unfit to live with.

But I can alter normal-people shit until it's something that actually sounds fun/doable, prep the hell out of it, and then we both get what we want. They want to spend time with me when I'm NOT being an asshole, and I really don't like feeling jacked into a live wire, fighting for control every damn second. Which means I work with what I've got, even if it's not what I want, or want to be able to do later.

 

[vikingr24]

Can't say much to disagree. My way of coping when I get into moods (no better word) is think there is a guy next to me who is really living my life. I am just a bad clone of him. An empty one at that.

The drugs anywhere, VA or not, only helped me sleep a little. All the other stuff, except the benzos, did little. And the benzos are a mean trip trying to get off them. But they helped my anxiety. But I don't like being a zombie. Most of the drugs do that, or nothing.

Learning to breath helped a lot. Meditation as a by product helps. But you gotta do it. That's something the guy next to me does. I am just his clone.

 

[BaMuoiBa]

Can't add much here..... ditto on all counts!

Ba

 

[RTO]

It takes time.

My wife always jokes that I "combat" shop, eat, drive, walk...etc.

You deserve to live a long and peaceful life, but don't ever lose your edge. It comes in handy sometimes.