This Is A First.

[MovingForward]

I am really unsure how to cope. Things took a turn for the worse after a serious accident 20 months ago and I am now facing amputation of my foot, legal battles, and pain that cannot be summarized here. I am beating myself up for not having enough resilience. I should be able to cope. People with far worse injuries, far worse stories, still find lives of meaning. I cannot...

I have people around me but I feel alone.

I can't tell if my thoughts of ending things are serious or if I am just entertaining them. In fact, I have a hard time telling what is real anymore. The trauma seems to have stacked up and now it has reached a tipping point and I have only myself to blame. I kept going overseas and partaking in dangerous activities in dangerous places. The more messed up things were, the more I sought messed up contexts. I collected traumatic experience as a hobby. The more trauma, the more I put myself in the wrong situations that were anything but safe. The only place I feel at peace is war and disaster zones. Being in a relatively peaceful American city brings out shadows in a way that I cannot explain. Were it not for my injury, I would be back in the thick of it. Where the struggle to survive makes more sense than the daily bs here.

But now my escapism plan has ultimately failed. And I am trapped in a body that doesn't work as well. A mind that has turned on itself. And a world where the more peaceful and settled it seems, the more chaos I have inside.

I cannot confront these demons. I feel like I don't have the fight left. I used to have so much fight. And yet I also cannot surrender to the resources around me for support. So what gives...

 

[Friday]

You know you're really down when you forget that NGOs don't care how many limbs you've got, in what working order, as long as you're a warm body that can fill a need. Whether that's an armed med clinic in the middle of a clusterF... Or flight line mechanic or avionics keeping jellywhoppers up where they belong... Or negotiating passage through territories...Or, or, or. It doesn't matter how knackered, beat up, broke down, or balls out crazy you are... If you're there. There's work. Hell, I'm sure you've seen those guys and gals rolling about on chairs, hobbling about on crap prosthetics, strapping themselves, and bleeding through clothes, and waist deep in all kinds of thick of it. Or conversely, in sleek prosthetics in K&R offices, jeeps & land rovers, out and about. Still doing. Until they're done, or done in.

And if you haven't gathered by now... Yep. That's my favorite place, too. Second favorite. 2nd favorite. (Damn. Im slipping.) Favorite place to run to. Simple, clean, clear need & direction.

I left the military, went private, in order to stay doing the one thing I was good at. The one place I felt sane. The one place I felt I belonged.

I gave it up on purpose (by accident), when I became a parent. And I remember the first natural disaster I sat out. Bag in hand, baby in the crib, and simply gutted. The first time my country went to war and I wasn't there had me shaking and sobbing in a corner wanting to die. I wasn't where I needed to be. I wasn't who I wanted to be. It's not my war, being scant effing comfort, but the only mantra I had.

I did figure it out, being a civilian, eventually. There were flare ups, and blow ups, but I managed to transmute being a confirmed adrenaline junkie into something useful... Until recently. And now I'm having to relearn this shit all over again. But I had a really, really good run. 10 years of really living, and loving. So much more than simply surviving.

I'm having to make a decision each day not to run away to a war zone. Because I'm back in survival mode, and PTSD land. Wanting the easy fix. Wanting to numb out. So every day I have to choose. Not to hook up with an NGO. Not to seek out sanity in chaos. I did it before, so I know I can do it again. But I also know how sweet life can be when I've got balance. When I'm healthy.

But I also know...that if it gets too much? I'm not trapped here. I can go. Latin America, Balkans, Middle East, Africa, SE Asia. There's always something on. Things needing doing and people to do them. I'm trying. I'm trying really really hard not to go back there. But until I'm in the ground, that option is always open.

Yeah. You can use this time to get a handle on your PTSD and be even better over there than you would be a complete disaster (although the desperate take both), and get your body in a condition that can deal with 3rd world bullshit. And, once you're wellest go back. Or stay. Until you're in the ground, you've got options.

 

[MovingForward]

FridayJones,

Isn't that the truth. I have my fancy leg fitted, and you are right, there is always work to be done. "Simple, clean, clear need & direction." You sum it up perfectly. How much any of the work I have done has been because it matters and how much of it was/ is because it just feels more tolerable, I would be interested (and disturbed) to know.

You have found balance here. That is admirable and wise. I don't feel like I will get there. Things are too far shifted, if you know what I mean. I can go through the motions, and am, but I do so as a hollow facade of a person. This physical injury is just a reminder of how f-ed things are. But more than that, a reminder of how organizations/ people will turn their back on you when you are no longer of use to them or the organizational mission and "humanitarian goals". Like a lame pack animal, you loose your load, it gets redistributed to an animal with four functioning legs, you get flown to your home of record and then.... you are supposed to fade into the horizon with a free pass to as many surgeries as you want. And you would fade, except you don't blend in anymore. The story doesn't fit over a latte in Starbucks. It doesn't work anymore while trying to be a significant other, family member, or friend to people that don't see the world of baggage that never got unstrapped. Though you were injured, you didn't cut the straps to the load. You still have it and cling to it. Cause the weight of it keeps you grounded.

"Still doing. Until they're done. Or done in." Clearly it took being done in. Which then means there was no choice to walk away. And for those of us that are stubborn as hell and fear normalcy more than being waist deep in the thick of it, having someone or something make that decision for you is the worst of all.

Thanks for the message. It resonates and is true. We aren't as trapped as our minds and bodies sometimes tell us. I have to remember that there is choice and time.

 

[Friday]

Haha! Yep. Patience isn't my strong suit, either.

Thing is, there is absolutely nothing wrong with having found our niches, or having those niches be in places most people stay far away from.

For me, though, where I run into "wrong" ... Is when it stops being my niche, and starts being a rock to hit myself over the head with. You know? It's like alcohol. Drinking is fine. Drinking yourself into a blackout everyday to numb out and fall to oblivion? Not fine. Or exercise. Being physically active is good. Pushing yourself to the point of injury, over, and over, and over to numb out emotional pain with physical pain? Not fine. Clear headed in chaos? Fine. Only being able to be clearheaded in chaos so I implode my life and create a lot of wreckage in order to feel okay/clear headed? Not fine.

I'll have PTSD whether I'm here or there. It's easier to fall into a hole here, than there, but I can fall into a hole in either place. Having tools to manage my PTSD & deal with it is pretty key in either place. So I can do what I love, without endangering anyone.