rickyfinch
Bronze Member
This started small and kept growing. First time that I have put most of this into words.
This is one of the first times I’ve said this. I have killed, and it haunts me. I have faced the fact I have PTSD, but every day is a struggle. If not for a supportive wife, I’d be dead, either by my own hand or stupidity. If not for her I wouldn’t have a job, house and the bills wouldn’t get paid. I am totally dependent on her to do all the tasks to keep me going. It is everything I can do just to get to work and home again. Everything else is lost in the fog.
Firstly, saying that I have killed implies that I have done it more than once, but that simply isn’t the case. I have only killed one; an Iraqi female national. She ran out in front of my PLS (truck) and her head bounced off my bumper. I cleaned off her brains and blood off with a bottle of drinking water as if it was dirt on a windshield.
Between two tours I have see multiple dead bodies, a .50 cal destroy a human body. War isn’t pretty, that’s just the damn truth.
I suffer severely from many triggers, loud noises and anything unexpected and the main two. I within the last month have thought I was dead, done, or about to die probably 8 times. Just from these two triggers. The VA has given me medication that hasn’t taken off the edge at all from these.
I have deployed twice with less than two years between deployments, I never slowed down. Now it’s over two years since my last tour and everything I have seen and done has came back to haunt me, hyper-vigilance is a daily routine. Simple tasks like grocery shopping, or running down to the corner store seems out of reach due to the simple volume of people there, it’s overwhelming. I feel the need to scan all of them as if they were threats to me or my family and I simply cannot do it so it normally ends in a panic attack where I run home like a child.
I recently had a daughter, I watched my wife struggle for three days in labor, and not only was I detached and numb from what was happening as if my emotions are shut off, I was jittery because I couldn’t carry my handgun into the hospital. I have a dependence to carry a weapon at all times and sometimes illegally as if I was in a combat zone.
Nightmares, the ones that I remember ruins my entire day. I wake up in a pool of sweat most nights screaming as my wife wakes me. At times I have been violent in my dreams causing, in reality my wife harm.
I don’t expect to live past today; I have seen death all around me. I have friends that never came back. I can’t help but think that if I could’ve done something different they might still be on this earth. Having said that, I live each day as if it was my last, often self medicating, and seeking thrills. I normally on my way to work reach triple digit speeds, and the bad thing is and it doesn’t even bother me. One false move or jerk of the wheel and I’m dead, one essential part failing on my car, and I’m dead. This doesn’t bother me because I know that this moment could be my last.
I haven’t been able to turn my deployment off. I feel like I’m still there. I feel like at any moment I could be dead, and that because of that I don’t do anything in halves. It’s full on, or not at all. 0 to 100 and then back, this goes for the small things (that in the past wouldn’t have bothered me) that I get upset about and it seems anger is the only emotion that I can produce readily. My children and wife pay for that.
I want to be normal; I want to be the husband that my wife remembers and needs. The Father that I need to be to my children. I however, don’t think that I will ever be able to reach this goal. I think PTSD is here to stay. I am simply trying to survive. I hate it, but it seems to be the truth.
Sergeant Finch,
Florida Army National Guard
Transportation corps.
OIF, OEF vet.
This is one of the first times I’ve said this. I have killed, and it haunts me. I have faced the fact I have PTSD, but every day is a struggle. If not for a supportive wife, I’d be dead, either by my own hand or stupidity. If not for her I wouldn’t have a job, house and the bills wouldn’t get paid. I am totally dependent on her to do all the tasks to keep me going. It is everything I can do just to get to work and home again. Everything else is lost in the fog.
Firstly, saying that I have killed implies that I have done it more than once, but that simply isn’t the case. I have only killed one; an Iraqi female national. She ran out in front of my PLS (truck) and her head bounced off my bumper. I cleaned off her brains and blood off with a bottle of drinking water as if it was dirt on a windshield.
Between two tours I have see multiple dead bodies, a .50 cal destroy a human body. War isn’t pretty, that’s just the damn truth.
I suffer severely from many triggers, loud noises and anything unexpected and the main two. I within the last month have thought I was dead, done, or about to die probably 8 times. Just from these two triggers. The VA has given me medication that hasn’t taken off the edge at all from these.
I have deployed twice with less than two years between deployments, I never slowed down. Now it’s over two years since my last tour and everything I have seen and done has came back to haunt me, hyper-vigilance is a daily routine. Simple tasks like grocery shopping, or running down to the corner store seems out of reach due to the simple volume of people there, it’s overwhelming. I feel the need to scan all of them as if they were threats to me or my family and I simply cannot do it so it normally ends in a panic attack where I run home like a child.
I recently had a daughter, I watched my wife struggle for three days in labor, and not only was I detached and numb from what was happening as if my emotions are shut off, I was jittery because I couldn’t carry my handgun into the hospital. I have a dependence to carry a weapon at all times and sometimes illegally as if I was in a combat zone.
Nightmares, the ones that I remember ruins my entire day. I wake up in a pool of sweat most nights screaming as my wife wakes me. At times I have been violent in my dreams causing, in reality my wife harm.
I don’t expect to live past today; I have seen death all around me. I have friends that never came back. I can’t help but think that if I could’ve done something different they might still be on this earth. Having said that, I live each day as if it was my last, often self medicating, and seeking thrills. I normally on my way to work reach triple digit speeds, and the bad thing is and it doesn’t even bother me. One false move or jerk of the wheel and I’m dead, one essential part failing on my car, and I’m dead. This doesn’t bother me because I know that this moment could be my last.
I haven’t been able to turn my deployment off. I feel like I’m still there. I feel like at any moment I could be dead, and that because of that I don’t do anything in halves. It’s full on, or not at all. 0 to 100 and then back, this goes for the small things (that in the past wouldn’t have bothered me) that I get upset about and it seems anger is the only emotion that I can produce readily. My children and wife pay for that.
I want to be normal; I want to be the husband that my wife remembers and needs. The Father that I need to be to my children. I however, don’t think that I will ever be able to reach this goal. I think PTSD is here to stay. I am simply trying to survive. I hate it, but it seems to be the truth.
Sergeant Finch,
Florida Army National Guard
Transportation corps.
OIF, OEF vet.
