Ok Here Is My Baby Step.... Gonna Go Out On A Limb...

[tho9900]

thanks yall... it was a rly rough day as yall see in my post elsewhere... but ya... I am here for a reason... Imma chill out for a bit maybe i went too fast... but ya... I wanna feel better...

 

[tho9900]

and thanks JarHed... Semper Fi... your words arent lost believe me.....

 

[JarHed]

Hey Tho

In a way when you find out you're suffering because of PTSD it puts you at the beginning of a long journey. Sometimes a lifetime journey of both learning and discovery. About PTSD and about yourself. It may not be easy, as all will testify too, but it is worthwhile. This is a good place to start that journey from; among friends and people that care and will support you. Can't really ask for more than that. Hang in there Tho.

Jar

 

[tho9900]

ya well here I am back this morning so I made it through the night... and call me Tom pls... tho is fine too but it's cool if you wanna call me by my real name... (that was my network sign on at a job yrs ago and it stuck... the tho9900 thing..) man I have a lot to do today... give my mom and dad Nichols number and vice versa...etc.. etc.. I've been living in a little hole since ummm the early 90's... my military stories were limited to "one time on liberty ......." now I am having to bring this all up it's a little hard but I know it's the best thing for me... I wanna see this thru because this time I have Nichol and yall with me.. and a few others.. Stevie who is Nichols friend from way back etc.... he is so innocent.. and laughs so easily.. I wanna do that again...

Anyway gonna take it easy today... I think until I see mental health I need to chill and stick in the joke of the day section...

Thanks yall....

And thanks Jarhead.... well a whole list of people... Imma listen to yall and take this all in...

 

[Wagon]

Vent away there 9900. That's what this place is for.

The trick for me was to stop hating. Hate is like the big pile of shit in the middle of the dining room table. You try to eat around it and ignore it, but it is there stinking up the joint. Get rid of that and it is whole new world. Does not solve everything. But life is a bit easier.

Hell, I've left the stove on 5 times this week and still have problems not having flashbacks in the grocery store (too much like passageways and GQ) but I don't hate like I used to. And that seems to help the anger a bit as well.

Just my 2 øre. Hang in there mate. BZ for gettin it out in the open.

Wagon.

 

[tho9900]

concentrating on taking what I feel with a light heart today... I remember how proud I was when I learned to lift my legs and slide down using the handrails on the ladders on the ship in GQ... and the lightbulb that went off above my head when I relized why they only gave us 3 min for chow in bootcamp from the time the first person hit the line...

(My dad nearly died when he saw me eat the first time after boot camp, he went through Marine Corps boot camp where if he even leaned over his plate the DI would shove his face into it for using bad manners... here I was swallowing cups of jello and greenbeans whole as I walked to the scully line) 1989 on our way to Turkey, two unidentified jets who wouldn't sqauwk, incoming... I just left the chow line and swallowed a chicken breast, green beans and a piece of cake in like 30 secs as I was running out to my aid locker..

Ya I have my triggers...mostly when I get crowded in by too many people... reminds me of battalion aid station when it was hopping.. or bringing a medevac in... took a doc and a corpsman to get a patient 4+ hrs by helicopter with rudimentary equipment to a air base to fly him the rest of the way in, it took 50 Air Force docs and medical assistants to receive him... not knocking the personnel thats the system..

I don't know what triggered yest gonna think about it in a positive way and try to figure it out...

and ya I got this... first time I was able to contain it to one day and didn't escalate it too far...

believe me I have come further along in 1 week than the last 5 yrs... which was no progress at all.. and this last yr only regression...

 

[tho9900]

just going back over the forums... saw this post by me and in a sense it is like another person wrote it, honest I dont even remember writing this... ya I am pissed off as shit right now... almost to the point of not going back to the VA... but I am not as scared... when the dreams come at night and I hear the screams I can differentiate them from real life more nowadays...

I still think death f*cked me over... but that is every medic I have talked to here and in person..

I appreciate yall... you have all talked a lot of sense into this thick skull of mine..

I am no longer angry at the enemy, at the f*ck ups that killed my patients, ok... well kind of not angry... (f*cked up people is what I meant... shouldnt have been in medicine)

I am not even rly angry at me anymore.. I did what I was told to do... well I keep reminding myself that...

Thanks yall.. I am by no means healthy right now.. but at least I am channeling the negative energy more to where it belongs...

I am not saying I won't return to where I was.. but even Nichol has noticed a change in me and that's a motivating factor... I wanna move on even a little bit more... I know I will return where I was when I posted this thread now and again.. but hopefully not stay there like I did in the past...

 

[jamz]

Tho,

I hope you can see that the world is opening up more and more as you share your thoughts.
I get the impression that you are intelligent and able to convey what is going on in your head.
I am sure there are a lot of faces, and yes death will follow you around.
Its part of the job criteria.

Would you be interested in writing or telling your stary. Not in a book so much, but in a way that allows you to articulate those faces, those names. And put a story to each, I think it may allow you to accept. And perhaps put things in perspective.

 

[Sarg]

God, can you imagine a book of our collective thoughts, experiences, emotions? First, it would be a foot thick. Then, in total, it would describe the beast. His look and smell, his razor claws he drives into us to remind us he's still there. I just realized, I probably wouldn't be able to read it!

Sarg

 

[tho9900]

Sarg.... if we all ever wrote a novel based on what we feel and saw it would never sell, or oddly enough make us millions.. I know it would never be mediocre...

I was a participant in a PBS channel POV study on Vietnam and the Vietnam wall... I was chosen cuz of some of my family that was there plus I was just post GW1..My dads best friend he joined up the same day with is at the Vietnam Memorial Section 1E... Emmett Horn.. so sad to see my dad at the wall when I was stationed in Wash DC

"28 of Orange County’s young men lost their lives in Vietnam. The first to lose his life was Sgt. Emmett Harvey Horn, a Green Beret in the Det A-113, 5th Special Forces Group. - Au Chau Valley..." Hamburger Hill.....

When I made a post about the tears the platoon shed when the ethnic cleansing went on just before GW1 they were astonished a soldier/sailor/marine/airman could feel that.. I told them we felt it as much or more... because they were who we were there to protect... but weren't allowed to yet...

Oddly tonight I am kinda at peace... a couple of qoutes rang true... from a stupid movie.. the last Rambo movie..

"What am I? I am a full time combat soldier.... you just can't turn it off... you just can't turn it off..."

Sucky movie but ya.. I am a full time combat medic.. yall are full time warriors.. we just can't turn it off....

made some things come into focus...

 

[Sludge]

After a certain movie came out, the US Navy ramped up its recruitment advertising with the tag line "If someone wrote a book about your life, would anyone read it?" Cue me laughing and cursing the television! "f*ck no, noone would read it! The bulk of it was about cleaning shitters and staying awake for days on end for no other purpose than to make some number cruncher happy.!" The really, really "good" parts, the stuff that sells and the mouth-breathers like to read, is far too brutal for mass consumption.

My wife used to ask me about those days. I always gave the same answer of "You wouldn't believe it and call me a liar." or "The true stuff would make your bleeding heart liberal ass hate me." (I love her, but she is a crusader of the worst kind....)

Sometimes, we have to embrace what we have become and find alternative outlets to channel our skills and programming into. It is different for each of us. It is not an easy road to re-purpose one's self. Hell, I have tried a thousand times and just haven't quite found it yet...but I was trained, like many of us, to adapt and overcome.

In this case, we have to adapt to and overcome the beast. I think what makes it really difficult is that a few hundred rounds, a machete, and some RDX (or in my case Mossberg 500 00 buck with a stoner choke and a few thousand rounds of 20mm DU) have no effect on the beast therefore we have to all stick together and do the one thing none of us were trained to do:

Outsmart the snarling bastard and keep it stuffed deep in the pit it resides in.

 

[JarHed]

Outsmart the snarling bastard and keep it stuffed deep in the pit it resides in.

I say, pull the SOB out of it's lair, into the light of day. Then spit in it's eye. Bully's are only good if they can control you. You can only ever hope to gain control this beast is with your own mind. That's truly where it resides.

Jar