We've all heard of the common PTSD behaviors; nightmares and violent sleep, alcoholism, sitting in the corner in public places, etc. I wanted to write this post, though, to share a completely different behavior I have recognized looking back at the years gone by. There are so many ways the beast presents itself and, unacknowledged and untreated, so many ways it controls our lives. And I wanted to make an acknowledgment of our supporters.
I spent many years going back to Iraq and Afghanistan to get away from "normal life." I rarely felt like I could function properly in the States and I preferred to be in a war zone over spending time with my family. I felt like I was more stressed out being in everyday normal situations in the States than when I was working insane hours with huge demands while deployed. In retrospect, the reason I had so much trouble with that was because normal life meant letting people back in, allowing myself to have emotions, and getting close to people again. Even when I thought I wanted to, I was completely unable to. And I subconsciously lived my life in a way that ensured nobody would get too close. I embraced my lack of emotions and believed myself to be born to die in war. It seemed like so many of the people close to me in war died there or took their own life after returning. Until two weeks ago, I had never let anything I could lose get that close to me.
The first part of that was making sure I stayed deployed as much as possible. I was barely in my 20's when the war started. Then I spent just over 110 months deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, part or all of every year, between 2001 and 2013. I didn't have to let people get close to me there and it was a place for me hide from a normal life. It was a place where my aggression and anger were encouraged, because they got the job done. The other classic symptoms didn't stand out, because we were in a war zone and they were normal behavior there. And my reckless lack of fear of death was considered courage. The war zone was a safe place for me, because the "beast" was alive and well inside of me. Looking back, I wonder if I was just going back until I finally died there.
The second part was I maintained a level of bravado, chauvinism, and crass disregard for others. I manipulated everybody in my life. A large part of my job, my career, was based on deception and manipulation and I was very successful. I guess that is somehow the way I justified using that same approach in my personal life. I talked shit and crudely "pounded my chest" with the guys and talked a game that supported my disregard for the world. I manipulated women, not for sexual gain, but for a sense of control over not being emotionally involved with anyone else. I used sexual contexts in my conversations to play their emotions, something I considered weakness in them.
And, of course, I made the commonly seen mistake after finally getting away from all just over a year ago of it of taking out my anger on the people closest to me and disregarding their emotions, writing it all off as their not being able to understand and taking things too personal that had nothing to do with them. I saw their open emotion as weakness and it made me angrier. It made it that much easier to subconsciously keep them at a distances even while I consciously thought I was trying my damnedest to be closer to them.
Reality hit me like a Mack truck when my wife left me a couple of weeks ago. I looked back on all of that with a clarity I had never before had. I had been coping with my PTSD in an amazingly destructive manner and had, in turn, destroyed the best thing in my life...the one and only thing I wanted. After she was gone and I had this amazing (and disgusting) realization, it was like I felt every emotion I had avoided over the past 13 years. And for the first time in my adult life, I let go of that need for distance and gave my whole life, heart, and soul to her. But there is a very realistic probability she will never see past who I was. The damage was severe. I hold hope that I have not completely destroyed all that love and strength I now realize she showed me all those years.
All that to say, I see a lot of what I now realize of myself in others. And I don't think it can be said enough that even though the people that love us often don't know how to deal with the beast in us, it is so damned important to realize and acknowledge that they are trying their best and it takes a lot of love, strength and forgiveness for them to weather our storms.
I spent many years going back to Iraq and Afghanistan to get away from "normal life." I rarely felt like I could function properly in the States and I preferred to be in a war zone over spending time with my family. I felt like I was more stressed out being in everyday normal situations in the States than when I was working insane hours with huge demands while deployed. In retrospect, the reason I had so much trouble with that was because normal life meant letting people back in, allowing myself to have emotions, and getting close to people again. Even when I thought I wanted to, I was completely unable to. And I subconsciously lived my life in a way that ensured nobody would get too close. I embraced my lack of emotions and believed myself to be born to die in war. It seemed like so many of the people close to me in war died there or took their own life after returning. Until two weeks ago, I had never let anything I could lose get that close to me.
The first part of that was making sure I stayed deployed as much as possible. I was barely in my 20's when the war started. Then I spent just over 110 months deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, part or all of every year, between 2001 and 2013. I didn't have to let people get close to me there and it was a place for me hide from a normal life. It was a place where my aggression and anger were encouraged, because they got the job done. The other classic symptoms didn't stand out, because we were in a war zone and they were normal behavior there. And my reckless lack of fear of death was considered courage. The war zone was a safe place for me, because the "beast" was alive and well inside of me. Looking back, I wonder if I was just going back until I finally died there.
The second part was I maintained a level of bravado, chauvinism, and crass disregard for others. I manipulated everybody in my life. A large part of my job, my career, was based on deception and manipulation and I was very successful. I guess that is somehow the way I justified using that same approach in my personal life. I talked shit and crudely "pounded my chest" with the guys and talked a game that supported my disregard for the world. I manipulated women, not for sexual gain, but for a sense of control over not being emotionally involved with anyone else. I used sexual contexts in my conversations to play their emotions, something I considered weakness in them.
And, of course, I made the commonly seen mistake after finally getting away from all just over a year ago of it of taking out my anger on the people closest to me and disregarding their emotions, writing it all off as their not being able to understand and taking things too personal that had nothing to do with them. I saw their open emotion as weakness and it made me angrier. It made it that much easier to subconsciously keep them at a distances even while I consciously thought I was trying my damnedest to be closer to them.
Reality hit me like a Mack truck when my wife left me a couple of weeks ago. I looked back on all of that with a clarity I had never before had. I had been coping with my PTSD in an amazingly destructive manner and had, in turn, destroyed the best thing in my life...the one and only thing I wanted. After she was gone and I had this amazing (and disgusting) realization, it was like I felt every emotion I had avoided over the past 13 years. And for the first time in my adult life, I let go of that need for distance and gave my whole life, heart, and soul to her. But there is a very realistic probability she will never see past who I was. The damage was severe. I hold hope that I have not completely destroyed all that love and strength I now realize she showed me all those years.
All that to say, I see a lot of what I now realize of myself in others. And I don't think it can be said enough that even though the people that love us often don't know how to deal with the beast in us, it is so damned important to realize and acknowledge that they are trying their best and it takes a lot of love, strength and forgiveness for them to weather our storms.
