This One Takes Me To 11

[Fargo1]

Haven't slept but three hours this weekend. None in the last 48. I am losing it. I want to scream! I want to smash things! I haven't done it yet, but I am so, so close.

So my girlfriend has been non-communicative for over two weeks. To top it off she has been working as my bookeeper since she got fired from her job 2 1/2 years ago. Of course it isn't enough that she can't even have decency and respect to let me know what the f*ck is going on. Is she leaving me? Does she just need time to herself (dealing with my shit and her shit)?

I got a boat load of calls today from vendors asking why I haven't paid them. She didn't backup my Quickbooks file for a month prior to going off the grid and the file has a password I don't know (I have one in a database, but she changed it). f*ck. f*ck! I have paid her consistently and she got paid on the 15th but my other employees didn't. But looking at the pile of shit on her desk, she has done nothing. NOTHING for the last two months except payroll and a couple of invoices. I haven't been perfect but Jesus what have I done to deserve this from her?

As if I wasn't in enough pain with her leaving me hanging. She has to bend me over the table without the common courtesy of a reach around?

I have never been this in love, hurt, frustrated, angry, confused, broken.

Broken.

That is the root of it. I am a broken man. I was messed up. Sure I can't go into crowds. I don't sleep well. Nightmares. Seeing dead people all night. I bitch and yell at traffic. I square my shoulders and my 'tude forces people out of my way when walking down the street. Sometimes I get a bit more angry, a bit faster than I should. But The hurricanes couldn't break me. The Colombian Cocaine Cartels couldn't break me. The Haji's couldn't break me. But this woman. This woman has broken me.

I hope this shit really does get better. Because right now....right now brothers it sure as f*ck doesn't feel like it.

 

[Fargo1]

Did I mention her f*cking cats? She has left her f*cking cats here for me to deal with. I hate them too.

Midnight on the water.
I saw the ocean's daughter.
Walking on a wave's chicane,
staring as she called my name.

And I can't get it out of my head,
no, I can't get it out of my head.
Now my old world is gone for dead
'cos I can't get it out of my head.

Breakdown on the shoreline,
can't move, it's an ebbtide.
Morning don't get here till night,
searching for her silver light.

And I can't get it out of my head,
no, I can't get it out of my head.
Now my old world is gone for dead
'cos I can't get it out of my head, no no.

Bank job in the city.
Robin Hood and William Tell and Ivanhoe and Lancelot, they don't envy me.
Sitting till the sun goes down,
in dreams the world keep going round and round.

And I can't get it out of my head,
no, I can't get it out of my head.
Now my old world is gone for dead
'cos I can't get it out of my head, no no.

No, I can't get it out of my head,
no, I can't get it out of my head.
Now my old world is gone for dead
'cos I can't get it out of my head, no no no no.

—Jeff Lynne and The Electric Light Orchestra—

 

[Ted Moen]

Hey Fargo, ptsd symptoms plus sleep deprivation is a recipe for distorted perception and disaster. Give yourself permission to sleep for a few days then start taking inventory and sorting stuff out. Take care.

Ted

 

[The Hermit King]

My girlfriends cats annoy the f*ck out of me. Furry little f*ckers always staring at me and ambushing me when I come around a corner. I have a cat of my own who is twice the size of her two cats and constantly lays the smack down on her cats which makes me smile. I know that's kind of random info there and doesn't really help you out any. f*ck.

 

[Wagon]

I was in the same boat about 4 months ago. It ain't fun. But it can get better.

Now I'm in a different boat that is barely more seaworthy. But it is getting better.

Wow. ELO. Haven't heard them in years.

Good advice from Ted there. Sleep does wonders. I sleep when tired these days as I'm unemployed. Naps are golden.

Hang in there brother

Wagon

 

[Wagon]

Funny shit chemlight. Nothing worse than when the cats hate you back........ for which I suggest heavy weaponry.

 

[Fargo1]

Hey Fargo, ptsd symptoms plus sleep deprivation is a recipe for distorted perception and disaster. Give yourself permission to sleep for a few days then start taking inventory and sorting stuff out. Take care.

Ted

Thanks Ted,

I know, I know. I was trying to sleep. I know sleep debt makes you crazy, distorts shit. I didn't want to 'have' to drink to do it, But I was finally able to get four hours in a row. It took a fifth of JD. Thank God it worked....Now just don't do that again.

Chemlight that is exactly the kind of random shit that makes me smile right now and I will take what I can get. When the have 2500 square feet of house to run through and they have to run across your lap, the laptop, then leap across the couch embedding their claws in your thigh. 11 man striaght to 11!

On the flip side, how can you stay mad at them when you are at 11 and they turn on a purring machine and curl up next to you? Unconditional love. Why can't we all have that. No more war. No more PTSD. Just love. Man that would be great.

Well off the the slave pit where I am both master and lowliest slave. Got to keep it together and not snap on employees. Got to keep it together and not snap at employees. Those f*ckers...Just kidding. Got to keep it together.

 

[Londonacquisition]

I am new to all of this and I can not begin to say thank you to the person who started this forum it is full of so much information
. No being part of this forum I was frustrated not being able to talk to my real providers. Now I do have to. Everything I need to help me with my PTSD symptoms is right here. Of course as usual I will coninue to call for help if Incan not handle a situation like the really bad flashback of given a soldier in the war zone medical assistance after an ied attack only to see him die because mzdivac. Took about 2 hours to gt to us. War is hell. I agree sleep is such a huge help. My medications are working with the exceptions of the anti depressant. For the past 3 weeks or so I have noticed it just makes me jittery and jumpy. Also I was givensomethin for my problem of keeping an erection. I ask for but when I got the bottle I got 2 pills. It is supposed to to 4 doses. I took half a pill the first time d nothing: no erection. A couple of days I took a whole one and the erection was how do you say. Limp. My erection was limp. Still no ejaculation. I will ask for a higher dose and I wan a t least 30 pills. I am an honest soldier. Pasture atoll is a stress reliever. Not being able to just adds to my depression and makes me feel like a lesser man. Plus if I gt a girlfriend I want to keep her this time. I lost my last girlfriend because the medications I take and the stuff I have on the head of my peni that I got from overexposure to heat makes me loose if not. Not even get an erection. But anyways yes please get as much sleep as possible. If you have any problems please tel your medical providers. All of them!!! I have learned that if I don't tell them then they do t know. They are overworked I really have a respect for them. again I love this forum d thank the soldiers who created it.

 

[Fargo1]

Update: a bottle of Glenlivet with a bud yesterday and 5 hours of sleep. I feel much better. Thanks to all of you. I needed the help getting up. No for the hard part. Dont drink to sleep.

 

[Wagon]

I don't know. I've fallen off the wagon in recent weeks. No pun intended. Wine and smoke puts me to sleep. Although I'm emotionally just not there. Allot of shit on my plate.

We do what we do to survive. It ain't good, it ain't fun and it ain't healthy, but it is survival.

 

[Fargo1]

Alright. I have come down from 11. My shit is getting straight. I have listened to a couple of friends who have stood by me and all of you. Thanks to all of you! Today, my girl finally sat with me and had a conversation. That was hard. Getting my brain to stay on target. To listen to her. Rather than going off into my dark place. But I think I was successful. She didn't understand half of what I was talking about. I have pointed her to Anthony's handout and your Aussie book on PTSD. That is great shit. Anthony, you are an amazing individual. I would not be here (physically and emotionally) without you. Thanks man. Thanks.

Here is the letter I wrote to my girl while in my sleep deprived freak out. I am kinda shocked that I was so cogent. But, it is what caused her to talk to me. Now I have to live up to it..f*ck that is going to be tough.

T, as I told you this afternoon, I am going to be talking a lot. This is my way of breaking my pattern of living internally. I have to both internally live and externally project the goodness, love, caring, happiness, trust and strength inside me. My problem is that I have shut down. I have stopped listening. I have stopped loving life. I did that by listening to the little demons inside of me rather than listening to the friends who love me and the woman who is my life. I am the architect of that space.

In my words below, I am not using the word POSSIBILITY in its normal meaning: representing goals in the future that might happen. Rather, POSSIBILITY is something that exists in and impacts the present.

I see the possibility of us having a loving, open, honest, authentic life. A life with trust. A life without pain. A life without fear. A life of happiness and contentment. You can achieve it. I can achieve it. We can achieve it.

However, for it to happen, we have to really listen to ourselves and those around us. Listening has an amazing power. It gives life to what the speaker has spoken. As an example, think about how you become funnier and more playful you become when someone laughs at your jokes.

Just think about that for a minute.

Speaking is more than just talking, more than simple relaying of information. Of course that is how it is normally used. But if we use our words to authentically share ourselves we evoke an experience in others. Speaking is where others are affected by our time with them. It allows the future to be created. Words shape our reality. Whether they are the words in our head or the words coming out of our mouths, they set the course of our lives.

This is what I was trying to communicate to you when I said that you cannot do it alone. There must be both Speaker and Listener. If there is only a speaker, no one is there to inhabit the space created by your words. If there is only a Listener, there is no one speaking the words. Therefore no course is set, no space created.

By allowing ourselves to be both speaker and listener our reality is not tied to the rest of the world. Our thoughts and feelings have no basis on 'reality'. For instance, my fear and anxiety of going into a room full of people, seeing the threats in everyone, being ready to attack an enemy. All of that is made up in my head. The woman in a slinky dress and strappy heels is not a threat to me. The waiter is not a threat to me. When was the last time I was attacked by a waiter? Never. Why do I see them as a threat? Because my brain has trained itself to believe that. My internal words say that they are threats. But that is simply not reality.

It took the military 12 weeks of intensive indoctrination to change my brain to have certain thoughts. Several more weeks of intensive training to create a weapon of war. To program me to react in certain ways. They were speaking to me. I was listening to them. We created the "soldier" space together.

When I had my traumatic experiences, that indoctrination was reinforced, I saw them as reality. The bodies were real. Those people did in fact die. But I did not. I did in fact take the life of other human beings. And I was taught (indoctrinated) from the day I was born that killing is wrong. My guilt is my internal dialog. Society has laws against us killing each other. Somehow it is okay for soldiers to kill people because it is done in the name of God and country. So you don't think that I should feel guilty. My family and friends don't think that I should feel guilty. Most of society does not think that I should feel guilty. I was "just doing my job." I have not been listening to you. I have not been listening to them. I have been listening to the words in my head. The words that I allowed to form and be placed there. The words that I allowed to create the spaces of guilt and pain that I inhabit.

The spaces that I have created are so powerful because I am a soldier. I am trained to just "do a gut check, suck it up, and attack the enemy," I have also been living with these spaces, and allowing them to dig in deeper and deeper. I now have to remove those spaces and as I remove those spaces, I have to fill them in with new spaces. The spaces of love, happiness, caring for you and other people. I can do it. But the toughness that I have, means that I will be tough in resisting this change. The words inside my head are going to fight to stay there. Just like I fought to stay alive. I am not going to win every battle. I will win the war. I can do it. I will do it. It is going to be hardest thing I have ever done. I need help to do it. I need to speak, and I need those that love and care for me to listen. I need you to listen to me.

I need to listen to you speaking to allow you to create your own spaces. I need us to create spaces together. I am there for you. I am a lighthouse on the rocks or a ship on a stormy sea (depending on the day).

I love you

 

[Jimmy1]

Mate, I have had too many beers to even read it and give positive feedback. I will have a look at it tomorrow. Congrats on moving forward.

Jimmy